SHOUTOUTS:
Valo - hehe… "dainty?" it's really funny how the words and things I hesitate most on are the ones that people seem to be crazy about. lol
Katatonia - woo! Sounds like you are a jack hat- -shifty eyes- not-liker as well! Are you? I find him somewhat creepy… sort of like Arthur. Whoops. Didn't say that either. -goes off in a whir of political correctness-
JulezB - I have the funniest story about my VG dvd… I got paid to buy it. Lol 'cause the damn people can't count change! I even told them they gave me too much. They did nothing, so what was I to do? -walks off a dollar richer-
Alexandria Queen of Dreams - -running on inspiration treadmill- funny how easy it is to think waiting for your classes at the horse shows… that's where this one came from
jsumptersgurl - lol they gripe at each other so much. It's so fun to write. Glad everyone's enjoying their little spat-iness!
wiseupjanetweiss - ooo fun fun! I can steal more things for you if you like… like a copy of this book. I might actually be putting it out as a book… but I'm afraid of the legal ramifications
Roxy Eno - hehe thanks for the artwork praise… I'm afraid I can't get facial features exactly right… but it's a miracle it underwent colouring and still got approved by me. I'm always afraid of that step…

Chapter Twelve

He was restless. I hadn't realized because of not sleeping in the same room as him how much he thrashed about. Usually I sleep like I'm dead, but I couldn't with him just across the tiny upstairs flat.

I guess he went to sleep sometime after I did, because I don't remember him ever getting up or the lights going out or the radio going off. I vaguely remember the water running sometime, but it's fuzzy. When he woke me up, though, everything gets slightly sharper.

I remember being woken up by something, I thought maybe a dream or some noise or that kind of feeling you get sometimes. After all, you can't rest easy in a Demon's territory. Of course, I looked around for him straight off. In the dim, vague way you see in the dark I could see one of his wings fanned out over the low wall. Stretched out, then contracting, twitching really, then all of a sudden he pulled it in towards him really jerkily and I heard his tail whip through the air fast enough that it make a cracking noise. Heard a low, pained moan and him turning over.

I remember thinking, this is it, he's finally just going to snuff it without my help or hindrance at all. Just die in his sleep. All that work with stabbing and garnets and trying to nurse him back and all that nonsense was just going to come to this.

I heard him twist around in the sheets again and I got up, stiff all over from sleeping curled up in the chair. I remember my stiffness more clearly than I can remember exactly what he was doing right then. At some point I turned a light on, saw it glint off the spines along his back.

I came closer.

"Maxwell…"

Testing to see if he could hear me, respond. If he was coherent or if this really was going to be the end. His wings fluttered and he turned my way a moment, but it was only part of another fit of thrashing, and he cried out this time.

Afraid there might still be someone around to hear, I leapt forward and covered his mouth to stifle the noise. That was when I really woke up and things begin to get a lot easier to recall. That's when I first felt how hot he was, beyond feverish, how sweat darkened his hair to a solid, Crayola-crayon blue like Brian's after a concert. That's when I first noticed the blood.

Long gashes along his arms, over his chest, across one hip. Three and sometimes four stripes all neatly lined up. Like the ones down my back. Slashes from his own claws. Not only had he been tearing about in the bed, he'd been tearing at himself, hard enough to rip himself up with claws still half-blunt from my filing.

His eyes shot open when I touched him, and I flinched back, prepared to be cut apart. Maxwell just laid back, gone limp, closed his eyes again, panting.

"What the hell was that? What happened?"

No answer. Breathe in, breathe out, shaky breaths quickly being forced under control.

"Was that fuckin' dreaming?"

No answer, but he opened his eyes. I quieted down, softened my tone.

"What about?"

And he spoke the first word to me not tainted in sarcasm or anger or jealousy I'd heard.

-Punishment.-

Punishment? I didn't want to know. Hopefully it was for Brian. Had to be. I hoped, then felt a tinge of regret that I had, that whoever he was answering to gave it to him a lot worse than I had.

But I didn't mention this. Instead I said, "You've hurt yourself."

He looked at me blankly a moment, then sat up. He took a moment to inspect the damage he'd done, then went to lift a blood-streaked forearm to his mouth. I saw his long tongue snake out and I commented,

"Fuck. You're not gonna get it clean that way."

Before I noticed he was wincing slightly again and I heard a faint sizzle as his tongue swiped over the wound. It burned, but when he was through there wasn't a single trace of the cuts anywhere along his arm. Like he'd simply erased them.

He continues on this way and I remember something from earlier.

"You did that where I stabbed you."

-You think I would have left it to become infected?-

"I didn't know what the hell to expect from you. I still don't."

He shrugs, then suddenly leans over and did that same licking-thing to a cut on my arm I'd gotten from dropping my box of booze.

It stung like hell, and I tore away from him, shocked, putting the low sectioning wall between myself and Maxwell as he smirked at me.

It was burning, and I was offended as I slunk back off to the couch. Offended, and pissed and startled…

…and oddly liberated.