The punch must have weakened Elliot, and he shifted helplessly, watching William’s face, which tensed in utter horror as he stared at his open palms before settling his beautiful blue gaze on Elliot. “What have you done?” he asked, and instead of walking over, he disappeared from Knight’s side and appeared right next to Elliot, making him stir. His instincts told him to move, but William’s hand squeezed on his shoulder and kept him in place. It was cold as it had been, but this time Elliot could sense its weight, as if it were material and solid as a real man’s flesh.
“I did it,” Elliot whispered, which earned him a frown from Knight, who shook his head and wiped away blood off the blade with his hand.
“I’m not fucking blind, you shithead. I buy you stuff, I feed you, and you attack me? You ungrateful piece of trash,” Knight hissed and approached Elliot in aggressive stomps, his unruly hair in a dark halo surrounding his face. “You wouldn’t even be here if it wasn’t for me!”
Elliot licked his lips. That much was true.
“Damnation. You... you tricked me,” hissed William straight into Elliot’s ear, and his fingers tightened on Elliot’s shoulder. They felt bony now and so cold they might have been made of ice.
“I… did what you wanted,” Elliot said, all too aware that Knight was listening. Yet, he seemed to be looking right through William, now frowning deeply and stepping away.
William’s face, always so perfectly chiselled now looked sunken, with hollowed cheeks, dark circles around the eyes and cheekbones so pronounced his face was reminiscent of a skull clad in a layer of skin. A phantom with solid, exposed teeth that could tear through Elliot’s own flesh.
“You offered me a man whose veins don’t carry a single drop of my killer’s blood,” hissed William, rapidly moving his fingers from Elliot’s shoulder to his throat. Uncontrollable shudders overcame Elliot’s body when the long digits tightened, preventing him from talking when Knight shouted something unintelligible.
“He can’t hear me,” William growled, “so you keep silent, you maggot, and listen. I don’t know what game you think you’re playing, but you have Mercier blood in you, and now I’m trapped inside you. If you want to survive this, you better keep this a secret. I cannot believe I am sharing a body with someone’s bastard!”
Elliot had to fight against the chokehold, but when he finally managed to pull William’s hand away, he realized it had been his own hand that squeezed around his throat in such a punishing way.
I’m sorry, I don’t understand, Elliot thought, hoping that if they shared a body, then they shared a mind as well, but there was no recognition in William’s eyes, so that didn’t seem to be the case.
Was he now… possessed? Was this what William had wanted from Elliot all along? Not to get his own body back, but to take over Knight’s? He shuddered at the thought that he’d almost enabled such a thing. Even now, so hurt and heartbroken after Knight’s rejection, he wouldn’t wish him dead, or for his soul to disappear.
But if the body William wanted was the strong, athletic form of Knight, then Elliot’s own must be a prison of gangly limbs and looks far below what William was used to in his lifetime. No wonder he was angry.
He missed it when Knight squatted in front of him and tapped Elliot’s cheek with a deep frown that spoke of worry rather than aggression. “What’s up with you? Have you helped yourself to some of Joker’s stash? What was it? The shrooms?”
William stood by, handsome again, with his arms crossed and tapping his foot against the floor. Knight really didn’t see him.
Elliot looked away from Knight’s face, afraid Knight would read him like a book. “Maybe. I don’t know. I’m dizzy. I’ll go if you want me to,” he mumbled, still shocked that he’d been deceived.
Knight hung his head, and for a moment the thick mass of hair obscured the handsome face that was in no way an inheritance of the Mercier bloodline. It was only now hitting Elliot that for all the efforts and energy Knight was putting into discovering and celebrating his ancestors, he was really a stranger to all the people who’d made him so proud to carry his surname.
Elliot would never tell Knight about this. It would break his heart.
Knight squeezed Elliot’s shoulders, but this time his touch was reassuring, and when he looked up, it seemed he’d made a decision. “This cellar is off-limits. I’ll fucking put an electronic lock on it, or bolt it shut, but you’re not coming down here again. Come on,” he said and tugged Elliot to his feet with a single pull of those strong arms.
Knight wasn’t a Mercier. Yet Elliot was, even if not by name.