Page 82 of Sinful Crimes for the Artistically Inclined
“But at the time, well, ‘hate’ would be putting it mildly.” Percy laughed. “In fact, he was especially salty when he saw me again, because this was the third time I’d tried to?—”
“This should be good.” Joe’s lovely face cracked a wide and highly entertained grin.
Percy’s easy geniality lessened ever so slightly, though the smile remained. “Well, you know all about that already, Joe?—”
“No,” Joe said, turning to Althea to explain, “I never knew what it was all about, but those two—I have never met two men who hated each other so much. Honestly, I’ve been really curious about what could have caused it.”
“Ha!” Percy laugh-shouted, his still-bloody hands gripping the wheel tight. “Ha!” he repeated, possibly even louder. “Youmean… Ha!… You mean Eve never told you about our… About our history?”
“No,” Joe replied. “I mean, Candide said you tried to kill him, but obviously that’s?—”
Another burst of excessive laughter, then, “Of course, that’s… No, I wouldn’t… Not Eve…” Percy fell silent at the wheel with the smile frozen in place. He had tried to kill his brother. Several times. He wasn’t even possessed for most of them. At all costs, Joe must never find out. “Good old Eve,” Percy said by way of filling the silence. “I really would like to talk to him soon.” Then, for Althea’s benefit, “He and I are very close now, and that’s all water under the bridge.”
Percy didn’t at all like the thoughtful look that had come over Joe’s face in the rearview mirror, so he continued the story as a means of distraction. “I secretly left the Necronomicon with my brother’s adoptive sister?—”
“Is that what she is?” asked Joe, successfully redirected.
“Close enough,” Percy said, moving along. “I left it with her and her roommate?—”
“Anna,” Joe verily seethed. Althea’s eyes were drawn across to him wonderingly with his dark delivery of the word.
“Anna,” Percy agreed, almost choking the same word out, clearing his throat a little, then deliberately shifting back into a casual tone. “Anyway, Anna fell in love with my brother, Eve, hilarity ensued, demons, ghosts, that sort of thing, and they met Joe, because of my book, and then, months later, when I needed an exorcism done on that brother who’d been missing for twenty years, they… they introduced us.”
Althea nodded her enthusiastic encouragement. “And now for the funny bit?”
Joe’s eyes met Percy’s in the rearview mirror, a barrage of hideous memories assailing them both. All the air suddenly seemed sucked out of the car as a rigid silence descended.
“Actually, maybe it isn’t that funny after all.” Joe shifted hisgaze, staring out at the blue-pink dawn of the morning across the desert for all of thirty seconds, before his miserable reverie was interrupted.
“Joe was the most beautiful man I had ever seen in my life,” Percy said, watching his expression in snippets between watching the road. “The second I laid eyes on him, I was his slave. Then he opened his mouth and spoke, and I never wanted him to stop. The sound of his voice, every word he said, completely enthralled me.”
Their eyes met in the mirror, Percy’s full of worried ardour, Joe’s still sad but sweetly surprised as Percy continued, “Of course, he had no idea how deeply I adored him. And he would never have had me anyway, back then. But the more time I spent with him, the more beautiful he became, in every way possible.”
“That’s very romantic,” Althea said quietly.
“It was very romantic,” Percy replied, encouraged by Joe colouring a little in the warmth of his comments. “I don’t know if Joe even knows how romantic it was. I had never in my life met anyone who is so genuinely good, all the way through, the way Joe is. And it changes the way you see the world when you’re around someone like that. He didn’t need to help me, or any of us. It was dangerous, and I asked him, a complete stranger, to put his life on the line for me. He was endlessly kind, endlessly caring, and he almost died right by my side, trying to save someone he didn’t even know. And I adored him for that. I adored him from afar for the longest time, and I never thought I had a chance in hell, but then one night— Althea, this is the funny bit…” And indeed Percy laughed to himself before continuing, “Joe caught me kissing Anna?—”
“Anna?” Althea asked, her eyes wide with scandalous interest.
Joe rolled his eyes. “Anna.”
“Your brother’s girlfriend?” she asked again, eyes even wider.
“Well, it was complicated,” Percy attempted.
“Not that complicated,” Joe muttered under his breath.
“And this is your brother who you love so much?” Althea asked.
“Yes,” Percy confirmed.
“And you kissed his girlfriend?” she continued.
“Yes,” said Percy, irritation creeping into his voice.
“And did heknowyou kissed his girlfriend?”
“He did,” Percy said. “Eventually. And he was fine with it. Like I said, it was complica?—”
