“Your house having a personality have anything to do with why you’re hedging around telling me about what the fuck is going on?” He’d put fucking money on it, for all that houses didn’t actually do that shit. Woo-woo, New Age twin flame bullshit (and fuck him, Bo didn’t even care). He sat on the sofa and tugged once at Everil’s hand. “Or how. Why. What the fuck ever.”
Tell me why I want to wrap around you and never let go. Tell me what the fuck is in the air. Why things are fucking weird. How you made the box do the thing. Tell me the truth.
“I’m not hedging,” Everil objected, letting Bo pull him down on the sofa. He settled close, arm pressed against Bo’s. He didn’t pull away, either, kept Bo’s hand in his as promised. “It isn’t a simple thing to explain. But I can show you.”
“Yeah? Then show me.”
“Think of your favorite drink, please. Be as specific as you can. And in a cup, if it’s all the same.” Everil tugged lightly at Bo’s hand, holding it out between them.
“Alright.” Humoring Everil wouldn’t be the worst thing he’d ever done.
Bo conjured a picture in his head as requested and kept his fucking eyes open while he did. Putting his imagination to use was something Bo always did well, and this came with tastes.
Dark chocolate hot enough to burn the tongue, perfect for when it was fucking freezing, with caramel and sea salt. Bitter and sweet and rich with the cut of the salt, the sort you needed in a thick-bottomed mug to keep from burning your hands.
Bo tasted water fresh from an iced-over pond, instead. The brush of grass and whisper of new air in empty halls at his neck, in his veins, singing clear and bright, and, as if it’d been there all along, a ceramic mug sat steaming on the table. Wide and thick at the bottom, with a frothy deep brown cap of hot chocolate and half-melted marshmallows.
Everil’s hand was in his, and Bo’s drink was there, on the table.
“There. That is an affinity bond. Complimentary energies. Two magics, working as one.”
The world faded to a murmur, nothing more than a backdrop for Everil’s smooth, soothing voice, no longer shaking, and Bo’s heartbeat in his ears. Cool droplets and winter-shorn lawns and safe houses, Everil’s pleasure clear through their hands, through their– Throughthis, feeling natural and good and fucking wrong.
Funny, how he’d thought he’d never feel the world fall apart again. He’d made it nearly twenty years since the first time in his parent’s attic, seeing the supplies they used to twist him into believing in shit that didn’t exist laid out, to use him and sell his belief for profit.
Bo’d forgotten how quiet it felt.
“Tell me what you are, Everil. Fuckingsay it.” His voice came from very far off, low and clipped and fierce. Angry. Bo didn’tfeelangry. Anger didn’t crush his throat or make his hand squeeze,desperatehard, at a stranger’s as an anchor, because otherwise he might float away. He’d not be concerned about Everil’s feelings if he were angry. Everil, who had feltreal. Real as the fucking mug on the fucking table Bo couldn’t look thefuck away from.“I will leave right now if you don’t. I fucking swear I will.”
“What answer do you wish?” he asked quietly, unflinching under Bo’s clinging hold. And, fuck, the concern twisting through the– Their–Fuck.
“Thetruth.” That’s all the answer heeverfucking wanted.
“For the last hundred years, the locals have said I was a ghost,” Everil said after a moment. “For a time, there was a story that I was a dullahan. Your people have called mine the gentry, the good neighbors, the yaksha, the mogwai. Spirits. Fae.”
Fae.
They’d always been his favorite. Ever changing and dangerous and kind depending on their moods and your actions. He’d known to the fuckingmarrowwhen he was small, with so many similar tales throughout the world. Things left for him. Bread eaten and tidy circles of mushrooms in a clearing and the whispers of the wind at night.
His parents had lied to him. Twisted things. Used him. But it existed anyway.
Everilwas one. Shame twisted with that earlier worry, both eradicating the temporary pleasure. Just shame on top of itself, multiplied. Because of–
Fuck. Bo was a goddamn idiot.
If he could feel Everil, if they both felt that needing pull, Everil could fucking feel his emotions too.
“Don’t you fucking dare,” Bo snapped, even as he threaded his fingers between Everil’s. He could feel it, that shame again, how it slid back into place over the caution and happiness of before. He better not fuckingdare, and Bo could breathe, even if each breath shook and broke around his words. “I told you. We’re all fucking damaged. You don’t get to take the blame for mine. And you–”
Bo rubbed his face with his free hand, leaned down as he broke off, propping his elbow on his knee. And he kept going, thinking out loud because if he tried to keep it in, he’d scream. “The horse. The fucking horse. You’re an each-ui– No, shit, a big black befuckedstallion by the stream. Kelpie. A fuckingkelpie.”
“Yes.” Still soft and quiet, a gentle winter murmur. “A kelpie.” He lifted his gaze from their hands, looked at Bo directly. “You may go if you wish. But there is more at play here than just my nature. If you’ll allow me, I intend to redress my trespasses.”
Despite seeing a mug of salted caramel hot chocolate materialize like some late nineties magic in the street show, Bo half expected Everil to deny it.“No, of course, I can’t be a kelpie,”or“Why the fuck would I let myself be seen in horse form if I were a kelpie,”or maybe“Ha! You fell for it? Idiot. I watch your channel all the time.”Something like that. It’d make more sense than the quiet agreement.
“Fuck leaving,” Bo muttered the words into his hand before finally looking up at Everil. “Redress my trespasses.” Fucking hell.
Bo leaned over enough to grab the mug of hot chocolate. He took a drink before shifting back toward Everil, curling in closer. Shoes on the furniture would be rude, but he could do his fucking best.
