Nero sat at his stool in the lab, his workspace smeared with crimson blood and disgusting fluids. Recently, the resident guinea pig had died, and Nero was the one to find it. He wasted no time scrapping up the body, leaping at the opportunity to have a fresh subject to experiment on.
Where Green loved violence and would present him with some of the fruits of his labor, Nero was content to let natural processes happen. This line of work was morbid, but he would much rather be the coroner rather than the executioner.
“I’m sorry, Pea,” he whispered softly, methodically trimming and stroking her fur before he made the first incision. “They’ll want to bury you, but you cannot be put to rest. I’ll say you were stolen… and I will bury you in a nicer place. I was good to you, and you are returning the favor, my dear.”
Just as he was about to pin open her body, he felt a slight aura of blood around him… someone all too familiar to him. Green, of course, had been aware of Nero’s presence, and he never fails to show up when he feels it. He didn’t even have to turn his head, as he felt Green’s chin over his shoulder.
“Goodness,” Green purred, squinting his eyes in a smirk as he previewed the subject. “This is the University’s pet… did you kill her? That’s very unbecoming of someone as nice as you…”
“I would never,” Nero sighed, idly grazing her cheek fur with the back of his fingers. “She is dear to me, Green, and I would never murder an animal.”
Green seemed satisfied with the answer, but Nero still stalled. He craved independent study, something he could truly do all his own and focus on his own craft. But as he peered up, looking into those bright, pale white eyes that mirrored his own, he knew it wouldn’t be possible. He was here, in this moment by whatever fate, existing to serve as a twisted entertainment to Green. Green wanted to be much more than he was, and, to be honest, so did he, but it wasn’t something either of them would come to together.
“You bring out the worst in me,” Nero said, a hushed confession that drew Green’s eyes from the corpse to his face. “I… cannot hate you, but I wish you would leave me be.”
“That isn’t possible. Logically and physically.” Green sat up straight, his hands moving from the table to be crossed over his chest. “A blood mage will find a coven, our magic thrives when we are social. If there were more of me, friend, then they would be here as well. A good mage, which would include everyone if this were a blessed world, would come running at the scent of blood, eager to drown in it like we.”
“We? You made more friends besides me?”
“‘We’ should include you, friend. It’s your nature, is it not? I know you dream of blood and gore, finally reaching the final destination of all of our kind,” Green said, moving from his seat to creep towards Nero’s. “I know you dream of stalking in the night, taking down a foe with that sweet, polished blade, and dragging them home, experimenting on them with your… delicious power that… that eludes me.”
Nero paused at this, sneering for a moment before it slipped from his expression all at once. He simply placed his scalpel down, staring at his beloved animal who he had cared for. He cared for this creature, held it and fed it water and pellets as he coddled it in his arms. Before the students were even around to see her, he knew her like she was his own daughter, before she was even placed in her tank.
Nero recoiled a little, his eyes widening as he questioned himself for the first time. Why had he done this, why was he defiling her peace in death? He needed to experiment, to become stronger in his powers, but why not anyone but her!
And to make it worse, he finally looked up at Green, who returned his gaze with such an unbothered expression, expectantly waiting for a response. The silence that followed seemed to bore him.
“I’ll see you tomorrow, Nero. If you’re going to bury this thing, don’t come get me this time. I have… things to do. Don’t be late to class,” Green hissed, pushing a stray lock of hair out of Nero’s eyes. His fingers grazed right along the scar on his temple, lingering for a moment before he pulled away and left the room.
Green rushed into the room, panting and stumbling as he reached his arms out to steady himself on Hale’s shoulders. He reeked of sweat and had a slight metallic odor to him, but that was almost next to normal for him.
“Monster, I have had a vision… it was so sweet and pure,” he hissed, settling himself between Hale’s legs. He grinned at Hale’s frozen expression, something between fear and apprehension. “He will visit me, my dear, sweet Lae, he will come to me, and I know this… I was given a vision, like the kinds you have, but this one was deliciously morbid. I dreamt I tore your eyes out, cooked them and stole the fluids like popping a pus-filled abscess… I tore out your organs and mashed them into a pus-filled soup, and we ate together, Lae and myself. He looked at me with kindness, not the scorn from my last dream! He must love me, he must still want to be in my life if he would torture me so with such a nightmare!”
Hale’s breath froze as he was given the shocking and, quite frankly, disgusting details, but he had no moment to respond. Green climbed up the chair, letting his head rest against Hale’s chest as he panted.
“Please, monster, you have to help me. You said you had a vision about me, and now I have a vision about you. So we’re even… that means we undoubtedly are meant to be together and do something in our future… I need you…”
“No… no, get away from me!” Hale pushed Green off, which accidentally spilled the project he had been working on prior to this interruption. But he didn’t care now, not when fate and his potential dismemberment, physically or spiritually, was involved. “I refuse, refuse to be a part of your madness any longer! You have to, just have to stop this. Lae is not a person to be proud of, and you have to stop acting like this. I refuse to be associated with a murderer, someone who is trying to ruin our lives here.”
Green reached for Hale’s leg, but Hale stepped backwards. He saw the deep, impenetrable intensity in that stare, something beyond devotion just shy of utter insanity and terror. He had seen it in town, around the chapel where the sinners had killed a woman. The flame gnawed at the painting of the Grand Ladess, and only her eyes burned bright that night. In an instant, with the loss of life, the Lady’s bright eyes bored into the murderer’s soul, and he simply ceased to live all at once.
Green looked like this man, crawling towards someone whose destruction was guaranteed. And yet he cared for him, and Hale knew he did! In the very first night of their enrollment to the university, Green had latched onto him, cared for him and fed into his visions.
Lae was what changed him, and he fell victim, like a fly on a trap.
Without a word, Hale broke free and ran out of the room, not letting this fate come to fruition. What an ugly creature, that man. His friend.
Green recoiled from Lae, fearful and confused as if he weren’t the one who wanted this meeting in the first place. Hale tried to look at him, but Lae’s power turned all gazes towards himself. He was the main event, the pinnacle of the very concept of magic, the ideal in a world of great thinkers who could not appreciate himself.
“Green,” he cooed, crouching down to take a knee. “It has been a long time coming, yet you prolong our meeting still. I crave your presence dearly. Won’t you indulge my desire?”
Green looked on, his eyes pale from the reflection of the great light above him. Hale could sense his legs being locked in place, trembling with the hesitation of meeting one’s greatest fear. The man who had given him nightmares out of the audacity of love is the man who he desired to see most, but perhaps his love was simply a desire best expressed in thought alone?
“Green, won’t you come to me, my love? I cannot come to you, and we will never be one… and you deserve my essence, the thing you’ve craved all this time.” Lae smiled sweetly, or as sweetly as a man like him could manage. He extended an arm, but his fingers merely clinked upon the barrier that Hale created. Green could not go with this monster.
“Green,” Hale rasped, his breath struggling from the sheer intensity of Lae’s mana. Tears pricked at the corners of his eyes, his breathing turning ragged with effort. “You can’t… you’ll… you’ll be making a mistake… please.”