Chapter Text
The heat in Gila didn't sleep. It clung to the sidewalks like rot, seeping up through polished soles and pricking skin slick with sweat.
James walked with the kind of stride that invited a second glance—long, self-assured, maybe a little theatrical. His sleeves were rolled to the elbow, cuffs creased just so, and the fabric of his slate-gray shirt clung faintly to his back. A black satchel rested against one hip.
His glasses caught the dim light from a rusted sign swinging in the dry wind—Bud's Liquor, the faded letters barely visible against the sun-worn wood
He hated this place.
The air smelled like dust and exhaust. Somewhere nearby, cicadas droned in dry trees like warning sirens too tired to scream. The sidewalk beneath his boots was cracked, sun-bleached, almost white in patches.
James inhaled slowly through his nose. Let it burn a little.
Useless.
He hadn't written a single good sentence in weeks.
The murder mystery he'd been „experimenting" with—if you could even call it that—sat in the bottom of his satchel like a dead thing. He'd rewritten the same paragraph eleven times. Deleted it twelve.
He muttered the word again under his breath, sharp and low. „Useless.."
It wasn't just the words that were wrong. It was the voice. He'd built his reputation on sweeping confessions of love and longing—deep, tender things. Now he was trying to describe blood and couldn't get past the idea of it congealing. The smell. The heat.
„You're too delicate for this," he imagined someone saying. Probably an editor. Probably right.
He passed an alley. Something metal clattered in the dark, but he didn't look. His shoulders stayed square. A small tension lived between his eyebrows—like a permanent frown trying to form but never quite settling. His eyes, half-lidded and glassy with thought, tracked every shadow in his periphery without seeming to.
As he neared the corner of 4th and Monroe, something caught his eye—a telephone pole, wrapped in layers of sun-worn flyers.
He slowed.
Faces. Men, mostly. Some smiling, some grainy. All staring.
„In Loving Memory."
„Missing Since March 3rd."
„Last Seen Leaving Bar on Stone Avenue."
All men. All old or old-ish. A thirty-something with a wide grin and a Van Halen shirt. A guy who looked like he did taxes but played drums on weekends. One of them—third row, far left—
James could have sworn he'd seen before. Coffee shop maybe. Or a bar. Somewhere unimportant.
He didn't like that he couldn't place it.
His mouth tightened. He stepped closer, head tilted. The corner of one flyer peeled up, flapping lazily in the hot wind.
„All accidents.."he muttered. Voice flat. Too flat.
A car fire. A gas leak. A drowning. Another drowning.
James exhaled through his nose, slow and measured. His fingers tapped once against the leather of his satchel. His other hand, clenched and half-forgotten at his side, flexed once—then relaxed.
He looked away, then back again. Just for a second.
A writer could smell it. A narrative trying too hard not to be one.
The bookstore crouched in the middle of the block like it had been forgotten there.
Sandwiched between a vintage clothing shop with mannequins that hadn't changed outfits since the late '50s and an abandoned laundromat choked with vines, wearing its age without apology.
The awning above the door was a faded, dusty green, its edges fraying like an old curtain. The glass panel in the wooden door was scrawled in chipped gold: „COVENANT BOOKS" The lettering shimmered weakly in the heat haze.
James hesitated at the threshold.
He adjusted his glasses with two fingers, slowly, as if buying time. The brass handle beneath his palm was warm. His thumb smoothed over it once, twice, then he pushed forward. The bell overhead gave a soft, pitiful ring—like a sound too tired to commit to itself.
Cool air wrapped around him the moment he stepped inside. It was quiet. Still. The kind of quiet that didn't wait to be disturbed. The kind that watched.
He lingered just inside the doorway.
Beneath the expected scents of paper and leather, there was something else. Faint. Not quite present, but not gone either. Metallic. Coppery. The ghost of something that had no name but lived in the back of the throat.
He exhaled through his nose, slow. Not disgusted—just thoughtful. Like he was chewing on the silence.
The lighting was dim, yellowed bulbs hanging from cords that drooped like nooses. Shadows filled the corners. Shelves towered in narrow aisles, packed with books that seemed to sag under their own forgotten weight. Dust hung in the air, catching slivers of light like soft ash.
His steps were unhurried, boot heels tapping lightly against the uneven wooden floor. There was a deliberateness to the way he moved—like he wanted to seem casual, but couldn't quite let go of the performance. His right hand skimmed the edges of books as he passed, fingers grazing spines with a lover's touch. His left stayed hooked in the strap of his satchel, knuckles pale.
He passed section titles printed in faded gold: 'Obscure Philosophy.' 'Psychopathology.' 'Obsolete Science.' 'Death & Dying.'
He paused. The muscles in his jaw flexed once, as if biting something down.
A twitch of his mouth—not quite a smile, not quite a sneer—as he moved on.
His eyes caught a flash of deep red across the room. A familiar cover.
He shifted course. Stepped toward it.
There they were. His books.
A small stack tucked neatly between a thick anthology of Ovid and a garish sci-fi pulp with a half-naked woman on the cover. „Loverman." „Trapped Under Ice." „Battery." „Sweet Amber."
The gold bestseller stickers on a few had started to peel at the corners. He ran a thumb down one spine, then slid a copy of Loverman halfway out. Eyed the first sentence like a man inspecting his own scar.
His lips parted like he might say something. But didn't.
Just a quiet breath through his nose. Then he pushed the book back into place with the pad of his finger—too hard. The cover thumped back against the others.
His jaw ticked again.
He turned away and drifted deeper into the aisles. Past a crooked table stacked with worn paperbacks about poisons, autopsies, and criminal psychology. One book's title caught his eye—The Mind of the Killer. His hand reached, paused, hovered above it. Didn't touch.
His fingers curled into a fist. Briefly. Then dropped back to his side. He rounded the next corner, then stopped.
Behind the front counter, half-draped in shadow, was a young man.
Pale. All loose limbs and strange posture, like someone had stretched him out and then forgotten to tighten the frame. He slouched deep into a cracked leather chair, long legs bent awkwardly under the desk.
His hair—thick, copper-red, wild with curls—glowed faintly under a tilted desk lamp. It looked soft. Too soft for a place like this.
He held a book in one hand, open across his knee. His fingers were ink-smudged, nails bitten short. A cigarette—unlit—hung from the other hand like it belonged there more than the book did.
He wasn't reading so much as... waiting. That's how it felt. His eyes weren't scanning the page. They were still. Frozen in place. As if the moment James had entered the shop, the boy had known. Had stilled himself.
James' gaze flicked downward. The Dead Kennedys shirt was thrashed at the collar, hanging off one shoulder. One boot was untied, laces sprawled out on the wooden floor like veins. His socks didn't match—one striped, one fraying at the toe.
Trashy. Unkempt.
James tilted his head, lips pressing into a faint line. There was a flicker of disdain in the look he gave the boy—quick and precise. That shirt. The way he slouched. The mess of him.
And yet he found his eyes lingered a second too long.
The boy was strange. Too pale for the desert. There was a delicateness to him, like something preserved in glass. His mouth was full, his lashes long. His face should've belonged to someone else—someone softer, somewhere cooler. He looked like he'd been left behind by time.
James' tongue darted across the inside of his cheek. A slow, thoughtful movement. His expression didn't change, but his weight shifted—one foot back, as if bracing.
He looked away first. Eyes dropped to the desk. Then the floor. Then back to the aisle. He turned without a sound.
The boy hadn't moved. He felt the stillness like a draft. Like a warning.
The floor creaked beneath James' boots as he moved toward the counter, a reluctant gravity to his gait. The store was silent. Empty. Just the two of them breathing in the same dust-sweet, book-heavy air.
He cleared his throat, low and deliberate, not quite looking at the boy behind the counter yet.
The boy didn't flinch. Just turned the page in his book with a motion too slow to be casual. His fingers were long, pale, the kind of delicate that looked almost breakable—knuckles like knots beneath thin skin, the faint tremble of veins visible in the lamplight.
James stopped a few feet away.
Up close, the smell hit him again. Not strong. Not even obvious. Just a thread of it beneath the paper and wood and dust. Iron. Wet and warm and wrong. The kind of scent that belonged somewhere else—somewhere red.
His nostrils flared.
He wrinkled his nose, then smoothed his expression almost instantly, as if to pretend it hadn't happened. Adjusted his glasses. Cleared his throat again, sharp and practiced.
Dave looked up.
Eyes the color of old amber, pupils blown wide. Lips pink, slightly parted. His hair was a wild halo of ginger curls, backlit by the crooked desk lamp behind him.
Up close, he didn't just look pretty—he looked untouched. But in a way that was intentional. As if he'd been sculpted that way. Made to look like something between boy and thing.
James hated the way his stomach twisted.
„Do you have anything on crime?" he asked, voice even, clipped. „For research."
Dave blinked. His mouth twitched into something close to a grin—wide, crooked, sly.
„Oh?" he said. His voice was rough. Hoarse, like gravel in honey. „You writing about killing people?"
James hesitated a half-beat longer than he meant to. He pulled his satchel strap higher on his shoulder, eyes cool behind his glasses.
„I'm a writer," he said, slowly. „Trying to. A murder novel. And yes. That's the point."
Dave's head tilted just slightly. The curl at the end of his grin deepened.
„Real crime or fictional?"
A twitch at the corner of James' mouth—somewhere between amusement and disdain.
„Both." he said. „I'm trying to avoid writing something that feels fake."
Dave hummed softly, the sound almost a purr. He set his book down—face down, spine splayed—and leaned forward over the counter, forearms draped like a cat stretching in the sun. The shift pulled his shirt collar further off his shoulder, revealing a hint of pale collarbone and a few faded freckles, like ashes on snow.
„You want something that actually gets under people's skin, then." Dave said. „Not just blood. Psychology."
James didn't answer right away. His gaze dipped once—at the boy's lips, those impossibly pink lips—and then snapped back up like a rubber band. His expression went colder.
„I want something that doesn't insult my intelligence."
Dave's grin only widened, slow and wolfish.
„Of course." he said, voice low. „Then you'll want the good stuff. Back shelf. Section's unmarked. I can show you."
Then, without a second thought, he slid off the stool and hopped the counter—not walked around it, hopped it. Like a fox clearing a fence.
James's brow lifted just barely. The movement was boyish, unnecessary, a little too graceful. But it landed with weight—like something old lived inside that young frame. Dave's boots hit the floor with a muted thud that didn't suit his lightness. It echoed somewhere in James's chest.
Dave motioned for him to follow, those long fingers curling toward himself with a casual, serpentine ease.
His gait was fluid but dragged in places—like he was tethered to something, maybe gravity, maybe guilt. He led them down the narrow aisles, the light dimming with each turn. The wood beneath their feet creaked in protest, and somewhere overhead, something metallic groaned.
They reached the back wall, and Dave stopped in front of a shelf that was unlabeled, tucked in shadow. A small section, but full. James's eyes adjusted slowly. Titles in dark fonts, spines cracked with age. The words Spree, Forensics, Criminal Impulse, Body Ritual.
Dave moved with purpose. Pulled one book out, flipped it open with a flick of his thumb, then handed it to James without looking at him.
„This one breaks down spree versus serial. Method, motive. Timeline stuff."
James took it. The cover was worn, slick with years of handling. He pretended not to notice how close Dave had gotten—how their fingers almost touched.
„But this one—" Dave said, and reached again, this time slower. He plucked a book from the second shelf, a thicker volume, pages edged in red. Not dye. Just time. „—this is better."
He held it up between them.
„It doesn't ask who did it." he said. „It asks why someone would want to in the first place."
There was something reverent in his voice. Something too sure.
James narrowed his eyes, lips thinning. He took the second book, careful not to touch Dave's hand. He didn't step back.
„You know a lot about this.." James said, tone smooth but guarded.
Dave shrugged, then grinned. It was all teeth this time.
„I like the idea that anyone can snap." he said. „That it's always just one choice away. You, me. Doesn't matter."
James didn't smile. He held the books like he wasn't sure if he was studying them or shielding himself with them.
He didn't move to leave.
His gaze lingered—on Dave's mouth, his throat, the open collar of that torn band shirt hanging off one shoulder like an afterthought. The boy looked carved from sin. Beautiful in a way that felt sacrilegious. Like something holy had fallen and landed in dirty socks and mismatched laces.
James wet his lips. „You ever think about that?" he asked, low. „Killing someone?"
Dave paused. Just a moment.
Then he smiled again—but it didn't reach his eyes this time. That warmth from before? Gone. His face had a strange stillness to it now. Like a statue waiting to be worshipped.
„You're the one writing a murder." he said.
Silence curled in the air between them.
James adjusted his glasses, jaw tight. „It's different."
Dave tilted his head. His curls cast slow-moving shadows down his neck. „Is it?" And then he stepped forward. Just a little.
He handed James a third book—something thicker, darker. The motion brought him close. Too close. James could feel the heat of him, the energy crackling off his skin like static. Could smell it again—stronger now. Copper and warmth and something like iron left in the sun.
He flinched. Subtle. Barely.
Dave noticed.
Maybe he smirked. Maybe he didn't. But his eyes lingered on James's face, as if he could read the flinch as easily as a headline.
There was something hunting behind that look. Not attraction. Not quite.
Something older. Patient. Curious.
James swallowed. His fingers clenched around the books. And for the first time since entering the shop, he felt like the one being read.
Dave crouched near the floor, fingertips gliding across worn book spines like he was choosing rosaries instead of references. The light from the front window barely reached him there—just a lazy strip of gold settling on his shoulder, catching in the bright coils of his ginger hair. The rest of him was shadow. Smoke.
James watched from above, arms crossed over his chest. His satchel tugged at one shoulder like it was reminding him he had places to be. He didn't move.
The bookstore was silent but not still. Floorboards creaked softly under Dave's shifting weight, and in the distance, the faint hiss of old pipes echoed like breath through lungs. Dust floated in the amber light above them like drifting ash.
Dave pulled a thick volume from the bottom shelf with a sound like tearing cloth. 'Criminal Pathology: The Mind Behind the Knife.' He held it out with one hand, still crouched, and looked up at James from beneath his lashes.
„There's this one." he said, voice dry, voice worn, voice too knowing for someone his age. „It's clinical. Pretty dry. But it gets into motive. The spiral logic people talk themselves into before they kill someone."
James reached down, slower than he meant to, and took the book with a tight grip that grazed the boy's fingers. Cool skin. Dry. Not clammy like a nervous kid—firm, deliberate. James flinched almost imperceptibly at the contact, something in his chest twinging.
„You sound like you've done this a hundred times." he muttered.
Dave tilted his head with a smile that was all implication, no answer.
„I read a lot." he said, rising smoothly to his feet. „It's easy to get obsessed when you've got nothing better to do."
He dusted his palms on his jeans, leaving faint prints. James's gaze caught on them, then shifted to the shirt, faded and stretched over lean shoulders, one collar ripped, like he'd been clawed out of something rather than dressed. His jeans were black, shredded at one knee, and his belt had someone else's name carved into the leather.
Dave didn't wear his clothes so much as haunt them.
They moved toward the counter together, Dave ahead. As he passed, James caught it again—that smell. Not the cigarettes. Not the musty scent of paper and glue. No, beneath that, something sharper. Blood-thin. Metallic. Like iron left in water.
It curled in his nostrils, subtle but insistent.
James's face twitched. A brief wrinkle of his nose. He hated how sensitive he was to it. He hated blood. The very thought of it made his gut churn, his throat tighten—but here he was, trailing behind a boy who reeked of it.
Behind the counter, Dave leaned lazily on one elbow, long fingers sorting the books he'd pulled. One title at a time, he rotated them slightly, adjusting their angles like he was laying out tarot cards for a reading. His cigarette dangled from his lip, unlit, the filter a little chewed.
His fingers grazed James's arm—barely there—as he shifted one of the covers. James stiffened.
That didn't mean anything. That was nothing. He just touched me.
But his skin burned where it had happened, and his jaw clenched as if to crush the thought before it could bloom.
Dave's fingers were trembling slightly now, almost imperceptible, but James noticed. Not from nerves, no. Not from weakness. From something else. Control. He was holding something back.
„So," Dave said after a pause, voice low and conversational, „what kind of killer are you writing?"
He turned his head just enough to meet James's eyes. The boy's stare was too calm. Like someone sitting in the eye of a storm, waiting for the next wall of wind.
„Passion? Revenge? Control?" he continued, that smile curling at the corners again. „Or do you just want something stylish and cold?"
James breathed in. Out.
He was good at control. At posture. At being the biggest presence in the room. But next to Dave—lean, odd, gorgeous in the way a knife might be—James felt like he was starting to lose his shape.
„A man dies." he said finally. „It looks random. But it isn't."
Dave hummed softly, pleased.
„So it's not about the murder," he said, nodding. „It's about the lie that hides it."
He grinned. „Nice. I like when people kill for quiet reasons."
The words slid into James like a whisper through a crack in the wall. They shouldn't have felt personal. But they did.
Dave didn't move. Neither did James.
Then—smoothly, like smoke curling—Dave leaned closer.
James couldn't stop watching him. His hands. His lips. Those strange, soft lips that looked so out of place on someone like this.
Dave pulled another book from the pile, passed it over. His fingers dragged against James's wrist this time—longer now. Intentional.
„This one's about killers who never get caught." Dave said, barely above a murmur. „No patterns. No rituals. Just clean. Like ghosts."
James didn't move. The touch lingered. His breath was stuck somewhere in his chest.
„You okay?" Dave asked softly, his voice rough and warm.
James cleared his throat, tugging at his shirt collar, stepping back a half-inch.
„Yeah." he said quickly. „Just... warm in here."
Dave smiled. That smile again. Gentle. Dangerous. „Yeah." he said. „Must be the weather."
The silence that followed wasn't comfortable. It was thick. It pressed in like the inside of a church when everyone's afraid to pray.
James stood too straight. Hands flexed once at his sides, then still again. His gaze drifted across Dave's face—those too-pretty features, that easy confidence that didn't belong in someone who wore their boots like that, with one lace untied and no care in the world.
James didn't do this. Didn't look at boys. Didn't get looked at by them, either.
He was respectable. Author. Acclaimed. Books with gilded titles on the shelf. Loverman. Sweet Amber. Women wrote him letters with perfume-smudged pages. Men bought him drinks to talk literature. This was..different.
„You've got that look." Dave said quietly.
James's eyes snapped back to his.
„What look?" he asked, voice tighter than he meant.
Dave's grin returned. Slower. Smoother. Like something poured from a dark bottle.
„The look people get," he said, „when they're not sure if they should leave, or stay and ruin their life a little."
James didn't say anything. But he didn't leave, either.
Dave just smiled, smoke curling up between them like a veil at a confessional.
The shadows in Covenant Books had grown deeper, like something was pressing them inward. The amber sunlight from the windows had shifted to burnt orange, casting sharp angles across the wooden floor, splitting Dave's face into half-light, half-night.
James stood near the crime shelves with a stack of books tucked awkwardly under one arm. He shifted his weight from one foot to the other, his body tight, coiled like a man trying not to feel too much of anything.
His jaw had set itself into its usual shape—tense, skeptical, distant—but his hands gave him away. They flexed. Adjusted the book covers. Restless. Heat curled at the back of his neck.
He didn't know what he was waiting for. Not exactly. Just... not ready to leave yet.
Dave moved back toward him through the darkening aisles like a figure painted in motion—lean, careless, curls backlit like a dying halo. He held a battered paperback in his hand, spine cracked so deep it looked like it had been broken on purpose. He pressed it lightly into James's palm.
„This one isn't popular," he said, voice low and warm. „Too real. No drama, just... method. People die and no one notices."
James looked down at the cover. 'The Quiet Knife: Unsolved Deaths in the Desert Southwest.'
He traced the title with his thumb, expression unreadable.
„You're full of recommendations tonight." he said, measured, careful. Trying not to sound rattled.
Dave smirked, and the expression was wrong on his face. Not because it didn't fit—but because it fit too well. Like it had been carved there, made for temptation.
„I like giving people what they need before they know they need it."
There was a beat. Too long. James didn't move.
The air between them thickened. Dust danced in the fading light. The smell of paper and smoke curled through the room. And underneath it—beneath Dave, still—that iron tang, sharp and impossible to name.
James tried not to breathe it in too deep. Tried not to notice the way it clung to him like incense in a chapel where something had gone wrong.
Dave's gaze lingered—not hungry, not leering, but searching. Patient. Like he already knew how this would go.
James looked away first.
Dave turned back toward the counter, cigarette dangling between his lips again. He didn't light it. He never seemed to.
He rung up the books slowly, fingers brushing the edges like he was memorizing their weight. James watched him, tense, until the total was spoken softly into the hush.
James handed over cash, fingers stiff. The transaction felt absurdly normal. Like this was any bookstore, any moment. But it wasn't.
As Dave slipped the receipt into the bag, he glanced up and said, „You don't have to tell me your name."
James blinked. „...I wasn't going to."
Dave's grin sharpened. „But I already know it. James Hetfield, right? You wrote 'Loverman'."
James froze. „You've read it?"
„Read all of them." Dave said. He leaned in slightly, elbows on the counter. „They're kind of erotic. In a repressed, angry way."
James's mouth opened, then closed. His ears burned. „They're not—"
„Not technically erotic, sure." Dave said lightly. „But there's always a man who wants something he won't admit. That feels pretty erotic to me."
He said it like scripture, like confession.
James cleared his throat, struggling to hold the high ground, posture sharp again. „What's your name?"
Dave tilted his head, and for a moment, his expression flickered. Like something old and half-asleep stirred just beneath the skin.
„Dave," he said. „Just Dave."
It fit. But also didn't. Like calling a demon Michael.
James nodded once, lips pressed into a hard line.
Then Dave leaned back, gesturing lazily to the bag of books.
„You going to write something good now," he asked, „or are you just gonna go home and think about me?"
James didn't answer. His body froze—just a breath too long. Dave was already flipping open a new book, smiling like nothing had happened.
„I should go.." James muttered.
Dave didn't look up. „You could. Or you could stay and keep pretending you're just here for research."
James turned toward the door, too fast. The bell above it didn't jingle so much as warn.
Outside, the evening had thickened into dusk. The heat hit him like a wall—heavy, dry, smelling of sunbaked concrete and the last gold of the day bleeding out behind the mountains.
He walked slowly toward his car, the bag of books tucked under one arm, heart hammering in a beat that didn't feel like his own.
Behind him, through the shop's front window, Dave stood motionless in the golden gloom. A statue in shadow. Watching.
James paused by his car, one hand on the door. The book Dave had picked—The Quiet Knife—felt heavier now. Warmer, somehow, like it had been resting against someone else's skin for too long.
A breeze kicked up. A paper fluttered down the sidewalk, catching at his feet. Another memorial flyer.
IN LOVING MEMORY OF JEFF YOUNG
1952–1985
A tragic accident. Forever missed.
James stared. The edges of the flyer curled gently in the wind. He felt the iron scent again, sudden and vivid in his mind—the same that clung to Dave. Sweet. Faint. Wrong.
He climbed into the car. Closed the door slowly. But didn't start the engine.
Just sat there, fingers resting lightly on the steering wheel, eyes glazed over.
„Don't go back,“ he thought. „Just write your book. Let it go.“
But he knew he'd go back.
He already had.
—
James's house greeted him with stillness.
The door clicked shut behind him with the satisfying weight of good engineering, and the hush that followed felt deliberate—designed. A hush that didn't welcome so much as expect.
The air inside was cool and filtered, sharp with lemongrass and freon. Recessed lighting buzzed faintly overhead, casting soft shadows across polished flagstone floors. Every step echoed in clean geometry. Outside, the desert whispered—low wind brushing sand across stucco, a solitary cicada murmuring into the heat. Inside, everything was still. Curated.
He dropped the book on his desk—matte black, minimalist, modern—like it weighed more than it should.
He loosened his tie with two fingers, slow and practiced. Unbuttoned the top of his crisp white shirt. Poured two fingers of twelve-year single malt into a square crystal tumbler. No ice. The bar cart behind him gleamed chrome and black glass—barely used, obsessively clean.
He sat.
Didn't drink. Just held the glass and let the scent rise: smoke, heat, oak—burnt softness. His blazer, neatly folded, sat draped over the back of an Eames chair near the window. He didn't bother moving it. It belonged where it was. Everything did.
The house was all long lines and soft automation. Thermostat-controlled lighting. A digital clock on the wall that glowed blue in the dark. Stereo system hidden behind sliding wood panels. Floor-to-ceiling windows that framed the desert like a gallery piece.
It was the kind of house meant to impress—not to touch. The kind of house you buy when you want everything to look like it has a purpose, even when you don't.
There was too much space. Too much shine. Nothing to hold onto.
Just cool air, quiet angles, and the ghost of control pretending to be comfort.
He opened his notebook and wrote in tidy, controlled print:
• Use barbiturates—fast-acting, traceable only in autopsy
• Staged fall from height—neck breaks, looks accidental
• Keep the body cold—slows decomp, buys time
He tapped the pen against the page. Stared. The words looked foreign.
Where had he heard that? Not phrased like that. Not with that same weight.
Dave.
The thought slipped in too easily. Slid into place like it had always been there.
He closed the notebook, reached for the book Dave had given him. The Quiet Knife. The cover was faded, almost sun-bleached, like it had sat too long in a forgotten window. He opened it with one hand, the pages crinkling under his fingers. He read quickly, flipping past names, dates, medical details. But some lines caught and stuck.
A hiker in Sabino Canyon. Dead in his tent. No trauma, no toxins, no real cause. Just dead.
A man in a downtown apartment. Drowned in his own bathtub. But his lungs were dry.
He frowned. Turned back the page. Re-read it.
Something about it all felt... off. The details were clinical. Straightforward. But behind them, there was something strange—like the cases were being described not from the outside, but from the inside out. Like someone had been there.
He leaned back in the chair and rubbed a hand across his jaw.
„You're a writer,“ he told himself. „That's all this is. Inspiration. Raw material. Use it.“
But it didn't feel like that.
Dave's voice echoed again „You've got that look. Like you're not sure if you should leave, or stay and ruin your life a little."
James set the book down, too fast. It thudded against the desk, unsettling a few loose pages from the manuscript draft beneath it. He stood. Walked a circle around the room. Poured the rest of the whiskey down his throat and set the glass aside with a hollow clink.
Still, he couldn't shake it.
He went to the drawer, pulled out his sketchbook. Sat again, this time without hesitation. Opened to a clean page. Pencil in hand.
He didn't decide to draw Dave. His hand just moved. The first line appeared like it had been waiting.
He traced the shape of a cheekbone. The shadow under an eye. The tousled mess of red hair that caught light like fire. The slope of a mouth that didn't smile the way it was supposed to. Something wicked lived in that smile. Something deeply alive.
And still—something gentle. Like someone who knew how to speak quietly in the dark.
James stared at what he was creating. It was him. Not perfectly, but essentially. More than a likeness—an essence. And the longer he looked, the more that paper version of Dave stared back. Not a drawing, but a mirror. A question. A dare.
He dropped the pencil. Let it roll off the desk. His palms were sweating.
What was this? He had just met him. Hours ago. And yet he wanted to see him again. Not for research. Not even for answers. Just to see.
The way he moved. The way he spoke. The calm in his body, the violence in his words. The way he seemed like someone standing at the edge of a cliff and enjoying the fall.
James dragged his hand over his face. It was just fascination. Just a story. That's all. But he didn't believe himself.
The drawing still sat in front of him. Half-shadowed by the moonlight coming in through the windows. It looked more alive now than it had when he started.
James turned the page, not tearing it out, just hiding it. But he could still feel it beneath the surface—like a heartbeat under skin.
He pushed away from the desk, the chair scraping softly.
He didn't sleep that night. He lay in the wide, clean bed with the windows open, and every time he closed his eyes, he saw Dave's face. Heard his voice. Felt that heat in the air between them.
James didn't believe in fate. But something had changed.
And whatever it was—it wasn't done with him yet.