Samuel Almost Died

Samuel almost died. Horrifically so. But to him, it had not been so horrifying.

It was not uncommon for him to work double and late shifts at the diner, bustling with people from all walks of life: locals looking for a quick breakfast, lunch, or dinner, travelers taking a pit stop for a quick plate of pancakes and black coffee, and one-time visitors never to be seen again. It felt as though the place never slept, always alert with entry and exit bells, bacon frying on the stove, the smell of coffee clinging to the walls. He greeted every customer with the same practiced friendliness that had become almost second nature to him. The locals all knew him, they loved him, considered him a keystone of the town, but for the longest time, he had felt nothing but loneliness.

Every night, Samuel went home to an empty house. No wife, girlfriend, children, not even a roommate. He couldn't count the number of times he'd fallen asleep in front of the television, some old rerun playing throughout the night, illuminating the empty whiskey bottles on the floor beside his feet. The empty smiles and passive greetings, day in and day out did nothing to remedy the void growing inside of him. Constantly surrounded by people, but perpetually unable to truly connect with any one of them.

After another late night, staying there until nearly two in the morning cleaning after the midnight truckers that stopped by and he didn't have the heart to turn away, Samuel walked home. He took his time that night, savoring the cool night air as it flowed through his body, fresh and untainted by the scent of stale grease and coffee that he lived in, that clung to his hair and clothes no matter how much he washed them. He stopped to pick some roses in front of his house before he entered, his hands trembling and uncoordinated from this deep fatigue, he took longer than he would've preferred to unlock his front door. Once inside, setting the roses on the side table, he was ready to just collapse.

Just as he was undoing his shoes, his heart jumped at the sound of a knock on the door. In his fatigued delirium, he instinctively approached the door, but in the back of his mind, a knot of primal dread grew and festered quickly. By the time he told himself not to open it, his hand was already in motion: unlocking the door and twisting the knob open. Standing on the other side was an unfamiliar man, maybe about his age, dressed in vaguely military or utilitarian clothing, with unruly dark hair and heavy combat boots. His face was not entirely visible in the dim lighting, and just as Samuel moved to turn on the porch light, the man stepped over the threshold and shoved him back, sending him to the ground. The man slammed the door behind him, standing over Samuel.

A sense of terror like never before flooded through Samuel's body, and he made poor clumsy attempts to scramble away, reaching for the cord of his nearby telephone. The man pinned him roughly against the floor. Slowly, he knelt over Samuel, his breathing slow and steady, and straddled his hips. He withdrew a short dagger from his coat, deliberately slowly, letting Samuel see the blade, causing his heart to race even faster, short, stilted breaths barely escaping his lips. The man drew a gloved hand beneath Samuel's shirt, over his stomach, across his ribs, the sensation stirring in him something he'd never felt before.

Dagger raised high above his head, the man drove the blade sharply into Samuel's abdomen. A shallow gasp escaped his mouth, the sharp agonizing pain piercing through his body, the cold drip of blood as it trickled down his side. The blade withdrew, then struck again, slightly lower, with a cold twist in his body, sparks of pain and euphoria radiating through his pelvis. He reached out, weakly grabbing at the man's arms and the blade, every movement sparking more pain, but he wasn't horrified. Samuel wasn't sure how it would ever feel to get stabbed, and despite the terrifying presence of the emotionless man above him, the sensation did not produce uncontrollable fear. In fact, he felt less alone than ever, all at once, consumed by the presence of another human being---He didn't want it to stop, this violent intrusion on his body---Blood crept up his throat with each stab, and for a moment he could only imagine his lower body as a mangled mess of flesh with a hand twisting in between his intestines, creeping up through his body until it grasped his heart.

Samuel wheezed weakly, blood pooling at the back of his throat. His hand wandered down to his lower abdomen, finding the gaping punctures in his skin, slick with blood. The man grabbed his hand and pulled it away. Samuel smiled, a breathy laugh bubbling up from his chest. He intertwined his fingers with the man's, tracing the blood-soaked padded gloves. This made him pause, his emotionless gaze tracing Samuel's face, frozen with blissful delight. After a moment, he stood up, releasing Samuel's hand and wiping off the dagger. He did something that Samuel didn't see, before quietly leaving through the front door, ignoring the protests from the mutilated man on the floor.

"Wait," he coughed, "Don't go...please..."

But the man was already gone, and Samuel was left to die. The world faded away from him, his grasp on his consciousness slipping, and he thought it was already too late. In his last coherent thoughts before he drifted away, he felt no concern at the idea of leaving the world behind. Before that night, he hadn't realized what he really wanted: to be seen by someone else in his most vulnerable state, to be violated, to be consumed, to be held. These twisted desires stifled by his solitary lifestyle only surfaced with a blow to the face at the most unexpected time. If he believed in god, he probably would have thanked him for this final revelation, to be finally given what he truly desired, deep in his heart.

But Samuel did not die. Days later, he awoke in the ICU, his abdomen aching with horrendous pain, a tube down his throat. It must have taken three hours before he was extubated and able to speak. He drank more water than ever, seeking to soothe his sore throat, while the physicians explained to him what they knew, and in turn, asked him questions about what happened.

Samuel could hardly focus on their explanations, his mind returning to the man that nearly killed him, just after they mentioned that someone called emergency services for him. He attempted to fill in the blanks. Is that what he did? Did that man really save his life? If it was true, it fucked with Samuel's head even more than he could already handle. His hand drifted down his stomach, resting over the bandages tightly wrapped around his body, tracing the faint ridges of the stitches beneath. His heart began to race again, remembering the euphoria coursing through his body at the touch of this man and his cold knife sliding through his insides. His fingers dug slightly into the bandages, itching to feel that pain again. A lightheaded sensation fell over him as he felt himself hardening at the thought-forming-fantasy of that man trying to kill him again.

Coming back to awareness of where he was, glancing around at the nurses measuring his vitals, he quickly pulled the hospital sheets up to his chest, his face burning with shame. No one seemed to notice, but it didn't matter. He knew, and all he could feel was disgust at these desires.

Samuel glanced over at the woman refilling his IV and tentatively cleared his throat. "Excuse me," he said, his voice quiet and hoarse, "do you know who it was that called the ambulance?"

The woman looked at him, and shook her head with a gentle smile on her face. "No, sorry. The ER physicians told us that even the EMTs didn't know. You don't remember anyone coming by, finding you?"

He shook his head. "No, I passed out."

"Must've been a very kind neighbor."

"Must have."

It was another day before he was able to leave, following a fruitless series of questions by the police about who his attacker might've been, eventually coming to the conclusion that they weren't really going to do anything with the information he was giving them, despite their obligatory promises to do so. He was discharged with pain medications and a structured rest and care plan that he knew he wasn't going to follow. All he wanted was to get back to his ordinary life without any further delay. But even in his haste to get back to work, back to his regular routine, his mind lingered in the place of that night, clinging to the only traces of life he ever got to feel. Every movement triggered a slight pinch of pain where the stitches held his wounds together, and images of that man's face appeared in his mind, over and over again.

More days passed, longer than Samuel would've liked, before he was able to get back to work. Every night he would wake up from a dream of that man returning, doing more unthinkable things to him, and only desiring more. He would write these fantasies in his notebook late at night, hard, aching, his hands trembling as he longed for this violent touch. His mind could hardly focus on anything else, wishing every time he walked through the front room, to hear that dreadful knock on the front door. He picked at his stitches and pulled at his bandages just to feel the pain again, to feed his daydreams and desires with nightly masturbation, forever unsatisfied.

It took a great deal of brute forcing himself back into reality in order to return to the diner and open it back up. It was a suitable distraction, momentarily, cooking food and making coffee like he always had. Simple mindless work. And for a moment, he thought he was ready to forget about the whole thing, having hidden the journal in the back of his closet and thrown away his old bloodstained clothes.

"Samuel, dear! It's so good to see you're up and working again."

Samuel smiled as he poured Miss Beatrice's coffee. "Thank you, Miss. I'm glad to be back. I've missed this place."

The gruff lumberjack sitting beside her grunted as he cut into his hearty stack of pancakes. "Did they catch the guy who did it?"

He shrugged. "It's of no concern to me, Larry," he said while maintaining his smile. "I'll be alright."

Miss Beatrice looked slightly concerned. "I certainly hope so. There have been some murders in the next town over these past few months. Who knows what might be out there?"

Samuel nodded, a tight lipped smile on his face, and quickly returned behind the counter to the kitchen. That conversation did nothing for his distraction, and once again, his heart was thundering out of his chest at the thought of who that man was. If he was truly a serial killer, that made his insides burn even brighter, with the worst of the fantasies coming closer and closer to reality. He focused on serving food again, the relaxing activity slowing his heart rate and quieting his mind once more, giving him space to catch his breath. Every minute that passed felt like an eternity. Was he going insane? And insane not so much in the way of batshit-raving-lunatic, all of those tragic people who make the news for losing their minds, no not like that---more in the sense of this unbearable obsession you read about, the types of obsessions that make you lose all sense of who you are, what your body is made of, and what your life really meant to begin with. Samuel didn't want to think about it though, as though the mere suggestion of his own insanity would actualize it. Scramble some eggs, fry some pancakes, move through breakfast and lunch and soon it would all be forgotten.

The dinner hour arrived without incident, a golden sunset glow warming the front of the diner through the wide windows, regulars entering, greeting Samuel, wishing him well on his recovery and ordering burgers and steaks. He moved swiftly between tables, picking up plates, serving food, pouring coffee and water, cleaning up after snot-nosed brats and coming to a distinct distaste for the people around him with their normalcy and ordinariness, in a way he hadn't ever thought before; and in a refusal to admit it to himself, that almost dying fucked up his perception of the humans he used to unflinchingly share company with, he forced a smile the whole way through it, face and chest burning with the insincerity of the involuntary performance. This is what you're supposed to do, he knew, this is how it's supposed to go, now why all of a sudden did he experience such violent disgust for them?

Nearly dark, a mechanic Samuel knew by the name of John entered, smiled, and clapped a hand on his shoulder. "Better now, are you, buddy? Nice to see you're not dead!"

Samuel smiled with a gentle chuckle. "Yes, thank you."

John sat himself at the bar counter. "Anyway, still serving breakfast? I hope you don't mind, I've been craving bacon and eggs all day."

He shook his head and took John's menu. "No problem. Want coffee with that?"

"You already know I do, bud."

Samuel returned behind the counter, moving to refill the coffee pot when the door chimed once again, and turning to greet the customer, and immediately shot in the heart with indescribable dread and shame and excitement all at once, disgusting and oozing down the inside of his ribcage, at the sight of the man who tried to kill him standing in front of the counter beside John. His heart raced at the sight of those same emotionless eyes meeting his own, hands trembling, forgetting the scolding hot coffee he held and was on the verge of spilling.

John glanced at the man over his shoulder. "Oh, Jackson! You stopped by after all."

Jackson, as his name apparently was, looked at John. "Guess so." Wearing that same utilitarian type clothing, his hair just as unruly, a cold, dead look in his eyes, punctuated by the sharp, pale angles of his face and broad pointed nose.

Samuel, in an effort to hide his current instability, poured John his cup of coffee and smiled warmly. "Oh, you know one another?"

"'Course," John answered, "He just started workin' at the shop a few weeks ago. I recommended your diner, but he never came by 'till now."

Jackson silently sat down at the bar, folding his hands on the counter. Samuel swallowed, his throat tight, and set a menu in front of him. "Well, welcome in."

At the first opportunity, he excused himself to the kitchen and braced himself over the sink, heart racing, panting, his entire body shaking, unable to remain still, the severe presence of that man just in the other room, behaving as though he hadn't tried to kill him, as though they'd never seen one another in their entire lives, ripping and tearing through his fragile body and for just a moment thought that his scars had been torn open and blood and intestines were dripping down his legs, spilling onto the floor, his disgusting insides raw and exposed for everyone to see. No one had ever made him feel this vulnerable before, this pathetic, this desperate.

He broke into a quiet, disjointed laugh. "Christ."

Eggs and bacon were made, plated, served to the ever-oblivious John in the now mostly empty diner as the sky grew ever darker with the deepening night. He finished his plate, left a hefty tip, and bid farewell to Samuel and Jackson, leaving them alone. Together.

Samuel stood on the other side of the counter, hands folded together, watching Jackson read the menu with torturous anticipation. "Have you decided what you'd like to eat?"

His eyes darted up to meet Samuel's face, making him visibly flinch, before he quietly set the menu on the counter. "French toast."

"Of course." Menu in hand, returning to the kitchen, body overloading with sensations and movements indescribable, knowing he was being watched, he forced himself to keep moving. Cook for the man who tried to kill you, who brought you to life, who broke your mind in just one evening. Yes, yes of course, a thank you meal, a beautiful, beautiful thing, he deserves it, he's freed you from the constraints of this isolation, this horrifically ordinary life. Plated fresh french toast, accompanied by butter and syrup, set in front of this gorgeous terrifying man.

"It's on the house, just for you," Samuel said, and smiled, crooked, but more genuine than before. He returned the menu to the counter. "If you'd like anything else, feel free."

Nonchalant in his fluid movements, buttering the bread, pouring syrup over it, and quietly eating, Jackson did not acknowledge the clear mania writhing behind Samuel's eyes, if he even noticed it. Samuel struggled to know what he was thinking, whether he actually recognized him, whether he cared at all that his victim was serving him food, watching him like he was waiting for something to happen. God, victim, it sounded so good in his head now, so tantalizing, so erotic.

"Are you the only one working here?" he finally said, eyes still trained on the plate as he cut another slice out of the toast.

He nodded, too quickly. "Yes. Not really preferred, but that's just how it is."

"That explains why you left so late."

Something shattered in Samuel's mind that hadn't broken already. He swallowed stiffly, and his hands trembled more wildly than they already were. "You...you were watching me?"

Jackson paused to wipe away a spot of syrup dropped on the counter, then rubbed his fingers into a napkin and took another bite of his food. After a moment, he nodded without saying anything, as if only half listening.

Samuel thought he might collapse, might faint entirely, his head spinning with static warring against the edges of his awareness, knees weak and shaking. His response was so insignificant, so harmless but in his mind it had meant everything, some kind of confirmation of his fantasies that he was special. This was delusion, of course, and maybe on some level Samuel knew this, partial awareness buried beneath his frenzied thoughts, but it didn't matter. He clinged so hopelessly to the notion that he actually mattered to another man.

He caught himself on the counter, breaths shaky, composure unravelling. "That's so..." He swallowed again, struggling to shape the words around his tongue. He smiled. "That's so hot."

This made Jackson fully freeze for the first time, fork hovering above the plate. His face betrayed no emotion, but the corners of his mouth twitched slightly, as if resisting an expression. He looked Samuel in the eye, maybe searching for something, a level of attentiveness he hadn't had before. Voice low and gravelly, he said, "What did you just say to me?"

Samuel stiffened and stood up straight, trying to put himself back together. "I'm--I'm sorry, I don't know what came over me. I really shouldn't have said---" He stopped, sensing some kind of futility in his words. Jackson's dead eyes continued to bore into him, wrenching apart his heart, breaking it up into pieces, doing things to his insides he couldn't have thought possible. He inhaled sharply, and clenching his apron tightly in his fists, twisting the fabric over and over around his fingers, he smiled again. "Just---Please excuse me for a moment."

As soon as he made it through the kitchen and into the back custodial storage room, he collapsed, head in hands, the world spinning around him. Despite it all, he couldn't deny how elated he was to have this man sitting in his diner, like seeing a celebrity. The intensity of the experience through his body was more pleasurable than anything else, the chaotic agony and unstable rhythm of his heart was all that he imagined and more, in his late night fantasies, in the pathetic journaling done in the early mornings waking up from intensive wet dreams, more than he could have ever asked for. He was alive.

But through this liveliness he could barely handle all of the requirements that came with it: how do you control your breathing, your heart, the bones and muscles in your hands that seemed to defy everything you wanted to do? A fully living body, not just alive but aroused, was a heavy burden to bear upon someone just as weak as Samuel considered himself to be. He managed to calm down in that back storage room, but wondered if it was really all for naught, that he might just collapse again the moment Jackson looked at him. Maybe so, he thought, but it was worth it just to be in that man's presence.

When Samuel returned to the dining area, Jackson had finished eating and was glancing over the menu again. He took his plate, forcing his hands to be steady. "Is there anything else I can get for you?"

Jackson looked at him, then dismissively returned the menu to the counter. "No."

Samuel nodded, taking the menu. "Thank you for coming by." A pause, then, "You know, you're always welcome here. You can come back whenever you want. And food will always be on the house."

He tilted his head inquisitively. His lips parted slightly, an unspoken question lingering on the tip of his tongue, before he stood and turned away. "Goodnight, Samuel."

A kiddish laugh escaped Samuel. "Goodnight, Jackson."

___________________________________________________

Jackson didn't return to the diner for the next couple of weeks, and Samuel didn't seek him out, as much as he wanted to. It would be so easy to just go to John's work, find Jackson working there, see him whenever he desired, but he wasn't even sure what he would do once he was there. Just collapse on the floor in front of him? That seemed the most realistic result, and maybe he'd be willing to reckon with it if there'd be no one else there, but forcing himself to behave normally after everything that happened, let alone in front of Jackson, seemed far too difficult. He continued on as he always did, but the fantasies piled up, and his internal attitude toward these people eating at his diner only became more rancid, the more this normalcy seemed to be at odds with his very being. Maybe he just didn't notice it before, but now it was unbearable. Joy and laughter and the very presence of these couples and nuclear families were grating on his senses every single day. The only respite were the late nights in his bedroom with scribbled thoughts in composition notebooks that rarely held any consistency at all, overlapping and spilling into the margins in cut-off sentences and thoughts that morphed into entirely irrelevant ideas.

The dinner rush was fading out when Jackson returned to the diner. He sat in a booth this time, absently looking out the window while waiting for Samuel to deliver his menu. Coming out from the kitchen, Samuel was caught in the doorway behind the counter as soon as he saw that man's face again. Swiftly, he turned around and walked back into the kitchen, finding himself stricken with the same elated terror that possessed him the first night Jackson came into the diner. But without it being empty, he needed to control himself.

In a dazed state, he took out his notepad and wrote everything on his mind, everything he wanted Jackson to do to him, everything he needed to say and couldn't bring himself to. He hesitated before he walked back out to the dining area, wondering if it was even worth expressing his desires to this man. In his mind, the worst case scenario had become to be ignored entirely, for Jackson to never acknowledge him again, leaving him wallowing in the normalcy he wanted so desperately to escape, whether it was through death or something else. But he had work to do, and he couldn't hide forever. He tore the note off and retrieved a menu before heading back out. Jackson was watching the kitchen door when Samuel returned, making his heart flutter in his chest and a barely suppressed smile cross his face.

"Thank you for coming by." He set the menu down with the note just beneath it. "Anything I can get you to drink?"

Jackson was silent for a moment, then nodded. "Just a black coffee, please. With some sugar."

Samuel nodded. "Of course."

Turning away, he glanced at the other tables, saw nothing that needed picking up just yet, and went behind the counter to pour Jackson's coffee. He couldn't keep himself from glancing in his direction again and again, just to see if he was reading the note---and he was, when the slip of paper drifted out as he picked up the menu, his attention was immediately drawn to it. Samuel snapped his gaze away when Jackson glanced up at him and turned off the coffee maker when the pot was full. Sucking in a deep breath, he walked back over to the table and poured him a mug of coffee and dropped some sugar packets for him.

"Have you decided what you'd like to eat?" Samuel kept his eyes away from the note clenched between Jackson's fingers, employing his best acting prowess to entirely ignore the fact that he had left such an obscene note for him.

Some more silence as Jackson looked over the note again, then he set it down with the menu and ripped open some sugar packets before pouring them into his coffee. Every motion of his was casual, unhurried, filling Samuel with more unchecked anticipation that shouldn't have even been anticipation. When he was done stirring, he finally spoke. "Sirloin steak and eggs. Rare and scrambled."

Samuel choked down a laugh and nodded. "Of course!" He wrote down nothing and nodded again. "Coming right up." Jackson held out the menu to him and he shook his head. "Hold on to it, in case you're feeling like ordering anything else. Like I said---"

"It's on the house," he finished.

Collected plates and left bills for the other patrons whose faces he could barely see, then returned to the kitchen and got back to cooking. He stared into the pan as the steak grilled, sizzling flesh bleeding into the oil of the skillet. A little absurd, he thought, the second time I'm cooking for this man who tried to kill me. And more elating for him, the thought of giving Jackson a sharp steak knife, watching him slice into the bloody flesh wishing it was his own---

Flip the steak. One side was sufficiently seared, and he moved to pour the eggs into the next pan. Maybe at one point he would've had people there to work with him: to wait tables and cook orders and clean up after every day, but those days were long since past. He wasn't even sure how much longer he could keep the diner open, let alone hire more people. In these last few weeks however, he could not be more grateful to have this time alone, to have the privacy to indulge in his insanity.

Samuel plated the food as soon as it was done, retrieved a steak knife for Jackson and headed back out into the sitting area. The other customers were gone, money left at their tables, but Samuel didn't spare it a second glance, sitting across from Jackson as he served him his food. But instead of eating his food, he looked at Samuel and set the note in front of him.

"This?" he tilted his head. "You mean all of this?"

Samuel leaned against the table, unable to hide his giddiness compounded with the almost unbearable anxiety. A tight, painful smile was stuck on his face that he couldn't suppress no matter how hard he tried. "That's..." He swallowed, then nodded. The words weren't coming to him right. The type of anxiety stricken in his body for the moment reminded him for a moment of how people describe feeling when they ask out a crush---an experience he had never lived himself but had heard about enough times---and realizing that's exactly what this was, he coughed out a strained laugh. He managed, "You know, I think you changed my life..."

Jackson's expression didn't change. "By stabbing you? Yeah, sure. You're going to have to be more specific than that."

"It's like--I feel like---" Samuel pursed his lips. "As insane as it sounds, I think you almost killing me brought me back to life. Or to life, to begin with. I don't know that I was ever really alive, you know? Like living."

Jackson huffed. "Alright. And it turned you into a homosexual masochist?" He picked up the note again and waved it in Samuel's face. "All of this? It doesn't just come out of an average guy. You were already fucked up to begin with." He poked at his food. "Maybe I should've just broken your neck. What a headache."

A thrill ran through Samuel's body at the suggestion. On a breathy whisper, "Would you?"

Jackson didn't say anything for a few moments as he ate, but he frowned at Samuel's reaction. When he paused to take a sip of coffee, he returned his gaze to the note and then to Samuel. "I mean yeah, what kind of a question is that?"

More euphoria flooded Samuel, before he settled back in the present moment, if even for just a bit. "Something else I wonder, why did you leave me alive? You could have killed me."

Jackson bit into his steak. "Self-centered, aren't you?" He paused for another moment, slicing off another bit of steak, while Samuel watched, a bit hypnotized. "It's not really any of your business anyway."

After watching him finish his plate, Samuel picked it up. Standing, he asked, "Seriously, will you torture me again?" His hands were trembling so much that he thought he might drop the plate entirely, but he didn't care, so much of this life didn't matter to him any more, with the prospect of this right in front of him. And he almost laughed again, finding it unbearably absurd to be asking him this, previous inhibition entirely dead and gone.

Jackson sighed, finishing his coffee. "Sure. If it'll get you to stop giving me any horny love notes."

All Samuel heard was the yes and in his mind, it was as though his crush agreed to go on a date with him. He chided himself for the juvenile thoughts and tried to move on. "You can come by my house. Tonight? Tomorrow night? Please?"

Jackson, now visibly irritated, stood up. Samuel violently flinched and stepped back, but he didn't advance like he thought he would. Jackson simply straightened out his coat, looked at Samuel with some kind of a scowl, likely considering whether or not to actually do anything. Resigned, he said, "Tomorrow night."

Samuel nodded quickly. "I'll...I'll see you then."

Briskly, Jackson moved past him and headed out of the diner without a second glance. In the empty diner, lightheaded, Samuel collapsed to his knees.

___________________________________________________

The diner was closed and the whole day Samuel spent tangled up in soiled bedsheets, reading through his fantasies over and over in painful anticipation of the night to come, one hand tense and impatient around his cock, the other struggling with the pages of his notebooks in between orgasms. In the last couple of hours of daylight, he lay staring at the ceiling, still impatient, his heart still thundering out of his chest, still half hard. The time went by excruciatingly slowly, but by the time some of his awareness returned, it was dark out, and the clock was ticking past eight. Despite all he was asking Jackson to do, he felt a pathetic need to restore some of his dignity before having a guest over. So he changed out of his clothes, showered, and replaced his bedsheets before storing his notebooks in the drawers of his nightstand.

Jackson arrived around eleven that night, and Samuel had been waiting restlessly in the dark, momentarily wondering if he would be coming by at all. It could've just been another form of torture, though one Samuel was decidedly less enthusiastic about. But that knock on the door relieved him of all of that tension, and he lept out of his seat, not sparing a single moment of hesitation. When he opened the door, Jackson didn't wait for him to step aside, he charged through himself, Samuel stepping back in shock, and slammed the front door shut behind him.

Samuel opened his mouth to speak, but no time for pleasantries was given. Jackson grabbed him by the collar and slammed him back against the wall, breath shocked out of him. The knife was in Jackson's hand before Samuel realized, the flash of the blade in the dim light he could only recognize a second before it was in his shoulder. Everything in his mind snapped in half and the last of his inhibitions were gone now, with the pressure of this dangerous man against him, every sense of pride and dignity no longer mattered to him---he had everything he could have hoped for.

Blood leaked from his shoulder, warm and fresh, soaking his shirt as it clung to his skin, pressed between the hilt of the knife and his body. A shuddering gasp escaped his body, and he trembled, sparks of pain intermingled with euphoria beginning to course through him. His hands found Jackson's shoulders, gripping at his jacket.

"Christ," he breathed. "That's so..." He sucked in a sharp breath as Jackson withdrew the knife.

The blade sat against his throat, blood dripping down his skin, cold against his Adam's apple. Jackson paused. "That's so...what?"

Samuel opened his mouth, then shook his head when the words didn't come.

Jackson moved the knife down, then twisted the point into his ribs. "Then shut the fuck up. I don't want to hear it."

When the knife hit a particularly sensitive spot, a spike of nerve pain radiating up Samuel's chest, he cried out in pained euphoria. The delight was so potent that he could not remain still under Jackson's grip, writhing and pressing against the wall and his body almost involuntarily, which only served to piss Jackson off more. He drove the steel toe of his boot into Samuel's shin ruthlessly, a sharp crack to his bone and Samuel flinched, his hands clenching more tightly on to Jackson's shoulders, a pathetic whisper of a whine slipping from his throat.

Jackson stabbed Samuel again and again and again---in his arms, his legs, ripping gaping wounds into his flesh, blood gathering on the wood floor between them. With these new mouths in his body vomiting blood, leaking blood vessels in between them, Samuel felt himself growing weaker with each moment that passed, knees weak and his body heavy like a loose bag of fluid. He slumped forward into Jackson, and him being visibly disgusted by this, shoved Samuel off of him and allowed him to fall to his knees with a painful thunk into the hardwood floor.

Through it all, Samuel was the happiest he'd ever been, the most human, the most alive, and nothing in his life up to this point would ever come close to the amount of unbidden pleasure he'd been given so generously by the world. The agony deliciously coursing through his body seemed to spin him into a dizzying high, with this sensation of his head against a series of congealed clouds.

Samuel's near-death state was evident to Jackson, who noticeably slowed his torture. He paused to breathe, and Samuel leaned forward, resting his head against his thigh, fingers curled weakly around the cuffs of his pants. Jackson grabbed Samuel's hair and forced his head back, met with a drunken expression of glee, and he couldn't help but scoff. "What the hell is with you."

Samuel chuckled wearily and tried to grab onto him with more solidity, but before he could, Jackson grabbed him by the scruff of his shirt and dragged him over to the living room, propping him against the couch. He knelt down beside Samuel, who in his high, held a smile suspended on his face and reached out tenderly to Jackson, drawing his hand sloppily across his face. Jackson swatted his hand away and leaned forward to lift up the hem of Samuel's now-tattered bloodstained shirt. He drew the tip of the blade across Samuel's stomach, then sliced open a gash just below his ribs. Samuel breathed in sharply, suppressing a muffled moan in his chest, a whine, something pitiful in these moments as his life force drained out of him---this life force he gave in its entirety to Jackson.

A vertical slit down the expanse of Samuel's belly, and the blood pushed out through his severed flesh, slipping down his pelvis and soaking his pants, and again, he moaned in between pained gasps. Jackson's hands slipped into the wounds, pressing against the sides and forcing them to tear a bit wider and that enlivened Samuel a bit more, his eyes widening and another pathetic yelp escaping his throat. When he looked at Jackson, maybe expecting some sadistic glee, all he got was that same steely emotionless face he'd known the entire time, splattered with his blood and lips occasionally curling only into disgust. Samuel's smile fell, his breaths growing shallow. When he looked down, his intestines were oozing from the slit in his abdomen, Jackson's blood-covered hand half buried between them. At this point, he couldn't be sure whether what he was seeing was real, with the way his vision trembled in the low light, but he didn't care.

Samuel blinked slowly, and Jackson was kneeling beside him, impassively watching as he bled out. He coughed, weakly, and managed, "Hey..."

Jackson looked up at him, said nothing.

"Can...Can I ask you something?"

Jackson maintained his silence.

Samuel reached out to his face, depth perception distorted and missing, his hand hitting Jackson's shoulder. "What made you...what made you choose me?"

Jackson tilted his head. "Because you live alone and wouldn't be missed."

The unflinching bluntness of his answer shocked him. "No...that's not what I mean." He struggled on an inhale, choked a bit on his next breath. "For you...What does it mean to you?"

"It doesn't mean anything. You're a random stranger."

"W-What?"

Jackson stood, slipping his bloodstained knife back into his coat. "Were you expecting something more?" He nudged one of Samuel's legs in the same manner a child might upon finding a dead rat on the sidewalk. "That's truly adorable. What reality are you living in, where this fucked up 'love at first sight' is mutual?"

Samuel coughed up some blood and in a panic, attempted to reach toward Jackson for some kind of comfort, comfort from a man he loved and would never love him in any reality, that his illusions convinced him possessed some kind of hidden delicate core, but looking at the sneer on that man's face, every one of them was shattered. Jackson kicked him back and headed away towards the door without any more words. As betrayed and distraught as he was, watching him leave so callously, in between these slices of reality that the logical side of him tried to force him to accept, he could not bring himself to hate Jackson. He preferred to die in love than to die filled with hate, and in those final moments, all he could regret was not asking for him to kiss him.