A/N: I recently found this fandom and noticed that no one ever did anything with poor Corny! I was absolutely horrified! So, being the proactive person that I am, I decided to stop bitching and start writing! I don't know if there's any interest in slash fics in this genre, but I hope you'll give it a chance. Two disclaimers before I start, apart from the obvious I-am-not-the-author-of-Tithe-or-the-other-book-in-this-series one:

1.It's slash. It's a story about Corny, and Corny is gay. You don't like, you don't read. I won't be offended. I will be offended if you flame me because it's slash. Any other reason, feel free.

2.I haven't read the second book in the series. The libraries around me aren't real great, and I am too poor to buy books before they come out in paperback (and lately too poor to even do that) , and whatever-the-name-of-it-is is really slow in going paper. So, if I completely mess things up, forgive me and try to pretend you haven't read it either.

CHAPTER ONE

----------------------

It was starting to get dark outside, the sun falling behind the curve of the Earth slowly, like a climber inching painstakingly across the Pacific to the other side of the world. The shadows were long, stretching across the road.

Corny's shift was almost over. He sat outside the gas station, watching the cars go past, absentmindedly cleaning underneath his thumb with a fingernail. It was Halloween, and

Every so often a group of kids would dance by, smirking angels and grinning demons and witches with brooms taken from the cleaning closet. And then there was occasional fairy, winged and white dressed, looking more like Glinda the Good Witch than any real faerie he'd ever seen.

The drugstore glitter wings were a harsh reminder of where he'd been this night a year ago. Nathemial's court had been beautiful and cruel, and he had been trapped there of his own violation, unquestioning as a child and devoted as a lover, drunk on fairy wine and lust. Nothing but a slave, powerless and helpless.

Now he was no one's but his own. He hadn't even seen a faerie since Kaye had dropped in a few months before, and he told himself that he was grateful, but he still wished for some of what he'd had then, when he was too weak to deny it.

Tonight it was Halloween, and he had nothing to lose.

When the girl came to take his shift, all blond hair and tanned legs and arms, he slid to his feet wordlessly and retreated to the safety of his old car. It started with a screech, and he frowned as he pulled into the street. He didn't know what he would do if the thing stopped working.

The kids were out in droves here, along the street, monsters and princesses trooping down the sidewalks, mothers hovering nervously at the fringes of the smaller children's groups. His headlights swept over the people, lighting the picture of a fantasy world in which children were everything they'd ever wanted to be, identities snatched from their dreams and their nightmares.

By the time he got to the edge of town, the only people he saw were the occasional groups of teenagers skulking through the night, laughing and probably drunk. He left them as he drove past the city limits.

He'd known where he was going when he left the gas station, back in town, but he'd still been surprised when his hand reached out, as if of it's own violation, and flipped the turn signal to blink right. He was even more surprised when the rest of his body obeyed the rebellious hand and he turned the wheel away from home. He was going to pay a visit to the Unseelie Court.

The hill was the same as he had remembered it, all shifting shadows and shivering trees silhouetted against the sky. He was thankful that no one had realized it would be a great place for a Halloween party. Although, it occurred to him, the fact that the hill was deserted might have been no accident at all but instead the very deliberate work of the fairies. He parked his car along the side of the road, pausing a moment before getting out, peering into the blackness. Nothing.

He started the walk up the hill, looking for any sign of movement, any rock recently moved, any hint of life. He found none. By the time he was to the top of the hill, his confidence had wilted. Why had he thought that he would be able to find the entrance this time? He kicked over a rock; underneath there was only dirt and a wriggling earthworm, caught naked in the air. No faerie lights, no trap doors to another world.

What had he expected? He thought of the stories that would pop up in his browser window when he searched for information on faeries. Stories of men who had seen the beauty of the Seelie Court and then wasted their whole lives fruitlessly trying to return, like moths straining to reach the sun. The pictures showed feverish eyes; mouths that were open so that the desperation was visible there, nestled in their throats. Choking them.

He let out a breath and sat on the ground, his shoulders rounded in defeat. The cold soaked through his jeans; he wrapped his arms around his stomach and hunkered down in the face of the wind.

He would be a part of the hill. He would wait until morning, for if there was any hope, it would be tonight, Halloween, when the veil between the human world and the faerie one was so think he thought he could see the shadows of the faeries through it. As though it could be brushed away with the lightest of touches, gossamer so light it would disperse under his fingers like smoke.

CDCDCDCDCDCDCDCDCDCDCDCDCDCDCD

He awoke stiff and cold, to the gray of the hour just before dawn. The hill was ghostly with half formed shadows tilting and spinning in the wind. The air smelled thick and fresh, the heavy greenness of pre-storm.

He shivered and sat up. Drops were already falling, dark dots on the rocks. He pulled himself to his feet, stumbling down the hill to his car.

It was so much like the morning a year ago had been. Except this time he had not been accepted. He leaned against the cold metal of his car for a moment. It was solid, comfortingly so, wet with dew. The sun was rising on the other side of the hill, but the day wasn't going to be a light one even in a few hours.

He was turning to get into the car, give up and go home, when he saw the figure out of the corner of his eye. He whipped back around and saw the trace of a face, only a few feet in front of him, but in an instant it was gone, leaving only shifting shadows. Still he could see it in his mind's eye, clearly, for all that he'd had only a glimpse of it.

The most beautiful man he'd ever seen. Dark hair had framed the pale face, eyes deepset and piercing, dark and dancing with shadows, full lips set in a twisted-lipped smirk. And, rising from his back, a pair of wings, delicate and dark.

There was nothing there in the darkness, but he knew that there had been. He stayed there, staring into the darkness until the black turned to gray and finally night split apart to make way for the sun.

CDCDCDCDCDCDCD

A/N: so, if you liked this enough to keep reading, please review, just because I have no idea if there's any interest at all in this and if not, I won't bother to write anymore than what I have done (two or three chapters) Also, title ideas would be really, really cool. I suck at titles.