The Blackened Branches
NINE
Characters: AU Eric from The Crow played by Bill Skarsgård. The story is completely it's own thing.
Warnings: 18+, NSFW, heavy themes.
ONE TWO THREE FOUR FIVE SIX SEVEN EIGHT
It wasn't Eric's dark hair I saw when I looked down at my chest, but Malek's. It was early Sunday morning, and I hadn't slept much that night. Not after my mom's message. I didn't even know if it was about Eric's crime, but still I was sure because that night three crows landed on our porch and sat there all night. It was obvious they were there to warn Eric, or maybe protect him.
I moved Malek's heavy head from my chest and stood up even though my muscles protested from exhaustion. I still had Eric's light blue T-shirt on, but Malek hadn't reacted to it. In just my panties and the T-shirt, I moved out to the hallway to look out through the window to see if the crows were still sitting on the porch. There were five of them now, two more crows, but also a shirtless, tattooed man.
Eric.
He sat in one of the wicker chairs while one of the birds sat on his knee and he tickled it lightly on the neck. The clock was 8 a.m., so some early risers had probably seen the scene. I was used to it, but for someone else it probably looked eerie or even scary. Eric might have been the kindest man, but surrounded by crows, dressed in just black boxers, showing off all his ink and with his deep gaze, he looked scary.
I sat down in the other chair next to his, with just a small table between us. Even though I had been close to the crows before, I was still afraid of them. So when the one closest to me stretched its wings, I jumped. Eric looked up at me and smirked.
“They don't care about you, so you don't need to care about them.”
He had said it before, not to sound full of himself, just to use facts to calm me. They were there for him and didn't seem to see me at all.
I nodded a little and then looked at Eric instead of watching the crows. He had stopped tickling the bird, but it still sat on his knee while he looked out over the yard.
“Something’s going on… They wouldn't be here otherwise…”
I looked down at the floor because I didn't want to be the one to tell Eric the news, but I knew I had to.
“Yeah…” I said quietly while Eric turned his big eyes to me. “It seems like they have found… it.”
I didn't want to say “body” because it sounded too harsh, and I didn't want to say “him” because I didn't want to see him as a human, so his body became an “it”. Something to fear but given no respect.
Eric stared at me, but he looked more tired than upset. Just as always, I had a hard time interpreting him, but this time I wouldn't ask him what he felt. It wasn't right because it was probably no easier for him to find the words. He nodded slowly and looked at the birds around him.
“They’ve protected me for a long time…”
I swallowed hard, still resistant to seeing the supernatural in our story, even though I had seen what happened to Eric that night. If I accepted it, I would also need to become more open to the possibility that other things might be true.
“We don't know what they have found or if it can be connected to you…” I said desperately.
Eric smiled, but it didn't reach his eyes.
“They will find out who he is… And then they will talk to my mom.”
“But she thanked you.”
“Yeah, but she's still afraid of the authorities. She will do anything to get the spotlight away from herself. And, yeah, it would in theory be the right thing to tell them…”
I didn't like it when he talked so bluntly, especially when everything was true. In every other subject, I was the harsh realist and he the romantic, but when it came to his crime, he was the one who saw what a thin thread it was hanging by.
“So what should we do? My mom wants me to talk to Malek—see what he can find out,” I said after long minutes of silence.
Eric leaned back in the chair and the crow moved to sit on the railing together with its siblings.
“I think you should. So we know how serious the situation is.”
He didn't say anything about how I couldn't tell Malek about his crime or anything. I knew we trusted each other blindly and he would never question my judgment. One more proof that we were soulmates. There aren't many people you trust like that.
I nodded at what he said and stood up. I gave him a final look. I didn't ask if he wanted to come with me inside. I knew he needed his time with his crows.
×××
I looked at the smiling Eric in the hospital bed. He was talking on the phone, but the person on the other end was doing most of the talking. He sat in a lotus position in cut-off sweatpants with a bare chest, but also bore an angry blue-red bruise on his neck from the TV cable. Every nurse looked at him with wide eyes, either with attraction or horror. His tattoos were a mix of drunken decisions and nightmare-fueled creativity. He had a buzz cut, so the tattoos on his head were showing too. I couldn't see what any of them were, but he explained that one was his childhood drawing of a crow. It was round and didn't look like a crow at all.
Eric laughed nervously and looked at me excitedly while he played with the TV remote. It was the record label, and I sat next to him crossing my fingers while looking up at the sky as if God was up there to help.
“Yeah, next Wednesday, that sounds great. Yeah, awesome,” Eric said in a wobbly voice before politely saying goodbye.
It was hard to believe he had tried to take his life two days before. Excitedly, he leaned forward, buried his face in the mattress and screamed into it. I giggled at his silly behavior and ran my hand over his back.
“It's happening,” I said and patted his bum teasingly.
Eric turned his face toward me and smiled dopily.
“It's happening. It's fucking happening. I must call the guys and shit… Fuck, it's happening…”
That Eric, who had gone through so much, was the one taking care of the contacts and everything administrative in the band was silly, but also the only alternative. He and Jeremy, the drummer, were the only ones who could really speak for themselves and get things done. Jeremy had three children and two jobs, so he never had time or energy. Maybe Eric was also the one who wanted it the most.
Chance was a good frontman though, much more extroverted but lazy. The idea from the beginning was that he would be in the spotlight while the others took roles in the background. It suited Eric, who really was introverted and liked his privacy. When they got famous, the fans decided something else, though. Eric was the one with the looks, and the record label could see who the girls preferred. The fact that Eric was shy, sweet, but had a dark sense of humor just made him even more appealing in the girls' eyes, which also meant I had competition all over the world.
Eric called his band members amid laughter and curse words. I looked at him with a big smile, but there was sadness in it. It was obvious we couldn't be a couple. I was happy but also relieved that his life seemed to be straightening out and even flourishing. That meant he wouldn't need me in the same way anymore.
I looked out the hospital window at the gray sky. A lonely crow was flying in circles, as if it was looking into our window. I stared at it while Eric continued to laugh.
“Please take care of him…” I whispered to the bird even though it couldn't hear me.
×××
Malek talked with some other policemen about what was happening at my childhood home. It wasn't weird that I asked when it was so close to home and when it also was my mom who had wanted the information. When he came home, Eric had just put a chicken in the oven to roast. He wanted to make a classic Sunday dinner even though he had never been lucky enough to have one as a child.
Malek let out a heavy sigh when he came into the kitchen and gave Eric a one-armed hug and me a peck on the lips. While he moved to the bedroom to change clothes, Eric gave me a wide-eyed look. It was obvious he was nervous about what Malek would tell us. I probably had the same expression but was forced to give Malek time to settle down. I didn't want him to believe I had any emotional connection to the crime.
Eric turned his attention to the boiling vegetables when Malek came back into the kitchen. We had decided he wouldn't be part of the conversation. Neither he nor I knew how he would react to hearing about a murder he had committed, so it was easier if he just listened and Malek couldn't see his face.
Malek commented on the smell of the roasting chicken and then sat down in the chair opposite me at the table, just like we had planned. From there he couldn't see Eric's face. He talked about his day the same way he always did, gave me an update on Justin's dating life, like he had done for the last three months, and then took a deep breath before saying what we had been waiting for.
“I talked with Cleo about what was happening at your mom’s house. She still has friends at the station there.”
“Oh?” I tried to sound curious without sounding desperate, but it felt like I didn't succeed completely. Eric had stopped moving by the stove so he could hear what Malek would say.
“Yeah, they've found a body.”
“Really?”
“Yeah, a man. But it's likely really old.”
I nodded a little, trying to come up with a good question to ask next, but my husband continued.
“Like really old. They're having a hard time saying exactly how old, but maybe fifty years.”
I furrowed my brows.
“You mean he was fifty when he was killed?”
“No, it's been fifty years since he died. There are several things that don't add up, though. Maybe someone moved the body.”
I looked over Malek's shoulder at Eric, who had turned around to look at us. He looked confused but still nervous. I looked at him in shock, and it made Malek turn and look at Eric too. Eric scratched his elbow awkwardly.
“Oh right, I forgot you lived around there too. Did you live close?” Malek asked.
“Ehh… No. I lived on the outskirts of town. On the other side.”
It wasn't a lie because that was where his stepfather had his house, but before that he had lived in almost the same place where we had buried his stepfather's body.
Malek nodded.
“It's an exciting case. Like, a fifty-year-old murder or something? It's like a movie,” he said with a crooked smile and looked between me and Eric with sparkling eyes.
×××
I was not happy with the bar Eric had picked for us to catch up after nine months apart. A sports bar. There was some boxing match he wanted to see and had decided he would watch even though he was meeting me. I was pissed at him, but the feeling ran off me like water when I saw him outside his hotel.
I had moved to New York and lived with another girl, so now that he could afford it, he had checked into a hotel where I could stay with him instead of him staying with me and my female colleague. He was dressed in black cargo pants, a black bomber jacket with oversized silver details, an oversized dark gray hoodie, and a black cap under the hood. It looked like he was hiding from someone, and in a way he was. He hadn't really gotten used to suddenly being famous, and even if only a few people recognized him, he could get a little panicked in public, he had told me on the phone.
“Hey, babe,” he said with a big smile as I approached carrying my weekend bag.
He couldn't see my tight black lace dress, but he complimented my burgundy coat with the big hood that made me feel like Little Red Riding Hood. I giggled and worked up the courage to kiss him. He kissed me back like it was completely natural that we would do that after nine months apart.
“I missed you,” he said sweetly, making my cheeks turn the same shade as my coat.
“I missed you too. Like crazy.”
Even though we had missed each other so much, both of us knew it was better for us to be apart. Eric had a career that forced him to keep moving, but also, his mental health would never be stable.
Chance, who knew about Eric's illness, gave me updates sometimes, and I knew Eric had self-harmed seriously. The latest thing was that he had pushed a spoon down his throat while eating yogurt. Miraculously, he swallowed it, and it came out the same way it had gone down. Chance even told me that the two of them had laughed about it afterward.
After leaving my bag in his hotel room, we went to the crowded sports bar. Plenty of people wanted to see the boxing match and were completely focused on the screen. When Eric realized that, he pulled down his hood, took off his cap, and showed off his midnight-blue mullet.
I had seen it styled in press photos and in its natural state in the pictures he posted on Snapchat. It was natural now too. It was longer at the back than I had realized, and carefully I started playing with the longer strands.
“You're so pretty,” I whispered while looking at his green eyes in profile, framed by dark eyeliner.
He looked at me, surprised, but was interrupted by a guy sitting down opposite us where we sat on the couch against the wall.
“Sorry, is this seat taken?”
The guy was well-groomed with a thick beard and a twirled mustache. I could almost imagine that he smelled of pomade.
“No, no. Take it,” Eric said with a friendly smile.
The guy looked at him one second too long. Did he recognize him?
He stretched out his hand toward Eric, and Eric took it. Their hands were almost the same size, but Eric's fingers were slimmer and longer.
“Malek.”
×××
Eric invited Malek to follow us to the outdoor seating area of a dive bar nearby. It was just the first place we found, and Eric had invited Malek after they had screamed at the boxers together. It was obvious they thought alike and had even said the same things over each other. I would rather have had Eric to myself, but Malek seemed okay, and I liked sitting close to Eric while they talked about sports and music. The autumn night made me cold, even though I had stolen Eric's bomber jacket and had his long, heavy arm around my shoulders.
I could feel Malek looking at me sometimes, differently from the way he looked at Eric. His excited expression turned nervous, especially when he met my eyes. I couldn't read him, though, probably because for the last few years Eric had been the only guy I have had an interest in.
“Fuck, I need to take a leak… Do you want anything?” Eric said, slowly releasing me. He looked at both of us.
“Will you?” Malek asked with wide eyes, as if Eric had the right answer.
“I'll have a beer.”
“I'll have the same, then.”
“Babe?” Eric asked me as he stood up on his long legs.
“Buy me one too, then. You can drink it if I fall asleep,” I joked, making him smile before he walked into the bar.
I yawned widely after he left and pulled his jacket closer around my body. Malek sat and looked at me in silence until I looked up at him.
“Are you a couple? I mean… It's hard to tell and… He asked me if I thought you were pretty and…” He swallowed hard while his eyes darted from side to side. “Which you are.”
He laughed nervously and adjusted his hair. I smiled kindly at him because it was obvious there wasn't a mean bone in his body.
“No… We're not a couple. We're best friends.”
It was the answer Eric and I had decided was the right one. That we did things other best friends didn't do, no one needed to know.
“Really? You look good together.”
“I know,” I joked, but then laughed awkwardly because it was probably the wrong answer. “We were a couple in our teens, but we grew in different directions. I mean, he's a rockstar.”
Malek looked impressed and opened his mouth to ask more, but then Eric kicked the door open so he could carry all three beers with both hands. I smiled at him because the kick was hot, and so was his lanky walk.
We continued talking about politics, life, and eventually Eric even touched on the subject of death. Malek believed nothing happened after death, but Eric believed we all continued to live in a parallel reality. It sounded like pure woo-woo, and Malek had a hard time following when Eric talked about souls getting trapped in the same universe.
“Baby.” I patted his cheek to get his attention. “You've lost us now. And I'm tired. It's time to go back to the hotel.”
He looked a little hurt. No one could ever follow his thoughts about death.
“Okay…” he said, as always, letting me win.
“The hotel? I thought you lived here,” Malek said after clearing his throat.
“Oh, I do, but it's crowded with a roommate. Eric is a homeless rockstar, so a hotel room is better,” I said jokingly, making Eric let out an embarrassed sound when I called him a rockstar.
“Oh…” Malek said and stood up, just like Eric and I did.
We both gave him a hug. At first I thought the hug was a little too close and intimate, but then I saw that he and Eric hugged the same way. Eric took my hand and smiled at me before we said goodbye to Malek. I could feel Malek's eyes on us as we walked hand in hand, like the best of friends.
×××
The eye on his chest was new and probably the most well made tattoo he had. He had done it at the same time as the cherries on his neck. He had actually done them at the exact same time by two different tattoo artists. I really liked the cherries though and kissed them like I wanted to eat them up. It made Eric laugh that boyish way he did when we were alone. But it wasn't the tattoos I looked the most at but his body. His body. Oh my god. Eric had always been fit, arrogantly way too easily, and seemed to just be born with perfect proportions but now… Oh my god. I couldn't even guess how much he worked out to look like that. Thick arms with prominent veins that crawled up his underarms. Back muscles that made him broaden out like the perfect V and then abs carved to perfection. Like that wasn't enough his Adonis belt made you think only about one thing when you saw him - sex. Holy fucking Satan. I thought it was Photoshop on his band’s promotion pictures but he actually looked like that.
He loosened the broad belt in his cargo pants and unzipped them. I laid on the bed in just panties but it was obvious this was his time to shine. He pushed down his pants with his underwear and let them fall to the ground. His cock stood hard and ready, waiting for me. He was as big as the last time I saw him but it had another impact with his much more muscular body. He had also shaved off his pubic hair and the little chest hair he had gotten. He looked too good and it was obvious he knew it when he sat down, leaned back on his elbows, waiting for me to crawl up to him. I did, quickly, like he was water in the Sahara desert. I met his deep set eyes, kissed his ruby red lips and let my hands explore his body. I confess that they stopped a bit longer at the abs and his v-line and when I tickled the lines down to his cock I could hear him exhale deeply.
“I haven't slept with anyone else…” he whispered. I looked at him seriously. There was no lie in his eyes so I nodded as an answer.
“Me neither…”
Harshly he pushed his lips against mine, with both of his hands framing my face aggressively. He released me to moan when I had started to jerk off his slick cock.
“Please… Just… Just fucking fuck me…” he whimpered. Which made me smirk, pleased.
Together we pulled off my panties so I could straddle him. It was even different to have him between my legs but it was the same glorious feeling of pain and pleasure that took over when I sank down on his thickness. I could see all his muscles strain when I had taken him completely and he breathed out heavily.
“I love you, Hayden…” he whispered so lowly I almost didn't hear him.
×××
We hadn't discussed how long Eric would stay at our place. Under normal circumstances, I would have hinted that it was time for him to leave because I felt too addicted to him, but now it didn't feel right when we had so many question marks hanging over our heads.
Besides, I didn't want him to go anyway. I didn't know how I would handle bad news or how I would deliver them to him. It was better if he stayed, even if I felt it was becoming harder and harder to act like a good wife to Malek.
It was Eric who pushed me away when I tried to straddle him on the couch that Tuesday. At first I was surprised and even offended until I realized I had forgotten that Malek was actually in his office talking on the phone.
“Not now…” Eric whispered from where he sat with a notebook resting against the armrest of the couch. He was writing song lyrics. I had looked through the notebook, and there wasn't anything uplifting in it. He had written quite a few love songs, but now the word “death” popped up in every other sentence.
“Sorry…” I said sheepishly as I sat down in the opposite corner of the couch and picked up my phone from the coffee table. I opened Instagram to scroll but closed it again almost immediately. Uneasily, I glanced toward Eric to make sure he hadn't seen the ads for baby clothes, but he just kept writing in his notebook. I couldn't think of anything to do and even considered going to bed at seven o'clock just so it would be the next day and a new workday.
I looked up when I heard Malek come out of the office and hoped he would have some task for me to do, but he looked far too excited for that.
“Now, should I tell you…” he said with a pleased smile as he sat down in the armchair opposite us.
Eric looked up from his notebook, confused, and then turned to me. I could see his expression change as he studied my face. He hadn't made the connection yet, but I had, so when he saw my horrified expression he must have understood what I thought this was about.
Malek smirked at our reactions. He must have interpreted the look in our eyes as something entirely different because he leaned back, fingers intertwined over his stomach, like a storyteller about to begin.
“You know the grave in the forest? That's actually a really interesting story. They still can't determine how old the body is because some things seem even older.”
Eric awkwardly dragged a hand through his hair and down across his neck. His fingers lingered there as if someone had tried to choke him. Even though I felt my own anxiety rising, I stretched out my foot and pressed it against his thigh in a discreet attempt at comfort.
“That sounds weird…” I said, hoping Malek would be encouraged to continue.
“Yeah, and that's not even the strangest part. They've found DNA from one more person.”
I furrowed my brows in confusion and couldn't stop myself from showing it openly. Malek was too pleased with his story to notice anything unusual and probably saw it as a natural reaction. I could feel Eric's long fingers close around my foot, but I didn't dare look at him. It could be DNA from one of us, but most likely from him. That didn't calm me down at all because whether it was his DNA, mine, or my father's, I would lose him, and that could only lead to one thing.
“DNA? Like fingerprints?”
“Fingerprints? No, no. They don't think it belongs to the perpetrator. They think there was another victim. One more man.”
I stared at Malek, my mouth dry. I tried to swallow, but my throat only seemed to get drier every time. Eric squeezed my foot tightly, but I still didn't dare look at him. I didn't know what any of this meant, and I didn't know what Eric believed. For a brief second, my thoughts drifted to the things he had been telling me for ten years, but it was too ridiculous, too illogical, to seriously consider.
“They think it was a double murder from the seventies, and they're searching for missing persons from that period. Maybe your parents know something?”
Malek simply smiled because, to him, it was the kind of true-crime story you would watch on Netflix. To me and Eric, it was something entirely different.
I nodded to myself, deciding that this was just a terrible coincidence that had nothing to do with Eric's crime. Eric, however, didn't seem capable of thinking that way. Both Malek and I looked at each other in bewilderment when we heard Eric start to cry.
×××
I kissed his naked back in the hotel bed the next morning, all the way down to his cheeks where I gave him a light bite. It made him clench his ass and giggle innocently. I smirked evilly when I lay down next to him again, nose to nose. He looked at me with a warm smile, but it slowly became sadder and sadder. The angst would always find us, this time because we knew this couldn't be our everyday life.
“I want you to find a good man…” he said while stroking my hair away from my face and shoulder.
I didn't answer because I didn't want anyone else other than him. Why couldn't I be single forever? It was enough for me to have him in short periods, but Eric had other thoughts.
“I think Malek would be perfect…”
I laughed, unamused, and looked up at the ceiling.
“Oh please… You know that just like that?” I continued to laugh, but Eric just stared at me until I stopped and looked back at him, questioning.
“I know you don't believe me, but… I had a dream—”
“Like Martin Luther King?” I joked, mostly because I knew he would talk about things I didn't want him to talk about. He sighed deeply.
“I had a dream about the future—your future—and… Malek is the right guy for you. He will be there for you when I leave—”
I sat up angrily and grunted like an angry dog.
“Eric! Not this shit again!”
I looked at him with a look I knew would make him stop, and he did. He just closed his eyes and exhaled deeply in disappointment. I didn't want to hurt him or diminish his feelings, but every time he started talking like that, every fiber in me screamed. I couldn't really say what emotion it was; I just knew it gave me violent anxiety, and the only way to stop it was to shut him up.
I sat and looked at him for a while, then looked out of the window when I thought I heard something. A big black crow landed on the thin ledge outside the window. It was a wonder the big bird could sit there at all, and it even pressed itself against the glass. It was eager to be there, and I knew why. I looked down at my tattooed lover again and sighed.
“I don't even have his number,” I said with a shrug. Eric opened his eyes slowly and blinked a few times to refocus on me.
“I got it. He gave it to me. I got it.”
×
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