Stephen gave a dark laugh. “Exactly one.” He closed his eyes and draped his elbow over them, hiding from the world. The truth filtered slowly through Kilian's brain as he considered possibilities too horrific to consider. “No,” Kilian said with a sigh.
“She convinced me that she was dying and my death would save her, and I wanted to save her so very much. You remember how close we were.” Stephen’s voice cracked. “She said she couldn’t hold the knife, that she loved me too much to do that, so I had to be strong for her.”
“You tried to kill yourself?” Homicidal fury and horror tangled in Kilian’s chest.
Stephen opened his eyes, and pain reflected in their depths. “I was tired. I never fit in anywhere and Mom was my only refuge in a world that had never made sense to me.”
Kilian sucked in a breath. ADHD could certainly make someone feel outcast and different, but Kilian had worked in the supernatural unit long enough to have another theory, especially if Stephen’s mom had been a witch. “Magic. Your hyperactivity — it was magic.”
Stephen nodded. “I didn’t manifest normally, so no one noticed. They thought I was a weird kid, and it was so hard on my dad because I broke stuff and people would get angry. My dad’s parents always pushed him to be firm with me, but I couldn't focus, and I struggled so much.” Stephen scrubbed his face with both hands. “And then I found out Mom was dying. And I could save the one person in the world I loved.”
“But suicide? If she loved you, she never would have asked that.” The minute the words came out, Kilian regretted them. Growing up, Stephen had worshipped his mom. Kilian shouldn’t have suggested her love hadn’t been real. If Kilian was supposed to keep Stephen happy, he was doing a pretty shitty job of it.
Stephen tucked his hands under his armpits. “It was Parkinson's,” Stephen whispered. “On my good days I hoped that Mom didn’t understand what she was asking. On bad days, I wonder if she ever loved me.” Stephen sounded so lost.
Kilian caught his hand. “She did. Maybe your memories are clouded by the horror of what happened, but I remember your mom baking those cookies over and over again, and they were always horrible, but she was determined to make you chocolate chip cookies that you liked. And you always pretended to enjoy them, even though both of us knew that you couldn't chew those hockey pucks any more than I could.” For a long time, Kilian had judged every relationship off that standard. Did the person love him enough to try the impossible over and over? No one had ever lived up to her standard. “Wait. Do you think her magic was making something go wonky in the recipe?”
“Wonky.” Stephen chuckled. “There’s a highly specialized technical term for magical interference from an experienced member of the supernatural unit. Wonky.” Darkness and pain drifted through the air like untethered spider webs.
Kilian pinched Stephen's arm, and Stephen offered him a lopsided grin that didn’t reach his eyes. “Maybe. The recipe was from my dad’s mother, and those two never got along. Maybe the little magic she had poisoned the batter with those resentments.”
“Resentment would explain the taste.” Kilian sighed. “Stephen, I am so sorry.”
Stephen shrugged. “Mia doesn't like anyone to talk about it because sometimes I lose control of the demon a little,” he whispered the last two words with regret.
“Is that what happened with your father?”
Stephen nodded. “He told me if I hadn't been stupid enough to listen to mom's rantings that none of this would've happened.” The strained smile Stephen had been wearing faded. “He's drinking again. Are you surprised he would say something like that?”
“No. Your father always was a bit of an ass. He adored you, but he was an ass.”
“Your turn,” Stephen said firmly as if he hadn’t cut open his soul letting his emotions bleed into the ether.
Kilian took a deep breath. Part of him wanted to offer a small guilt, a limited shame that wouldn’t tear open a healing wound. But that felt disrespectful of Stephen’s confession. “I drained a team member.” Kilian used the simplest words he could, but nothing could erase the horror of the truth. “He was a Fenris werewolf and he had all these big emotions. He loved big and hated big and threw himself into every fight with this reckless abandon.” Kilian smiled as he remembered Barrett’s laugh, but the minute he loosened his hold on his emotions, tears threatened. He took a deep breath and shoved it all back down. “He was a good man.” He whispered.
Stephen sat there, one foot wedged under Kilian's ass, and let the silence descend. Just that morning, Stephen had been joking about how tragic backstories were sexy, but Kilian thought the exact opposite. Sexy was strong and confident. Not Kilian.
Minutes ticked by, before Stephen asked, “What happened?”
Kilian shook his head wearily. He wanted nothing more than to run far enough away that he could patch over the cracks in his soul, but he sat on the couch while Stephen stared at him. The man didn’t even have the grace to retreat into a video game. Kilian picked up the controller himself, but then he stared at the silent television. He didn’t have the energy to turn it on, much less play a game.
“A witch had impaled me. I was losing too much blood, and I had been casting an undoing spell for close to an hour. We had set off booby-trap after booby-trap. My magic was already so low that it didn’t take much blood loss before...” Kilian lost himself in the memory of hunger, of desperation, of cold sinking into his bones and oblivion singing on his skin.
The weight of Stephen’s patience was more than Kilian could bear, so he filled the air with words. “I was hallucinating by the time I finally killed the witch, and Barrett saw her go down. He must've been excited about winning because he came running up to me.” Kilian’s voice grew softer. “Maybe he was worried about me, and planned to run me outside to call for medical transport. That would have been like him. He was a big enthusiastic lug who didn’t have as much caution as he did heart.” And that was why the rest of the base had never forgiven Kilian. If only one member of the team could survive, everyone else would have sacrificed Kilian in an instant. If Kilian had been in his right mind, he would have let himself die before killing Barrett.
“I'm sorry,” Stephen whispered.
Kilian shrugged. “It's not like he was my mom. Compared to your trauma, I know mine is insignificant.”
“Don't do that,” Stephen said firmly. “Don't pretend that because something shitty happened to me that you don't have a right to hate that something shitty happened to you, too. The supernatural world isn't kind to anyone, but both of us have gotten a particularly crap deal from it.”
Kilian took a deep breath and tried to shove his emotions back into a box that was suddenly too small to contain them. “I was trained to control myself in the field, and I couldn't.”
“And I grew up hearing the same anti-suicide messages that everyone hears, and I ignored them.”
Kilian forced his thoughts away from that horrible night. “How did the demon claim you instead of your mother?”
“I died,” Stephen said easily. “I didn’t stay dead because a demon has some mad skills of defibrillation and detox, but I died.”
