In walks the villain of this tale
(the door closing softly behind you)

Seems like Jimmy is always the last one to understand everything.

When the snow comes in the winter, he finds himself stranded in his cellblock of an apartment with nothing to do and suddenly nowhere to go. He knows full well that the ride he was expecting won't come now, given previous years' experience, so he settles on swearing for a while at the frost creeping slowly across his window and finally turns his attention to other things. He's got four tapes and what is quite possibly the tiniest, least impressive television since they finally stopped making black and white tvs in the eighties. He lifts up one in particular, thinks about sin and violence and human nature, thinks about art, and pops it into the built in VHS port. The movie infuriates and fascinates him in turns. He's in the mood to be frustrated by philosophical jargon and poor imitations of Russian slang.

It's been months and he's got nothing to show for any of his efforts. The snow stalled streets outside his window are just another iteration of the same implacable roadblocks he keeps running into everywhere he turns. He can't shake the feeling that something is stopping him, physically stepping between him and his goal. He doesn't understand but he feels like the solution ought to be obvious and maybe there are invisible observers just around the corner who are giggling into their fists watching him bash his skull into walls like a rat in a maze. He's been so close, so many times. He's seen coattails.

This is the state of the world on the afternoon that it happens: the snow, the frustration, the sounds of Beethoven transmitted over blown speakers.

Edgar Vargas bursts through the door of Jimmy's apartment like a thunderstorm, terrible and dark with unspilled wreckage. There is no warning, nothing to hear over the tinny speakers of the undersized television that is still playing Clockwork Orange even as the doorknob rips a hole in the plaster wall. Jimmy scrambles off the bed in his one room apartment, rolling his ankle on a discarded boot and clawing at the comforter on his way down to the floor.

He hadn't expected this. For months there had been nothing more overt than a poison apple at the doorstep, a letter in viscera delicately painted across the wall—he had scrubbed away all but the word wait, which hung still in a rusty smudge as dark and terrible as Edgar himself. It never occurred to him that he should have a weapon on hand in his home, or that he should have had an ear turned towards the hallway. There was nothing remotely within arms reach, and the kitchenette was much further away from the floor than it had been from the bed.

When Edgar threw the door open, his khaki coat flared around him. It took him the length of a second to round the bed, and he descended towards Jimmy's jumbled body with his weapon flashing. Jimmy's hands were too empty, flat on the ragged carpet and crushing plastic bags underneath them. There's not gonna be an elegant way to do this, not with Edgar armed and bearing down on him so very fast like the angel of death in all of his sudden unswayable glory, maybe Edgar thinks he's helpless without his knives, maybe Edgar is stark wrong.

See, the thing is that Jimmy has only recently come into murder as an art form. Before that, he had to make due with the teeth and knuckles his body had given him, in the cafeteria and the street and the bloody whirlwind that had been his first shared apartment. He had clawed his way out of those days, but he hadn't forgotten how to claw.

Jimmy punches up into Edgar, whose own momentum spears him across the bone crux of pointed knuckles. His blade buries in the floor just above Jimmy's shoulder, slanted tines digging into flesh. He lurches when it finally jerks free. Jimmy blocks another swing with the back of his forearm, keeps blocking even as Edgar buries his fist in his hair and pins him firmly to the floor. Wrong move, Jimmy nearly crows, now I got two hands free. Jimmy grabs the wielding wrist and pries it back, realizes that Edgar is not much stronger than him after all, arches up into their grapple and knocks Edgar's one supporting arm out from under him.

He falls. It's hard not to think of a mountain leveled by dynamite.

Jimmy rolls him and ends up on top, and after that it's easy to take the machete and press it just a little too lightly across the solid flesh of Edgar's neck. It lands like a whisper, a full stop on the dizzy tumble of the last minute. He decides that he likes the contrast, dark metal and flushed skin, the potential energy of a dangerously still object. The man's hands fall motionless, as soon as the metal touches his skin, and he lets out a sigh almost like relief.

"Sorry for dropping in unannounced," he says. His throat works underneath the jigsaw of his own blade.

Jimmy shifts—his knees are on either side of Edgar's chest, and he feels as if he's been suspended above the man by an intangible hook buried in his vertebrae. Maybe that's a side effect of adrenaline. "You're in my home," he says, baring his teeth. "Give me one good reason why I shouldn't kill you now."

"I was sort of hoping you would try," Edgar replies.

Jimmy is at a loss there.

On the little box of a screen behind them, Dr. Branom is saying, "Sin? What's all this about sin?" and Jimmy tunes it out as soon as he tunes in. He's seen it enough times that he can probably recite the entire scene as it rolls past them. But Edgar feels the flicker of his tuning, somehow, and he follows the invisible line of Jimmy's attention back to the television.

"Ah," Edgar says, "that would be just your sort of thinly veiled pornography of violence."

Jimmy wishes he could mute the thing, but it's not one of those nice televisions with remote controls. It's not even that it's on particularly loud, because it isn't, it's just that he can't stand Edgar looking over his shoulder at it, drawing neat little conclusions and parceling off the contents of Jimmy's past and present and not looking Jimmy in the eye.

"Slow night?" Jimmy asks. He's got one hand on Edgar's chest, holding himself up, and he can feel the heavy thump of a heartbeat through the dress shirt. It feels alive and solid, like something he could get his hands around, like something with weight.

"As a matter of fact, no." Edgar turns his head, pressing one cheek to the floor. It almost looks like a gesture of animal submission, but Jimmy reckons he's too smart to fall for whatever game is being played here. "It's been a wretched night and I'm sick to death of everyone I know."

"Poor baby," Jimmy singsongs, dipping in close to smile down at the man. "Life must be so hard for you."

"Our struggles are consecrated," Edgar replies airily, lifting his shoulders in an approximation of a shrug.

"Struggles, hah," Jimmy says. He leans back again. "Like you know pain. With your nice little apartment and your nice little job, and your nice little church, what a struggle. Did they shuffle your paperwork upsidedown? Oh, gee, did they forget to refill the stapler?"

Edgar does not move, but his eyes narrow and they seem to Jimmy for a moment like clear lids above a rolling boil, twin windows into a dark and seething heat. "They took away my deaconate," he says, betraying barely a note of that subterranean burning.

Edgar has never come right out and explained what his damage is—what exactly his crusade is against—but Jimmy knows that there's something wrong with the church, something gangrenous, because Edgar has told him so. Politics, Jimmy suspects, are at fault here. He is dimly aware that Edgar's job means more to him than a paycheck a month, but the paycheck is the part that interests Jimmy. He wonders what Edgar will do when the money runs out. He gives a little squirm at the thought of Edgar reduced like that, suppressing a shiver.

"What're you gonna do?" Jimmy says. "Kill 'em?"

"It wouldn't change anything." Edgar blinks slowly. "The paperwork is already filed."

"So you're just gonna take that?"

It's Edgar's turn now to show his teeth. "Yes," he says, "I'm just going to take that."

"Edgar Vargas," Jimmy says, "the parish bitch."

In a flash of movement Edgar's hand is around Jimmy's wrist—his wrist is so small, or else Edgar's hand is so big—ready to pull him down to the floor again, and only paused in its effort because of the blood that is running, running in a single slow drop, down the solid curve of his neck. Jimmy has sawn a thin sliver of flesh from the skin above his adams apple. Edgar lets his free hand hover beside Jimmy's head, a pointed reminder of how delicately their strengths remained balanced, before allowing it to drop, brushing fingertips over the shell of Jimmy's ear on the way down.

"That's going to be difficult to hide," Edgar says, in a voice heavy with an insinuation that Jimmy can barely comprehend. He touches the glistening raw place slowly, deliberately avoiding any sudden movements.

Jimmy's whole face is burning, he's pretty sure, radiating from the place where Edgar's hand brushed and all across his skin. It's spreading like a toxin in his blood stream. Was there poison? Has he been poisoned? Is this climbing pressure of sensation the last death thralls of a nervous system on the verge of collapse? He takes a deep breath and thinks he can feel his own heart beat in his palms, against the handle of the machete and against the arches of Edgar's rib cage. Not certain whether his strength is about to fail entirely, he allows his knees to slide out from under him. His hips find a seat over Edgar's hips.

"Did you just poison me?" he demands.

Edgar's eyes flutter shut, and then open again with less focus than before. "Of course not," he says. "I couldn't possibly poison you without poisoning myself. Don't they teach anything in schools anymore?"

The man underneath him draws his legs up from the floor, bending the knees, and the upward press of his thighs pushes Jimmy forward, forces him to slide just a little over the juncture of Edgar's hips. Edgar tips his chin back, closes his eyes again, and Jimmy can't even bring himself to take advantage of that blatant falter in defenses because if there had ever been a question in his mind whether Edgar understood the horror show of desire building between them, that question has been put to a terrible rest. Edgar's soft little sigh could have blackened the very walls of his own church.

"I could kill you," Jimmy says, testing the idea out on his tongue.

"You could," Edgar agrees. "You won't."

Jimmy scowls down at him. "How do you know?"

"You're a hedonistic philistine," Edgar replies, pleasantly. "And you don't know how to let well enough alone."

Jimmy grits his teeth and grabs Edgar's wrist as well as he can, digging nails into the tender inside skin. With enough pressure, he thinks he could pop one of those delicate little veins. He yanks it toward the zipper of his pants, pressing the heel of the palm against himself. He is absolutely not going to frot into someone's captive hand, but he has to admit it has the appeal of immediate effectiveness.

"Jerk me off," he says, nails digging deep into flesh. He's making up for a precarious balance here by pressing a little harder down onto Edgar's neck than strictly advisable, and he can see tiny new wells of blood springing up under his pressure.

"What a seduction," Edgar remarks, already bring up his other hand to the locus of action. His voice is a little hoarse from the pressure on his throat.

"Render a complaint to the complaints department," Jimmy snaps.

Edgar delicately opens him up and slips the erection free. His fingers ghost over the length of it, drawing a wet gasp from Jimmy.

"Jesus," Jimmy manages. "Aren't you gonna give me the sin talk, Mr. Former Deacon? How about some protestations here."

"Well I am at knife point, aren't I?" Edgar says, spreading his open palms. "What can I possibly do?"

He says this with such smug irony that Jimmy is immediately on the lookout for rebellion, but all he can see is a length of sinuous body underneath him, pushing up into him faintly like a patient tide.

"Hands back on the dick," Jimmy says, sharply. "I'm gonna get what I want this time, and you're gonna give it to me."

Edgar raises one eyebrow. "I think you're ill prepared," he says, and jerks his hand once, hard, down Jimmy's cock. The dry friction—no, he is not prepared—sends such a spasm of aversion and pleasure up Jimmy's body that his hand opens around the knife handle, reflexively, and it slides to the floor. Instantly Edgar is moving, flipping them over, slamming Jimmy's back against the ground. He grabs Jimmy's jaw, spins the machete out of their reach, and kisses him.

Edgar's mouth is hot, and he kisses like a summer storm, like a hurricane. He's practically pried Jimmy's jaw open and is devastating what lies inside, his knees between Jimmy's knees. When he spreads them, it forces Jimmy's legs open wider. Okay, so maybe Jimmy is a fucking philistine who doesn't know when to stop, because instead of scrabbling for the weapon, Jimmy buries his hands in Edgar's hair and holds him there, so that when he finally has to take a breath it is against Jimmy's lips, wet and sultry and desperate. He hates to prove the guy right, but he's also really terrible at denying himself anything.

Edgar finally lets go of Jimmy's chin and expertly props himself up on one arm. He sure seems to know what he's doing, but Jimmy decides in a fit of spite that it's just an extension of Edgar's usual infuriating poise, the flawless kinesthetic awareness that colors his every endeavor. He probably has not had as much experience as Jimmy has. For, you know, given definitions of experience.

Edgar slides one hand down Jimmy's neck, thumbing the Adam's apple with a faint threatening pressure, and then over his chest, over his stomach, two lazy fingers trailing down to the steadily growing hardness between them. Jimmy bites the bastard's lip when his thumb flicks over the head, half in warning and half in surprise. Edgar laughs. He is literally the worst. Jimmy's decided he's ready to fucking go—he jams a hand between them, his knuckles knocking knuckles, and grabs the bulge straining Edgar's slacks. He can feel the hardness through the cloth, the shape and the thickness, wants to palm that weight and hold it. His fingertips are electrified.

With the back of his hand, Edgar pushes away Jimmy's touch. "Oh no," he says, "I'm being assaulted, remember?"

"Yeah," Jimmy says, squeezing mercilessly, "you are."

It's a terrific battle to see who will gain possession of the territory between Edgar's thighs. Jimmy is aware that this is the pettiest argument they've ever had and they're not even talking for it so, yeah, that's ten levels of infuriating. But in the end Edgar can't seem to concede the progress he's made while ravaging their kiss, and he cannot possibly maintain control of two fronts at once. Edgar turns his tongue into a pillaging force. Jimmy shoves away pants and gets his hand firmly around a beautiful cock. Occasionally you have to pick your battles.

When Edgar comes it is like something terrible has been done to him, he bites down on Jimmy's lip and breaks the soft skin there as if he's desperate for anesthetic and trying not to scream. Jimmy grins into the faint flavor of blood and tugs harder, tightening fingers that grow slicker and slicker with each movement until there is nothing left but Edgar's broken gasps. He's slumped, his forehead is pressed into Jimmy's cheek, his breath is coming in labored pants over Jimmy's jaw.

Jimmy wonders vaguely when the last time had been for him.

Edgar's hands come up to Jimmy's throat, spread with the delicacy of butterfly wings over the tubes and fleshy pipes concealed under the skin. "When I kill you," he sighs, "I'll kill you like this."

"No you won't," Jimmy says, "you couldn't keep me down."

"I know," Edgar says, mournfully, "but it would be worth trying."

He slides down, all the way down, presses his cheek into the sharp jut of a hipbone. Jimmy hears Beethovan in the alien whine of the blown speakers, sees a glitter of blood on the saw-blade of the knife he can't quite reach, feels winter like the flutter of a hand on the back of his neck. Edgar's still-uneven breath breaks over his cock. It's always been obvious that they were delicately balanced on this tightrope of mutually assured destruction, but now, in the slow trail of fingertips over thighs, it is becoming clear that they are not just suspended here by accident; they are holding each other up, compensating for the capricious wind and their own unstable footing. This can only last as long as they both remain in flux—Edgar will eventually reach the end of whatever deranged crusade he's intent on perpetrating, Jimmy will find Nny or die trying—but here, in the middle of things, they are dragging each other up with a bloody minded unwillingness to let go.

Edgar shifts. Edgar presses his flushed lips against the head, lays a gentle kiss there, and then swallows Jimmy down like communion wine.