No. It’s not something that’s wrong. It’s everything. Aphelios only kills as a last resort, so to threaten it is no idle act. But Evelynn is … excited? Does he not understand the gravity of the situation? Does he not fear for his life?
A quiet voice in Aphelios’ mind asks Can he die?
Evelynn creeps closer and Aphelios shifts the gun away from himself, aims it towards the person—the creature, the demon, whatever he is—before him. His index finger points forward, careful, off the trigger (Alune always tells him not to hesitate if he’s in danger, that Aphelios is vital to carry out the Mother Moon’s will, but Aphelios wants to believe in something more than death, something more than his duty to shed blood under the light of the moon). He’s used to people stopping, or making their true intentions known when he pulls out a weapon, but Evelynn remains as enigmatic as ever.
Perhaps this is his true intention. What is Evelynn getting out of this? Aphelios’ eyes narrow, as if he can perceive Evelynn’s intentions just by looking hard enough. His free hand, still tented on the ground at this side, itches to reach for another weapon, the noctum, something to guide him out of this mess, but Aphelios cannot take his eyes off the creature before him.
How can he be so repulsed and so attracted all at once? Even for everything he says, all the nerves in Aphelios’ body begging him to pull the trigger, to run, to open this man from neck to navel, he still looks at Evelynn’s mouth when he speaks, still wants to touch that chest as much as he wants to shoot it. Aphelios wants to shake his mind clear, but doesn’t want to (cannot) take his eyes off Evelynn for even a moment. And when Evelynn reaches out, Aphelios turns to stone, like a snake ready to strike.
But Evelynn does not try to take the weapon from him, does not wrench it from his fingers or draw his own (though Aphelios keeps careful watch on the things that slither from Evelynn’s back). Evelynn cradles the hand that holds the weapon like a treasure, like a lover, and gives Aphelios such a look that Aphelios feels like all the air has been squeezed out of his lungs. His heart lurches when Evelynn looks at him like that, and the shock (and interest) flicker across his expression like the moonlight off his gun.
Cruel … ? Of course he is. He has to be. So why does his heart squeeze to hear Evelynn say so? For a moment, his fingers loosen on the gun. He must be cruel to end the Solari’s reign of false light, and he must be cruel to stay alive another day for Alune, but…
Again, Aphelios cannot help but imagine what it might be like, to be kissed stupid. Would he still feel pain? Would he still think? Would he still look up at the moon and feel a monstrous amalgamation of duty, awe, and terror? What would it be like to let go? …
But his brows pinch together, then lower. His fingers grip the gun with more assurance, even when Evelynn holds onto him with such longing. Even when he looks at Aphelios in a way that makes him ache somewhere deep, somewhere low.
And then—shock, guilt, fury, like a lashing of rain across his features. Even muted as they are, compared to the stark, unchanging look he normally wears, they are as bold as a strike of lightning. Under the moon? Aphelios’ eyes flash up to her, then back down to Evelynn, wide with rage and horror. Aphelios cannot think of anything sweeter than tangling with a lover beneath the moon’s light, showing her their love, their desire and passion. But Evelynn cannot possibly know that, can he?
There is something awful about the way he talks about Nadia, in the past tense, and the irreverent way he speaks of Mother Moon. It is beyond blasphemous—it is cruel. There’s something evil here. There is a part of him, a wrenching part, that wants Evelynn in exactly the way he describes—under the moon and senseless, weeping, for even that would be a kind of ecstasy for Aphelios—but there is an equal part of him that knows he cannot, though he doesn’t know why. And that, too, is another cruel torture inflicted upon him.
With a snap of his wrist, Aphelios wrenches himself free of Evelynn’s grip, down, then up again, cracking him soundly on the jaw (and what a perfect jaw it is) with the barrel of the gun, as hard as he can. Then he holds it up again, trained at Evelynn’s perfect face. Eyes narrowed, lips thinned. There is no way he can ask all the questions he wants, so he wraps them all up in one word.
“What.” What are you, perhaps, or What did you do to her, or even What would you do to me?
Evelynn feels the tension in the air like fingertips pressed all over him. Pushed against his face, his neck, the soft plane of skin below his belly and down his back. The quick-paced drumming of Aphelios’s heartbeat sends a delightful twist through his stomach. Every jolt through his body, every flicker over that stone-solemn face — brings its own delicious edge. And then Evelynn touches him, and he freezes: and ah, if this were a proper hunt, that would've marked the perfect moment to pounce. But for now, Evelynn holds his hand and contents himself on hearing all the stranglehold sounds made by Aphelios's wet heart, skipping within its chest cavity. Hears, and sees, the way his breathing and his expression changes from gunshot-open shock to brimming, black fury.
(Hears, and sees too, those brusque, reluctant flares of arousal: dim as a spark, needing breath to burn.)
The bastard. He tears out of Evelynn's grasp, and hits him.
“HSST—!” The noise that erupts from between Evelynn's teeth is wet and harsh, solidified by the bash of metal against skin-softened bone. It's a clear, immediate threat; the shadows that form his body scatter and flee, seething, like still water disturbed by a blow. By the time Aphelios has held up the gun again, Evelynn has reformed, and retreated, three feet back. It was so quick, blink and miss. His claws cradle his chin. He spits, but his saliva on the stone is clear, frothy. No blood. He pops his jaw, exhales, and then grins a flat, menacing grin. His eyes are sharp. His teeth, sharper still.
How long how long how long can you keep this up how farther can I push before you break—
Calm down. Calm down. So close. Not yet.
(His anger smells so good.)
“...Fine.” He laughs and the sound cracks the air, a whip. “I won’t pretend I didn’t deserve that. Still, that was mean. Ow.”
What, the little brute says. The hell is that supposed to even mean? Evelynn resists the urge to roll his eyes, impudent. Before, he'd been on his knees and one hand, the other light upon Aphelios's gun-grip wrist. Now, he sits with one knee drawn into his chest while the other folds on the ground, expression almost petulant. The new distance between them is filled with dust and moonlight. Evelynn put it there on purpose. To see: will this soothe Aphelios? Settle his nerves, to have space between them again?
(Or will some part of him — an unwilling, deep-down part — ache for the absence, however little?)
"You're, mhmm, gonna have to specify, love," he says in the meantime, rolling his thumb against the joint of his mandible. Seriously, that had hurt. "Which what do you want? I can think of plenty right off the top of my pretty head, like— Ah! Hah. 'What happened to the other woman,' for example, mm? You're in luck, sweet. It was only, let's say...an enthusiastic little escapade together. We had fun, and then I sent her home." (Her true home; her last.) He shrugs and smiles. "But still, just a fling. I haven't seen her since. Is that your what, Aphelios...?"
Pretty little Nadia had been so fearful, apprehensive about lying with another beneath the eye of her beloved Moon. But he'd been quick to assuage her fears — if only to soon replace them with a wholly different kind, after. So, he’d approached Aphelios on that same assumption, that this Lunari would have similar qualms. But his reaction doesn't suggest that to be the case. Not at all. Oh, excellent. Evelynn can work with that, too.
"Or is it more a 'what do you want'?"
His hand, still curled beside his chin, lowers and opens to touch his own clavicle. Claws draw across his chest: a small, seemingly idle touch.
"Hm. Let's be frank? Me in your guts."
A beat. Evelynn cocks his head, bats pale eyelashes.
"Or you in mine. Whoever gets luckier first."
(It'd be more suggestive were the moonlight not glinting off his fangs so.)
"I'm a simple man, Aphelios. My desires are uncomplicated. My instincts, base. And we both already know what you want, of course. So. Here's a little what of my own, then." He grins and this time, it's something a little more inhuman. A little more feral, fanged and wicked. "Sweetheart," he hisses, saccharine. "What's stopping you, really?"
Such a lovely face Aphelios has. Evelynn peers straight down the barrel of the gun to admire it. Something in the set of his nose, his guarded eyes, his pretty tattooed mouth suggests to Evelynn that most of the time Aphelios keeps his emotions tamped down, cramped tight underneath his tongue. Even moreso now, with the stranger before him. So, his feelings flash past brisk and tantalizing: like bare skin, peeked through lace. Thus Evelynn finds himself hoarding every glimpse of them, sorting them in his mind to order of preference and flavor. And earlier, one in particular had more or less jumped at him (here, here I am, use me) and the dark core of him shivers in anticipation. He latches onto it now, intent on leeching it dry.
"Guilt's a pointless thing, you know." He dances his claws along the dark skin of his leg. Says, "Take it from someone who's...hm. Emotionally hollow, most of the time. Why feel guilt when you can just feel good? Shame? It's overrated. Wrong and right? Situational. And for your faith, well—" Evelynn casts his eyes up to the moon beyond the mouth of the cave, then back to Aphelios, whereupon they curl all good-humored. "I'll admit. I'm a true heathen, damned three times over...but she'll forgive you, wouldn't she? If you regret it enough. Eventually."
He licks the corner of his mouth, and Aphelios's scent prickles gooseflesh over his shadowed skin. Everything in him screams: How long? How long? Push him push him push him, just a little more.
"You can do anything you want. Whatever you want," he says, his deep voice hushed and creeping; like a riptide, awaiting someone to drown. "Who'd judge? Who'd see? Right now you're alone, Phel, with only your moon, and me." (A grin.) "Hit me with your best shot, love. Shoot — or don't. Do something else, entirely. What's the worst in you, Aphelios? What're the ugly things that you've never let anyone see? Let me. Let me sink my teeth into them. And then, let me feel you put your teeth in me right back. It's just us, dear. Just you and me. I want to rip you apart and watch you writhe trying to pull yourself together again. And ah I want to see you wild, and thrashing, and coming so very alive with all your struggles to try and do that to me first. To try to match the monster in me. So, shoot me. Or don't."
He crouches — beckons — and grins, like a demon.
He whispers: "Maybe come and kiss me, instead."
