Part one: The Promise

This is not a sad story.

It is a wonderful story, about how I met the most amazing man in the world, and about how I killed him.

Killing wasn’t strictly speaking my profession, as I will always consider myself a student of the craft, but I did receive contracts now and then and it does pay the bills. To train, I also partook in the occasional passion kill, hobby kill, and the much sought after mercy kill.

Right now, I was just killing time.

The roof of a rundown apartment complex was as good a destination as any, and there was a 20 pack of Marlboro burning a hole in my pocket.

Once I realised I had company, inspiration struck faster than my match and I swapped the cigarette for a 4 inch serrated.

The small man who was sat right on the edge, swinging his legs lightly and leaning over far enough that he might just slip off the side, calmly looked my way.

My footsteps weren’t usually so pronounced, but the loose gravel underfoot was giving my approach an unusual fanfare, so I shouldn’t have been as surprised as I was to be spotted.

I didn’t make an attempt to hide the knife, and I walked closer.

The man gave me a polite smile like one would give an acquaintance whos name you’d forgotten.

“Are you going to kill me?” he asked, just before I was within stabbing range.

Now, I’ve been asked that question hundreds of times, and I thought I’d heard it every way it could be said, but I was wrong. People have asked that calmly, and angrily, and crying, and excited, and horrified, but he didn’t. It was like he wasn’t asking at all. I’m not even sure how to explain it, but it almost felt like a threat.

″...Yes,” I answered, after glancing around to make sure we were alone. Probably because the way he asked had rattled me, I took a very aggressive step forward to try and startle him. He had a look of dull surprise for a moment, but then went back to that polite smile. “You’re not going to try and escape?” I asked for some reason. Plenty of people didn’t try to escape me, though, so why was I so confused?

“Nah,” he said wistfully, looking back over the edge of the building. “I mean, I’m free right now, so I got the time to kill.” He looked back at me with a totally different smile. This one was warm. He chuckled somewhat playfully then. “Get it? ‘Kill’?”

He seemed to be waiting for my approval, but I just couldn’t help the frown that took over my face.

“Forget it, I won’t kill you,” I resigned, twiddling the knife around a little before pocketing it and turning away.

“Ah, that’s what they all say. You’re such a tease,” the man complained, pouting. “Well, I’m gonna be here for a while if you change your mind. Bye, then.” He wiggled his fingers as a farewell without looking at me.

I stomped over to the door leading back inside, unusually irritated, before turning at the last second and calling out to him. “Do you smoke?” I asked. He leaned his head back at the night sky, and then further back until he could see me (upside down).

“If it kills me faster than you will, then I guess it’s never too late to start!” he laughed.

I walked back over and took a seat next to him, taking out and lighting my own cigarette before passing him one. Once he put it between his lips, I slipped both hands behind his head and pulled his face close so I could light him with the embers of my own.

He probably inhaled too deeply, in a somewhat surprised gasp, because he suddenly started choking so much the cigarette flew right out of his mouth and over the side of the building.

We both watched it silently fall away.

He peeked up at me sheepishly. “Another!” he almost pleaded and I couldn’t help laughing so I just passed him mine while I giggled on.

This time he managed to avoid dropping it, but he still coughed with each puff, so I kept laughing, and then when he started laughing with me his coughing fit just grew until I had to snatch the cig away from him, shoulders still shaking with my unrestrained chortling.

I took an excessively long drag while maintaining eye contact, and then blew all of it in his face.

“Ah!” He protested, lightly pushing me back and spluttering, but smiling all the same.

I couldn’t remember ever laughing so much, especially not with someone I was going to kill.

His hand remained on my shoulder even after he was breathing normally, and I didn’t mention it. It was a cold and small hand. I wondered what that cold and small hand would feel like if it was clawing into my skin in self defence as I murdered it’s owner.

And the thought alone gave me a semi.

I didn’t kill him that night, though.

We chain smoked through my entire pack until the sun rose. At one point he started to shiver so I gave him my scarf, and considered choking him with it, but didn’t.

We talked a lot that night, but laughed more.

He never asked me why I was going to kill him, or why I didn’t, or if I was going to later on, but he asked me many other things.

Firstly, how long I’d been smoking.

“Since before you were born,” I answered, eyeing the youthful face.

“Oh, not long then,” he quipped with a cheeky upturned lip.

He also asked me if I lived in the apartment complex we were sat atop, so I returned the question. Neither of us did.

“Must just be fate then,” he commented.

“Must be.”

He asked my name, at one point, and like a fool I gave it. My unease at that was short lived, since he gave his in kind immediately after. “Pleased to meet you, Jack. I’m Aevum,” he introduced, extending a hand for me to shake.

I took a soft grasp of it, then snaked a finger up his wrist and gave him a little stroke before taking my hand back.

“You’re warm,” was all he said to that.

“No, you’re just cold,” I told him and he looked genuinely surprised.

“You recon?” I smiled.

“Cold as a corpse.” He laughed. “Should I warm you up?” I asked as I put an arm around his shoulder and pulled him into me. How easy it would have been to give him a push and watch him fall over the edge.

“Yes please!” He nuzzled and rubbed his head against my chest vigorously.

“I’m not heating you with friction, are you trying to start a fire?” I squeezed him, and felt positive he would snap if I squeezed hard enough. He slipped an arm around my waist, over my shirt but under my jacket, and I gasped. The gasp was mostly because of how chilled his arm was, but partly because he was touching my weak spot.

We remained partially entangled like that for most of the night, only shifting occasionally. We teased each other several times and it felt comfortable, like we hadn’t just met. Or maybe it was because we’d just met that there were no expectations or rules. It was just a funny and wonderful time.

When dawn was starting to break I gave his head a little pat before asking something I only hadn’t asked earlier for fear of the fun ending.

“If I hadn’t come by, were you going to jump from here?”

“No way,” he assured. “I’m afraid of heights.”

I roared with laughter and ragged him about by his collar.

“Then why sit here?”

“Well, I thought that if I sat here long enough, then someone would come by and kill me. Or, failing that, keep me company,” he explained tartly. I rolled my eyes.

“You want to die?”

“Not particularly. I don’t think I’d mind being killed, though.”

“Why’s that?”

“If you ask me such personal questions you’ll make me blush!” he whined, lacing his fingers with mine and giving me a squeeze.

“Right, sorry,” I giggled. I planted a light kiss on the back of his hand.

The sun rose on his side, so when he turned to look at it I turned to look at him.

With the new lighting I saw just how pretty he was. His features were delicate, and so was his frame, and his eyelashes looked golden in the sun. I raised a hand, undoubtedly with the intention to take his face and make an utter mess of his peach tinted lips, but his words stopped me.

“Do you want to kill me?”

“Yes,” I answered instantly, clearly over eager. “Ah, but,” I backtracked. “Not right now.” He turned around to me and beamed. Aevum made short work of pulling me into a kiss, and I was stunned with how deep and impassioned it was. He left me breathless and flushed when he pulled back.

“I have a proposition,” he said.

“I bet you do.”

“Turn your ‘not right now’ into ‘in a year’.” I raised an eyebrow. “I like your company a lot! And I’m not in any kind of rush, so let me stay with you for a year without killing me.”

“What would we be doing for a year?” I asked, my eyes naturally falling to his lips.

“Anything at all. Everything, even. But you have to promise me,” he began, his serious tone tearing my eyes up to meet his, “that no matter what happens through the year, you will kill me at the end of it.”

This proposition was almost too good to be true.

“Anything at all,” I purred with delight. “I promise.”