Wrappings of Flesh
Wrappings of Flesh
The sky was dark with ash, gray tinged orange with flame as John watched the forest below them burn. “It seems pointless now,” he whispered in the heavy air.
“There was no other way,” the man beside him said, eyes fixed on the flames. The trees might recover over time but John didn’t think his heart could take it. He could still hear the screams as flesh melted around metallic organs, her screams trailing over the winds, swift as an arrow to pierce his twisted heart. He deserved her anguished hate. When he looked at the man beside him - his lover - he knew that hell would have him some day and the same flames would embrace him as well.
**
“They say you’re looking for a tracker,” the man stood over the table, watching John with dark, soulful eyes that seemed out of place in an establishment full of ruffians. His clothes were well tailored, a fine cut of cloth if John had ever seen one, but they were rugged and stained from hard use. Either the man had seen better fortunes, or he had enough fortune to disregard the toils of the job and wear finery at all times. John hoped it was the former; he didn’t have time for rich fools.
“I am, but only the best. I have a … particular beast … that I must chase and she is by far more intelligent than anything you’ve ever hunted.”
The man smiled, though he looked up in the air as if he was looking to someone else before turning his eyes down to John. “It sounds like you have an adventure to share. You won’t find a better tracker here, nor anywhere else, no matter how you look. My name is Reese.”
“Derek Reese?” John asked the other man, receiving a small nod in return. He’d heard of the man, of course. When asking about other trackers who the best was, his name was brandied about, but not without some disdain as well. No one dared to say that Reese wasn’t the best at what he did, but they scoffed at his unconventional way of thinking. He didn’t always fall into societal standards and words were thrown about that would make most men ball their fists and scream challenge.
Even as Reese sat across from him, words made way to his ear, insinuations of past liaisons and uncouth couplings. Reese ignored them all as the barmaid came forward with brandy. Reese took the sniffer and inhaled lightly before swirling the dark liquid. He sipped it softly as he waited for John to make a decision.
He didn’t need more than a moment though. Reese was uncommon in his methods and their prey was anything but common. He needed someone who could think outside of the norm. He needed someone who could track something no other man could, someone to outthink a beast that had human intelligence. He took a deep breath, smiling at the other man. “I think we can come to an agreement.” He ignored the voice in the back of his head that spoke of blue eyes and strong hands and a hidden past of his own.
**
The laboratory looked nothing like the orderly home it was. John had a fascination for the nature of things, for the laws that bound one thing to another. In his early years he’d been the terror of his household, his mother, Sarah always complaining about the way he took everything apart. Looking at his fine equipment smashed and destroyed, he could see her point.
“What exactly did you let loose in this lab of yours, Doctor Connor?”
“Please, call me John.”
The man looked at him a moment longer before nodding. “I don’t know of anything that would make this sort of mess. Do you want to tell me what you’re hunting?”
Reese was already moving though, glass crunching under the heel of his boots as he moved to the chalkboard with John’s drawings and notations. Reese, they said, was well educated and would have been an upstanding member of society, if his proclivities hadn’t induced a public scandal.
“If God was able to raise his child after the cross, why can’t man do the same?” John asked quietly.
Reese’s eyes lurched back to John as his mouth opened to say something. Nothing came at first, but then his eyes hardened. He stormed over the broken tubes and spilled chemicals, headless of the destruction. “God couldn’t control what he created,” Reese said as he stood in front of John, too close to be socially acceptable. “You couldn’t either, could you?”
John swallowed against the raw lump in his throat, unknowing if it was from fear or the simple proximity of the man before him. He knew he needed to step away and gain his composure or simply look down and take the admonishment that he rightly deserved but he couldn’t turn away from the man’s blue eyes. “She was beautiful once, a dancer. I saw her perform at the ballet just last season. She got the sickness though and there was nothing they could do. Every move she made was like the light of god on your face. How could I live in a world without that beauty?”
Reese shook his head but he leaned even closer until his lips were almost upon his face. “And now what has she become, Doctor?”
John shivered as Reese’s words brushed across his cheek. “She has become death.”
Reese stepped back then. “Then we will kill death itself.”
**
The ground was hard and John muffled his groan as roots and sticks dug into his back. He didn’t mind letting his discomfort be shown but every time he did he could see Reese’s smile widen slightly. The man was infuriating and if for no other reason John was determined to keep the unease to himself.
“Alright there, Doctor?” Reese asked from across the small fire.
They’d left civilized company a week before, trailing after his dancing death across the rugged wilderness. Reese claimed to know the area but John had no reason to believe him. Every hill and field looked the same to him, no matter how green or flower filled. The beauty was more hurtful to him than the dark of the night, beauty that he wanted to keep but that was always dying before his eyes. Even Reese sitting across from him was slowing walking the road to death. It was all they were made to do. His mother had told him often enough as a child; the world would end and nothing they did would save it. Only his faith in God could save him.
John was a man of science, not of God. If he could not save himself then damnation could take him.
As he looked across the fire and saw the way the flames licked Reese’s visage to orange hues, he knew if there were a god then the eyes of the devil were already on him, savoring the delicious taste of this sin. “No,” he finally answered as he sat up, leaning back until he was stretched out, looking up at the stars above him. “I’m not sure I am alright, Reese.”
Animals moved around them in the forest, but not so much as a twig snapped to warm him of Reese’s movements. He was standing over John though, head tilted to the side as if he could understand what was in John’s mind by the sheer intensity of his gaze.
“My name is Derek,” Reese said as he dropped down to the forest floor, resting on his side as he looked down at John.
“I’m aware of your first name,” John said, when his mind went blank of thought. His eyes were suddenly caught on the slick of Reese’s - Derek’s - lips. How he wanted to lean up and taste that sin, but he knew the perils of that and Derek, no matter how friendly he seemed at the moment, wasn’t a man to be trifled with.
“Get some sleep, Doctor,” Derek said as he moved just a little closer. Their thighs were pressed together then and John’s breath hitched in his chest as he felt Derek’s hand brush against his bare throat as he pulled John’s blanket up over him.
When he dropped onto his back and made sure they were still touching, John closed his eyes and attempted to find peaceful slumber. Instead, he imagined Derek’s hand on his bare skin, trailing down from his throat to his chest, passing over nipples and down the small trail of hair below his navel. He bit his lip as he imagined those hands wrapped around his aching cock.
“Sweet dreams, John,” Derek’s voice interrupted his thoughts and John let out a slow, steadying breath to push the temptation down again.
“Good night. Derek.”
**
He saw her across the clearing and she smiled at him like it meant something. She was flesh and bone and beauty personified, but there was nothing underneath the veneer, just a gaping hole where her soul should be. Energy flowed through her body, blood pumping through her veins but she wasn’t the same beautiful person she had been. She was a wolf in sheep’s clothing, a monster disguised as a doll.
“John, don’t do this,” she pleaded as he pointed the colt at her. Her voice tingled along his nerves and he pushed down his revulsion. “I’m fixed now. I’m alright. You don’t have to do this. I love you, John.” She danced around the clearing towards him, movements clear and graceful as she pirouetted and sashayed to him. “I love you, and I know you love me.”
“You don’t have feelings,” Derek growled from the other side, his gun pointed at her but he didn’t dare fire with John so close.
Her eyes blazed with fury as she looked from Derek to John. “You love me, John!” she screamed as she pushed him back. When she turned to Derek, he pulled the trigger and John watched in horror as the first shot struck her shoulder. Her scream was agony and he wanted to protect her from the pain, but he watched as she staggered forward, continuing until she was within reach of Derek. He put the gun to her brain and from the side, John could see the twisted smile she wore. The sound of the gun echoed in the clearing and she fell to the ground in an uncoordinated heap.
Derek grabbed John by the arms and pulled him to his feet. Even as Derek’s hands ran over him, checking for injuries that John was unable to register yet, he could see his beautiful doll twitching in the flames of the town she had once called home. Every building was aflame and the doors were barred, the inhabitance no longer clinging to their mortality before John and Derek had found her, dancing beneath the wicked tongues of smoke.
“John, we have to go,” Derek called for him, pulling his arm to force him from his place. Even the bullet to her brain couldn’t stop her because she was a machine, nothing more than metal with a fleshy surface to make him remember the beauty of life.
John let Derek pull him away, fleeing from the grotesque caricature she had become; face contorted with anger and blood seeping from the bullet hole in her brain. Her once pale arms were covered in soot and ash, blisters and burns from swaying too close to the flames. Her movements were stiff and unrefined, as if the bullet had lodged its way into the center of her grace, destroying the fluidity of her movements.
He had no recollection of how long they ran, but when they stopped the forest was calm. The trees were thick around them but Derek pulled him under a great pine with branches the dipped down heavily to the ground. The pine needles were abrasive where they brushed John’s skin, but Derek wouldn’t allow him to stop. He was pushed down to the ground and even though he wanted to mourn the loss of his beauty he knew Derek was trying to keep them alive. The tree’s thick branches hid them from the world and kept the chill wind at bay.
“She’s not what you think she is,” Derek said softly as he sat with his back leaning against the tree trunk.
John turned to look at him, surprised by the tracker’s words. Derek was soft spoken outside of a fight and his words, for their rarity, meant something. “What is she then?”
“She’s not beautiful, John. She was never the most beautiful thing in the world. I know what you see when you look at her, but beauty didn’t die with her.”
“What is there left, Derek?” John gasped at the pain in his heart. He knew that the world was dying, had always known it, but in her he had seen something so beautiful he had thought the world worth dying for. Without her, he had nothing left.
“By the heavens, you have no idea, do you?” Derek whispered. He reached out then, his hands fisting in John’s jacket and pulling him over. He stumbled as he tried to find his balance in the small alcove of their tree, but Derek just pulled and tugged until John was where he wanted him, hips straddling his thighs. Derek’s hands dropped from his clothes then and cupped his face as John inhaled sharply. “How long has it been since someone told you how beautiful you are?” Derek asked.
“Derek?”
“How long has it been since you let yourself feel anything but the world dying around you?”
He had no words for that, no answer to how long he had seen the world in shades of ash. Derek didn’t seem to need an answer though because he was already pulling John’s lips towards his, pressing soft but insistent until John opened under him.
The moan fell from his lips without permission and Derek’s arms drew him in tighter against his chest. The taste of the other man, the long forbidden fruit, brought his hands up to Derek’s face, pulling him in so he had no chance of escape. He gasped as Derek’s hips rolled against his, rigid flesh rolling against his own hardening cock and Derek looked up at John as their lips parted.
“Let me make you feel again, John,” he asked, the breath of his words dancing across John’s cheek.
He closed his eyes and took a deep breath, already feeling the spark of something in his chest. Derek shifted under him slightly and then the other man’s hands were at the front of his trousers, buttons coming undone as surely as John was.
He looked down to watch his trousers open, then Derek was pulling at his own until he had his cock in hand, thrusting up against John. John bit his lip to keep from moaning again but when Derek pulled him closer with his free hand he had to let it out.
“Give me your hand, John,” Derek spoke into his neck.
He did, and then he was stroking Derek’s prick against his own, Derek’s strong callused hand moving up and down his dripping length. “Derek,” his voice broke as Derek’s thumb rubbed over his cockhead, nail biting sharply into the slit. “Please,” he wasn’t sure what he was begging for but he knew it was Derek and Derek alone that could give it to him.
“She could never love you, John,” Derek watched him as he brought their lips just a breath apart. “She was never what you wanted, she just looked the part. Beauty isn’t in the eyes.”
John panted as he felt his body begin to shake. Derek’s hand continued to move at the same pace though John’s hand was faltering. Derek didn’t seem to notice as he looked into John’s eyes. “She was a terrible beauty, a monstrous illusion. Look with your heart, John, look at the world and see what still lives.”
And he did. He crashed his lips against Derek’s as his orgasm shook through his entire being. Derek stroked him until he was a mass of shivers and then his wet hand clamped down over John’s moving them together over Derek’s cock with John’s seed slicking the way for their coupling.
When Derek tipped his head back, moaning out John’s name, John kept his eyes closed, hearing the beauty in his breathless release.
He lowered his head to Derek’s shoulder and wept unabashed tears at the splendor of it all.
**
They pulled themselves together a few minutes later, unable to stay for fear of the beast that hunted them. John had no words of remorse for her creation; no words could encompass the magnitude of his mistake and she had crept - ever beautiful, his death - into people’s homes and left them smothering in black smoke. Derek’s eyes didn’t show forgiveness, but an understanding that seemed all the more compassionate. They made their plans and quickly set about it, unable to stand so close without touching and yet they couldn’t.
She came after him while the moon was still high in the night sky. The forest became quiet as if it felt the unnatural creature under its canopy and John could only hold his breath as she stepped closer to him, her eyes taking in the clearing in a fevered pace.
“Where is he, John?” she demanded. “I know you didn’t let him go, not yet. I’ll make you see though, that I can be what you need.”
“I’m sorry, Cameron,” he whispered. “I should have left you in peace.”
Her face broke into a snarl and she stepped towards him, too late feeling the give of the forest floor beneath her. The trap was set and the net was pulled tight around her, holding her in place.
“John, now!” Derek yelled across the clearing as he came forward, gun trained on the creature.
He didn’t hesitate, but tossed the small pot of oil at her body. She spit at him and he took the torch in his hand and thrust it forward. The oil caught quickly and she screamed, her body arching up against the ropes.
“John, don’t do this!” She screamed. “I love you, John. John, please, you can’t do this! John, help me! John, I love you and you love me!”
Derek was there then, pulling him close. A strong hand came up, pulling John’s face away from the screaming monster and into Derek’s chest. He couldn’t drown out the smell or the sound, but when he clenched his fists it was Derek’s shirt in his grasp and as he gasped against the pain in her voice, it was Derek’s skin he tasted on his lips.
**
The sky was dark with ash, gray tinged orange with flame as John watched the forest below them burn. “It seems pointless now,” he whispered in the heavy air.
“There was no other way,” the man beside him said, eyes fixed on the flames. The trees might recover over time but John didn’t think his heart could take it. He could still hear the screams as flesh melted around metallic organs, her screams trailing over the winds, swift as an arrow to pierce his twisted heart. He deserved her anguished hate. When he looked at the man beside him - his lover - he knew that hell would have him some day and the same flames would embrace him as well.
When Derek took a step closer, turning John into his arms, he allowed himself the moment of respite. The trees burned in payment for his choices, but though she had been a terrible beauty to create, she had given him more than he could have ever imagined. Without her, he would never have found Derek and in him he had found the true beauty of the world.
Beauty wasn’t in the decaying wrappings of flesh, John learned, but in the strength and courage of the soul.