I’m here, Treycore! I’m here!
The creature laughed at their affection. He mocked their pining for one another.
Treycore’s eyes welled up, his aquamarine eyes glistening with the room’s lantern light, his lips twitching as he said, “Please come back to me.”
I’m trying! Help me, Treycore!
***
As Treycore gazed into Kid’s eyes, he didn’t see the boy he’d fallen in love with. He wasn’t sure what he was seeing. But it wasn’t Kid. “Maybe you’re not there anymore after all.”
He sighed.
Kid rose from his chair. “Thank you very much, sir, but I think I should probably be leaving now. I have so many tasks to perform for Vera, and I should be getting to them.”
Treycore nodded. “I guess so.”
Kid headed to the door.
Something in Treycore wasn’t willing to surrender so easily. He rose to his feet and dashed after him.
Kid turned to him, eyes wide, alarmed.
Treycore pressed his lips against him and shoved him back against the wall.
Surely, his kiss, his touch, would stir something… some tiny memory. He just needed it to stir that physical intimacy they’d shared. That rush of adrenaline. That intoxicating feeling of their flesh being together.
He pressed his lips firmly against Kid’s, his thumb sliding under the hem of his shirt across his hip.
Kid didn’t move. Didn’t show any sign that he was enjoying the experience.
Treycore pulled back, seeing the empty look on Kid’s face. It killed him.
He gave up. This wasn’t going to work. If that didn’t do anything to the boy Kid had become, Kid really was gone… forever. And if that was the case, he’d never really loved him to begin with.
Now, Treycore didn’t just hate Vera for taking Kid. He hated her for showing him that this boy he adored hadn’t felt the same for him.
Treycore turned from him. He couldn’t face Kid anymore, not the shell that he’d become… that shell that possessed the creature he loved.
He felt a tug at his wrist.
Looking back at Kid, he saw something in his gaze, a spark of life, not the empty look that he’d seen on him before. It was a spark he was familiar with. It was Kid.
He gazed at the mortal’s hand clutched around his wrist, holding firmly.
“Kid?” he asked.
The spark vanished.
Kid shook his head and pulled his hand away.
“I’m sorry,” he said in a monotone voice. “I should be getting back to my chores.”
He headed out.
But Treycore’s hope had returned. What had that moment been? Was it Kid? Was it something within him that was trying to reach out? Surely, it was.
Kid just needed his help to break free.
