Six
Mercury was fairly sure he was just going to sleep forever.
It really sounded like a good idea.
He could simply lay here with his stone in this bed that was warm and comfy.
That was it. That was the whole thing. Only that.
I’m not going to let you lay here in bed forever.
He didn’t open his eyes. Talon could hush.You don’t have a choice.
Yes, I do. You have to eat.
I’m not hungry.
I’m going to pick you up, bathe you, and give you food.
I can’t hear you. Leave me alone. I’m—Pouting? Tired? Irritated? Lazy? Exhausted? Worried? He’d go with tired.—tired. I’m tired.
“No, you’re not,” Talon said aloud. “You’re sad. And you’re allowed to be. But you need to suck it up and get off your skinny ass. I am not losing you to you.”
My ass isn’t that skinny.
“Mercury, I think you’re hot. Your ass is skinny. You’re skinny. I want to feed you. I have food that isn’t fish.”
Talon was going to make him laugh. He didn’t want to laugh. He wanted to be grumpy and tired with his eyes closed. But his lips wanted to smile.
“I saw that. We could have patty melts. Lasagna. Ham and cheese sandwiches. Bacon. Bacon-wrapped bacon. Deep-fried bacon. We could have spicy stuff; we could have creamy stuff. How do you feel about chocolate?”
I’m going to bite you.He started chuckling. He couldn’t help himself.
“That’s okay too. Not to eat me, of course, but for fun. But you need food to have energy to do stuff like that.” Talon sighed, plopping on the bed. “I’m getting needy.”
“Me too. This is no fun being sick and tired, and sad all the time. I don’t think it’s very fair either. I haven’t been awful. It’s not my fault that I can do things I can do, and I’ve never done anything bad with them. I mean, I swear I never done anything terrible or even really naughty except for doing it when I wasn’t supposed to.” That was reasonable, wasn’t it?
“Using your natural talents is not bad. You are not bad. This situation?” Talon rolled his eyes, leaned against him. “It sucks.”
“So, I know everybody’s mad at me. Still, since it’s been a couple of days, you think I’m gonna get forgiven?”
He rocked himself gently, and then Talon scooped him up and rocked him too. “You haven’t done anything to be forgiven for. You are amazing.”
“I don’t feel—am I supposed to feel amazing? I feel like I’ve messed everything up, and I—Well, I’ll be honest, I don’t even know what I did.” Mercury forced himself to sit up, finding himself incredibly dizzy. He just made himself be stable. This was ridiculous. He was being serious. “I want to be real in here. I thought that once I found my stone it would be like amazing, and I would feel like I belonged, and everybody would like me, and it’d be a family, and we could have kisses and sex and maybemake food together and play games, and it’s not going to be like that, is it? No matter how much I want it.”
He started crying, tears sliding down his cheeks, hot and wet, even as Talon shook his head.
“It doesn’t have to be hard. What happened was scary.” Talon held his hands up. “Bad shit happens. We deal with it. Reno and Kami are ready to be buddies. Kami is excited to become friends with somebody like you. I think the other guys, once they get to know you, the other omegas, the other alphas are gonna have a ball with us. We’re going to be— No.” Talon stopped there, shook his head. “We already are a family. You and me. We’re a family. Right now. There’s no ifs, ands, or buts or whens. We are a family.”
“Do you really believe that?” He wanted to. He truly did.
Talon nodded. “With everything I have in me. You and I are a family. This part of your family is hungry. The you part of our family needs to think about learning how to be hungry because you’re going to fade away, and you have to eat.”
He reached out and twined his fingers with Talon’s, a frisson of hope building inside him. “What should we start with? Can I have a milkshake? Is that something you can do?”
“I can make a milkshake. I can order a milkshake. I can order us a flight of milkshakes.”
All right, that was different. “They have flying milkshakes?”
