Jack didn’t know that, however.
“Oh man, are you okay? I’ve never had a human touch it before, I didn’t think it was too hot for your delicate skin. Have you burned your hand off? Please tell me you haven’t burned your hand off. Though, if you have, just know I can make the hand grow back again. It’ll take some incantations and the bones of an elderly goat, but it can be done. So don’t panic,” he said frantically, as he did his best to look at her from the strange angle he’d ended up in. Then he seemed to pause, and realize how he sounded, before he conceded. “Everything I’m saying is making you panic more, isn’t it. I should just be quiet and let you get on with this, shouldn’t I.”
“Actually, keep talking. It helps my brain not think about this too deeply.”
“Because when you do think about it deeply you want to run away screaming?”
“Nope. I just can’t let my excitement and the seventy questions I want to ask get in the way of trying to dig you out of a car,” she said, just as she failed for the tenth time to get between the crumpled metal and his whole actual horn. The space was just too damned tight to do it. He was too wedged.
She had to touch it again, and this time more firmly.
And somehow it was even more shocking the second time.
In part, she thought, because it wasn’t just hot. It was also smooth, silky smooth. She didn’t even know how to describe the slide of it underneath her grip. She only understood that it definitely felt otherworldly. And that he had gone kind of silent again. Very silent.Oh god, is me touching him like this the demonic-being equivalent of giving a handjob?she thought, and went to rip away from him again.
But he got there first.
Apparently, he’d finally managed to accept what she’d just said.
“You’reexcited? This is exciting to you?” he asked in this faint sort of voice. Which was quite a feat, considering said voice was now several octaves deeper, and rougher, and louder. He really had to do a lot to sound mystified—though really, she wasn’t sure why he was. The entire world had just turned on its head, and in the best possible way. What else could she be but giddy about it?
“Of course it is,” she said. “You’re some kind of mythical creature.”
“Oh, so you think I’m something nice. Like a Minotaur.”
“Okay, first of all, since when are Minotaurs nice?”
“They’ve always been that way. A bunch of do-gooders, everybody loves them,” he muttered, in a way that suggested she was just supposed to accept this received wisdom. Maybe with a sage nod and a clucking of her tongue over Minotaurs and the way they were.
Instead of what actually happened:
Her brain gasped, and started babbling wildly.Holy shit, it said,Minotaurs are real. They’re so real they have whole known characteristics that everybody in whatever community he is in is aware of, like monkeys are mischievous and lions are lazy. Only it’s for paranormal beings, it’s for supernatural creatures, it’s for stuff you’re not supposed to think about. It’s for stuff youforcedfrom yourmindbecause you thought you weremad.
But you’re not.
You’re not.
Dear god, no wonder he tried to tell you you’re not.
He risked it all, babe, just to try to tell you you’re not.
And now suddenly there were tears in her eyes, and an ache in her heart. She had to wipe them on her sleeve so he couldn’t see.Then insist on all the things he now very understandably didn’t grasp about himself.
“But Jack,you’rea do-gooder that everybodyshouldlove. They might not love you based on things you don’t even do anymore, but that’s just silly. It’s silly that they can’t see what it took five minutes of someone being vaguely pleasant to you to make abundantly clear. I wasn’t even vaguely pleasant, really, and you still went out of your way to help me. And look at all the things you’ve helped me with since. Look at all the things you’ve done for me.”
“What, like lie about not being human?”
“I don’t even know how you could have told the truth. I mean, I’m guessing most people can’t even actually see supernatural stuff, considering not one person here reacted to you punching a foot-long horn through a car roof. They all just drove out of here like nothing happened. Heck, I think I would have done, before right now,” she said, hardly sure of what she was spelling out as she did. But certain of its truth the moment it was there.
That was the way things worked.
In fact, he even nodded as much as he was able to, on the end.
“You would have. You did. But the thing is, I know you started to see it all again—like you did when you were a kid. I knew you were grasping all this stuff. I could see you were getting it, and that you needed reassurance, and I still didn’t dare tell you the whole thing. I was afraid you would freak out and hate me if I did,” he said, so wearily all she wanted to do was reassure him.
Even as her mind boggled.
“And that’s understandable, Jack.”
