“If it’s not now, Declan dies.”
“He’s pretty tough.”
“Already happened once.Watched it happen and couldn’t do shit about it.Hollow.You know what that means?Means Faerie doesn’t listen.Doesn’t open the way.Doesn’t call for help.Doesn’t stop the fucking bleeding.”He caught his voice threatening to rise, shake, and drew a breath through gritted teeth.“Means youdon’t existwhile you’re there.”
Bo stared at him, all horrified realization, so maybe he hadn’t known.You couldn’t, really.Not until you’d lived it.
“I, yeah, no.Didn’t know all that.Sounds like hell.Fuck.That's what happened?”
“Yeah.”Antonio scraped another dish clean before moving it into the sink.It was something to do with his hands.“Bastard came at him out of nowhere.And then Declan’s on the ground bleeding out and I’ve gotta askhimto fix it.Because that’s what I can do in Faerie.Fucking ask.”
Lift, scrape, sink.
Oh, and breathe.Remember that one.Mind your voice.Watch your tongue.
“Not gonna ask Declan to stop.Not gonna ask him to let himself die.Might not like sitting around and making plans to kill a guy, but I’m not gonna ask.I’m all asked out.”
“I resented the fuck out of Ever for a while,” Bo said, as he piled fruit into Tupperware.“Nothimhim.But the shit he did.During the trials, they put me in this big white room and made me wait.Then Ever, he comes in and tells me that he made a deal with Nimai to protect me, to stay with Nimai and send me back here.
“I couldn’t say no.He made the choice without me.Didn’t ask.Couldn’t, but that didn’t matter, because ‘couldn’t’ still meant ‘didn’t.’After he left, I spent another three days helpless while someone tried to rip him out of my head.”
Berries in tupperware.Plates in the sink.Antonio’s rough breathing and Bo’s harsh words.
“Shit,” Antonio said, because he was so damned eloquent.
“We put it in our oaths, that we wouldn’t make sweeping choices for each other.Took me more than a little time to trust he’d keep to it.Fucking fae shit, they don’t realize how tiny we are, and that’s even when you can do bits of magic.”Bo put the fruit in the fridge.Antonio turned on the sink.“So, like, I don’t know what it’s like to have that be all the time, be in that room always.Not saying I do.Just, I get some of it, sorta?The asking part, since even if they say yes it’s becausetheysaid yes.”
“It’s shit,” he said, once Bo had wound down.“The walls you can’t escape from.The people telling you to forget.That what you know happened never happened.”
“Fuck everyone who told you that.”
Antonio didn’t let himself bristle at Bo’s words.Kept his snarling to himself, sponge squeezed in a fist, water pouring over his fingertips.They both had sore spots.
(Antonio wouldn’t let Declan curse the bastard for hitting his, though.)
“That’d be my parents.”They’d only wanted to help.Christ, the shit they’d put him through, trying to help.“My sisters.My friends.”
“Oh,” Bo said, wincing.“My bad.I was thinking therapists or forums or some shit.Sorry, dude.”
Somehow, Antonio managed to laugh.Hollow as the rest of him, but there.
“You know who’s never pulled that shit?Declan.He listens.Doesn’t second-guess me.Me, I plan to do the same.I owe him that.I don’t need to like it.I never expected to.”
“I know we’re not besties or whatever the fuck kids call it these days, but I don’t want… Fuck, I don’t know.”Bo came over to the sink as he spoke.“Early on, Ever told me that being bonded to someone you didn’t want to be around was a bitter existence.Nimai made sure he knew what it was like.Just, you don’t got to agree with him on shit.You’re human.We see things different.Declan knew that from the start.”
“He knew, yeah.We both knew what we were getting into,” Antonio said.And the details, the refusals that led to Declan getting stuck with Antonio, those weren’t Bo’s business.“No one’s bitter.No one’s looking for an out.I’m just… doing the dishes.And once I’m done I’ll go find him and tell him we’re fine and we’ll make out, commit murder, and get ready to take on the Council.Or we’ll die.And then we don’t got shit to worry about.”
“Fuck, man,” said Bo.“Fuck.Room for me to dry?”
Could wash every dish in the house twice and not kill the sick, coiling guilt in his stomach.The road was the road, and he’d sworn to walk it.Said he’d stick with Declan, even when shit was fucked.
Shit was fucked.
“It’s your kitchen,” he said, pushing the bowl he held into Bo’s hand.“Knock yourself out.”He was being a dick.Bo didn’t deserve it.And Antonio really didn’t want to be eaten by a kelpie.“Sorry.Thanks for, you know.Talking.Think I better go find Declan before he gets it in his head I can’t deal.”
He could deal.He could teach a fucking masterclass in dealing.He was dealing just fine.
Onedge,wiredandwary, but still it felt good, pushing open the door to the little basement suite.Didn’t matter if Declan was pissed at him.Declan deserved to be pissed at him.Antonio still wanted to be where he was.
