Liars Into Lessons Part 7

By the time Asher makes it down the stairs, stumbling fully over the shoes and landing on his hands and knees among them, John's stopped making any noise. His screams are nothing more than fading echoes bouncing sadly off the walls.

I'm leaning against the wall to the right of the kitchen hallway, watching as Asher slips and slides through the ever-widening pool of John's blood. My final liar is mumbling incoherently, the scent of vomit clinging to him like a bad perfume as he desperately tries to reach his motionless boyfriend. He's a wreck and that's after only seeing Aaron and Sarah. It hasn't registered yet that his beloved John is dying with the swiftness of a receding water line ahead of a tsunami.

But it will. And when it does? Asher's suffering will be all the sweeter than John's.

My attention slides to said boyfriend and I fight down the urge to clap myself on the back. I'm actually rather proud of my handiwork on this one, it's my best yet.

I'd used the larger pieces of my pint glass for nicking crucial organs and making strategic cuts that would bleed out just rapidly enough that emergency services wouldn't get here fast enough to save him even if they had been called thirty minutes ago. But anyone can make death-cuts with a decent sized piece of jagged glass. But to effectively use the tiny ones? Oh, now that takes skill.

I had taken handfuls and slapped them onto his face so that it looked like an old lady's pincushion. Had forced the ones that were more like sharp, crushed ice cubes than pieces of a destroyed drinking glass down his throat and made him swallow them. Had pulled up his sweatpants and scattered more pieces across his groin before punching him there over and over and over again until his back had arched, every muscle taught as he coughed up blood from his torn up throat, unable to do anything but register the agony that danced along every nerve.

He has hundreds of cuts, internal and external, that make it an impossibility that he'll live much longer. Not that Asher knows that, not that he can see it. I know and John knows, but neither of us is going to divulge that.

That's not entirely accurate. John can't andI just flat out won't.

"John...? Oh fuck... John. Talk to me. You were right just... shit. John!" Asher shakes the other male, patting at his face only to pull his hands back with a hiss as the glass there cuts his palm. "Talk to me, please!"

I snort, the sound short and derisive. Seems a bit too little, too late for him to be asking for communication. But Asher always demanded things of his partners, especially things he wouldn't or didn't do.

He never practiced what he preached.

"Show yourself!" Asher screams out suddenly with all the fervor of a spoiled child gearing up for one hell of a tantrum.

Oh yes, I will get right on that. All in due time.

"Stop hiding like a fucking coward!"

I snort again, shaking my head as I do.

"That's a bit rich coming from you," I answer, slipping along the wall to step backwards into the kitchen hallway. "Seeing as how you told him he was seeing things. He warned you I was here. You didn't listen."

John chooses that moment to begin convulsing as his body begins enters its death throes, as the internal bleeding adds a pressure to his chest cavity that has already begun to decompress his lungs and other vital organs. Asher's attention immediately goes back to him, hands grabbing and tapping here and there, forgetting what CPR is, chest compressions, to throw open the front door (or try rather) and call for help. In those moments when his cheating, worthless boyfriend lays dying in front of him, he goes completely stupid. It makes me almost feel bad for John.

Almost.

At least when John and I had been together he knew I'd never lose my head in this kind of situation. He knew I wouldn't forget how to try and save him while simultaneously taking out his attacker.

But Asher? Now Asher just blubbers and flails uselessly around. If John actually had any chance at survival, the bastard would have squandered it.

"I'd say goodbye if I were you," I comment nonchalantly as I step all the further back into the kitchen hallway. "Y'know, while he's still alive enough to hear you."

"John, I'm sorry. Please don't die... please, J-John? No, no, no, no, no, no, no. No, John! No, please no!"

Gods, this is a sad sight: watching my final liar shake and scream at the corpse of his boyfriend. I only handle a minute more of this nonsense before my eye twitches and what little patience I have left evaporates.

"Will you shut up?" I snap and watch him go still. "He's dead already. Can't you smell his vacated bowels and bladder? For fuck's sake."

"Why?" He asks after several blessedly quiet moments, sitting back on his haunches, staring down at what used to be John. "Why did you do this?"

Before I even decide if I'm going to answer or not, he's on his feet and flipping on the living room lights. Admittedly I hadn't seen that one coming but am more than willing to do this the shorter, but no less entertaining, way.

As he's whirling around, I'm already halfway across the living room, easily vaulting the coffee table. Soon as his gaze lands on me, jaw-dropping open I deliver an open-handed slap to his face with enough strength to send him toppling sideways. Grabbing a fistful of his hair I roughly pull him up and throw him at the wall, my other hand catching him on the rebound by the throat and slamming him back and holding him there. I growl low, teeth bared, my face inches from his.

"Why am I doing this?" I mock, raising both eyebrows when he kicks and punches at me. With a scoff, I pull him off the wall only to slam him back hard enough that dust rains down on us. He groans and stills.

"Because you do not get to endanger my life without learning just how little I value yours."

With my free hand I pet up along his right thigh, fingers dipping under his shirt, nails skip-catching along his skin. He squirms, having expected me to go immediately for pain. I can tell by the way his cheeks flush and his hips shift with an aborted roll seeking friction to rut against. My smile is all sharp edges as I lean forward so my lips are right by his ear.

My fingers slip up around one of his nipples and he can't swallow back the involuntary moan as I pinch and pull it. I laugh low and deep in his ear.

"You wanted to play with my Sadist without any restraints?" His body twitches and I laugh again. I don't have to see his face to know he's fighting with the knowledge that I'm going to kill him and his body's stupidity of telling him sex is going to happen first. His arousal is a cloying scent in the air that mixes with his fear into my favorite kind of cologne. And it's a cologne I plan to drown myself in before the last spark of life leaves him.

"Wish granted."