The Monster of Elendhaven

by Jennifer Giesbrecht

Power was sweeter than apples. It was cheaper than water, and sustained the soul twice as well.

Monster was the best, his favourite word. The first half was a kiss, the second a hiss.

“Do not call me Doc,” Florian said, light toned. “I’m an accountant.” Johann grinned. “Right. So what’s the prognosis, sweetheart?”

The sea battered the cliff like a rabid animal, frothing salt spittle around dark stone teeth. It was going to split him open, chew him up. It was going to devastate his body so completely that it probably wouldn’t even hurt until he was almost healed.

He felt Florian bristle beneath his chin. “I’m a student of economics,” he explained, tone defensive. “Tracking patterns and behaviour through comparative equations. I am taking the mathematical shape of you.” “Yeah, well, if that’s all you wanted, you just had to ask, honeydew. You don’t need to add three plus six to get me out of my clothes.”

What Johann learned about Florian Leickenbloom didn’t need an equation. It took just this—a few well-placed words, a lack of tact—to discover that he lost his breath when he giggled, covering his mouth politely like the girls from the convent school.

“You’re awful,” Florian hissed out between chuckles. “You’re a vile creature.” “Herr Leickenbloom, please.” Johann smiled easily. “Don’t underestimate me. I’m more than vile; I’m an honest-to-god monster.”

“You see that?” he scoffed once he and Johann were alone. “I am nearly thirty years old and they treat me as if I am still a child. A fragile bauble.” “Aren’t you?” Johann sidled up to him and tapped him on the head. Florian hardly came up to his shoulders.

“I am as he said.” Florian tucked his hands into the folds of his elbows. “An Elendhaven landmark. A public spectacle of mourning. My childhood tragedy has turned me glacial in the eyes of others. I am trapped in ice, a curiosity in a glass jar.”

He sat himself on the edge of the fountain and grabbed Florian by the fingers. “Hey. Sit down for a minute,” he said, patting the space beside him. With an hour until noon, the park surrounding Hallandrette’s fountain was empty. “I am not sitting on those stones,” Florian groused. “This coat cost three hundred marks.” “You are a delicate bauble.” Johann snickered.

“Oh, Johann. You did quite a job of stalking me, but you haven’t the faintest idea what I’m about, do you?” Johann liked this look on Florian: playful and cruel. He eased back on his palms and gazed at him. “So tell me about it.”

Florian tapped Johann’s nose.

Slowly and with great deliberation, Johann stood up. He towered over Florian and asked in a low voice, “Cinnamon-sugar, duckling-sweet, my little honey-flower … what is it, exactly, that you want?”

If only Florian were the type of man who appreciated poetry, Johann could have flattered him to blushing.

Johann didn’t like sailors much, so when the drunkard attempted to correct the spread of his net he tipped the man into the harbour and set his foot on his back until he stopped struggling. He hummed and licked meat salt off the fingers of his gloves before remembering the cadence of Florian’s voice as he’d said, And please, try not to make me an accessory to murder. Magnanimously, he flipped the sailor over with the toe of his boot and let him dead-float towards the shore. A fifty-fifty chance, he told himself, that he’d wake up before the water settled in his lungs.

Johann hitched himself up on Florian’s worktable and grinned. “So like me then?” “Well.” Florian sniffed. “You are a creature of base instincts. I suppose I could believe it. Would you hand me the syringe, please?” If only Florian knew how base. Johann’s gloved fingers brushed against Florian’s as he handed him the brass needle.

He had his sleeves rolled up to the elbows so that Johann could watch the magic flow through his blood. His veins emitted a faint light between the scab-crust of their wounding, and the light made his arms unnervingly translucent. His skin looked like the flesh of an insect beneath the exoskeleton; the arcane bioluminescence highlighted the dark sleepless ditches under his eyes, making him hollow, unnatural, insubstantial. Johann had to clutch a hand to his throat to keep the flash of affection that rocked through him caged in his esophagus where it belonged.

Oh, Florian was a pretty little thing. Too pretty, too aware of the length of his eyelashes and the feminine tilt of his jawline. No one would expect that boyish half smile, that nervous wringing of the wrist, to conceal a monster. Monster, Monster, Monster, Johann said to himself, the first half a kiss, the second a hiss.

Johann reached out to brush a lock of hair from his face and Florian met his eyes, sudden and fierce. “Your eyes are black as the sea,” Florian told him. The words were almost an accusation. Johann breathed a few cautious beats before responding. “That’s sweet, peach. You’re saying that I was made for you?”

“But nevertheless, you know, here I am.” “I know.” Florian dropped a polished roe into Johann’s coat. “What a perfect and unexpected gift for the child that never grew old.” He rapped a finger against Johann’s chest. “A toy that cannot be broken.”

Johann didn’t like to leave fingerprints, or to touch things that were alive, or to be touched back. Still, he wondered what Florian’s skin felt like once the greasepaint was smudged off.

He knelt in the sludge and pried the calipers open. They looked like a pair of legs, spread-eagle. Johann eased them apart salaciously, stroking his thumb down the long curve of the upper thigh. Florian caught his little jest—Johann made sure of it. When he winked, a flash of lucid pique lit Florian’s face up like a bolt of lightning. It lasted about that long, too. Florian took a wide step across the track so that he could—subtly—kick Johann with the heel of his boot as he passed.

Florian didn’t answer, or pay Johann any mind. That was an unacceptable state of affairs, so Johann leant an elbow on the crown of Florian’s head. His hair was so light and fine that it required only a bit of mussing to fluff up like a dandelion.

“I thought you enjoyed being given a chance to monologue, sweetling.” Johann poked the tip of his nose in retaliation, and savoured how stupid and childish it looked when wrinkled.

“Come on, sugarsnap, you want to tell me. You’ve never told anyone about this, have you?” “I’ve whispered it to the dark,” Florian hissed, “which is the only confessor I need.” “I am the dark, Herr Leickenbloom. You can tell me anything you want.” “Is that supposed to impress me?” “Don’t pretend that your melodramatic ego isn’t flattered by the idea that I might exist to soothe your broken psyche.”

Johann looked at the arc of Florian’s pale throat, and the golden gashes his eyelids made when he blinked them shut. He hooked one of Florian’s wrists with his thumb. He kissed the Leickenbloom family ring with the affection of fealty. Then he kissed Florian’s knuckles, carefully and one at a time. He kissed the center of Florian’s palm wet and said, “You’re quite charming, you know, especially when you don’t mean to be.” Florian’s breathing hitched and he stared at Johann with impossibly bright eyes.

Johann’s heart thumped and he spun on his heel to follow Florian like a dog. Things had changed between them since the night of the dinner party. Johann had never fucked someone more than once, and had certainly never fucked someone slowly or ponderously, as anything but opportunistic—and often unsatisfying—curiosity. He’d never met a person who remembered he existed five minutes after turning away from him, or who cared to learn what he was called.

Johann slithered up behind him and wound his arms around his waist. He nudged his nose beneath the soft curtain of Florian’s hair and found the pulse at his neck. “Ask me nicely,” he whispered. Florian jerked back his elbow to throw Johann off, but it was a weak gesture, perfunctory. All a part of the song and dance.

Well, wasn’t that how it had been most of his life? Spinning a myth around himself even though no one was ever watching?

Oh yes, my delicate snow-flower Florian fucked you up real good.

Florian let out an ungraceful snort. His look of utter, familiar disdain was so pretty that Johann couldn’t help but kiss him.

Florian covered the case with a tiny, soft hand. “Johann doesn’t partake on the job.” Johann gave Florian a crisp smile and shoved him aside. “First time for everything, Boss.” Florian puffed right up at the bold defiance, and Johann laughed with joy at being able to flirt under these starched-up bastards’ noses. Half the men in the bar were closet buggerers anyway.

Florian snickered and leant his cheek against Johann’s rib cage for a moment. Johann thought he was snuggling for warmth, but it turned out that he was just blowing his nose. He pulled free of the half embrace and went staggering into the street, spinning around with his arms out.

Unwise to dream of death in a world where someone has the power to make those dreams come true.

“Hmm.” Johann snaked his hands out of his pockets and sauntered up to him. “Right now, I bet you could make my dreams come true, too.” Florian sighed. “Has that line netted you success in the past?” “Nah,” said Johann. “But this usually works.” He pushed Florian down with a sharp palm to the breastbone.

Florian watched his hair fall. It hit his cheek and smeared the rouged skin. Johann popped open the first three buttons of Florian’s coat and smoothed a hand over the silk shirt underneath. Ah, there it was: a hummingbird heartbeat.

Florian bit down on Johann’s lips. Not hard enough to draw blood, adorable.

“Do you like it when I do this? Is that it?” Florian demanded. Johann could not nod, or shake his head. He was not sure which would emerge if he had control of his body. He had not been puppeteered gently; his spine was over-cocked and his arms pulled back at an impossible angle. The pain was exquisite.

“You’re impossible. Why should I expect that you would ever learn a single lesson?” He sighed, then flicked his wrist to force Johann to scoop him up bridal-style.

“Now, manservant, you may take me home.” “It is a credit to me as a ‘bodyguard’ that I don’t drop you right back in the mud, Boss.” “Don’t call me that.” “Sweetheart.” “Or that.”

If Johann were not so terribly besotted by the noises Florian made when kissed beneath the jugular he would have voiced it out loud.

A name said in a certain tone of voice. That’s what makes a thing real.

What was Elendhaven without Florian? A foul spit of land sinking deeper into the sediment every day. What was Johann without Florian? A name that no one knew.

“Florian, this … this is a stupid way to die.” Florian struggled to speak, but there was blood in his mouth. Johann gripped his hand harder. “After all that, you can’t intend to actually die.” “Goddess … Johann … sh-sh.… shut up.…” Florian coughed up blood all over his chin, over his collar where mud had been streaked the night before.