SHOUTOUTS:
Alexandria Queen of Dreams - I always pictured him like that… and my little "VG"-RP buddy hasn't helped it much
Brownie/Melody - the toilet paper wasn't even in that chapter, dork. Haha. Where's emob been for all this while? 17 chapters is a damn lot…
wiseupjanetweiss - update! And faster than last time! Although I think just about anything would be faster than that one…
Katatonia - oh I know. Lol… I've been trying to keep it within the "T" rating so that I don't have to have it hidden from most of the public's view… and I think I've slipped up quite a bit, but… -sigh-
Roxy Eno - yes I'm back… back again… NW's back… tell a friend… -zones out- that was NOT me…
SiriusBlackfan5405 - aww thanks! I always love reinforcement on my Curt character! I think I mess up at times…
What Lurks In Shadows - ha. I made sure this one filled 11 pages in my teeny tiny notebook rather than 8... So hopefully it'll be a bit lengthier ;)
Miss Loaf - ooh yeah! I'm so glad to get back in the swing of things with this story! It really lifts my mood too… lol so who ended up winning the INXS thing? (I don't watch TV… lol)

Chapter Eighteen

I had known from the start that there was going to be trouble. At first I thought Maxwell was the problem, but I was wrong. It was protecting him and hiding him that was the big problem. It had become even worse because Maxwell didn't like to stay up in his room all the time anymore.

Once I caught him going out of the apartment into the hallway. And I freaked out, hauled him back inside, doing more damage to myself off the spines along his back than he was trying to do to me (although I did get bitten). I slammed the door shut while still trying to hold him and overbalanced, fell over and dropped Maxwell hissing and pissed off, half on top of me. He shot off away from me and jumped up onto the kitchen counter, skidding across it before he was able to catch himself, snarling at me all the while.

"What the hell do you think you're doing?"

-Going out!-

I flipped shit.

"You can't! Are you crazy? Jesus, if somebody had seen you-"

He bared his fangs at me, which made me think that he was only going to try and do it again whenever he got the chance. So I had to start locking him upstairs if I ever went out, which as you might have guessed, Maxwell wasn't too happy about. It was a struggle to get him up there every time. So to compromise, I just didn't go out as much. Which got some other people pissed at me when I stood them up, but those people weren't hazardous to my health.

The problem with that, though, is that everyone started to come banging around my door all hours of the day to see what I was doing and I'd just have to hide Maxwell anyway. I ought to have never let him out in the first place and then he wouldn't have known what he was missing and been such a bitch about it, but it wasn't really my fault.

Jack Fairy, especially, was prone to come around at odd hours. He thought I'd gotten into a slump again. I thought he was annoying, but I tolerated him in hopes that he wouldn't come around the next day. But the bad thing about Jack is that he'd somehow acquired a key to the apartment, and found it his divine right to come busting in to check on me whenever he felt like it.

Mostly Maxwell, becauseof his unnaturally good hearing,would hear him coming before Jack got to the door, but we had an uncomfortable number of close calls. One of which involved me naked and worked up on the couch with a pile of clothes Maxwell had shredded on the floor beside me (Maxwell had become a sex addict. It's another thing I sometimes wish I hadn't started with him. Almost. Nevermind, that was a total lie). Of course, Jack was just infinitely amused, giving me that annoying, quiet and irritating smirk, placid laughter in his eyes. He didn't bother taking off his long black coat.

"I suppose I'll come back at a more convenient hour for you," he drawled and I growled back a 'please' through gritted teeth and he smirked and turned and floated off, somehow just barely missing the image of Maxwell waiting annoyed in the darkened hallway. He didn't catch him then; it would be a few more weeks before the trouble started.

It was a Thursday, I remember, and me and Maxwell were sitting around in the kitchen eating breakfast, me sitting at the table and him on top of it (he never sat where he was supposed to) and he was waiting for me to finish and scratching little patterns in the wood of the table when the door swung open and Jack walked in. And immediately dropped his purse.

And Maxwell stared at him and I stared at him and Jack stared at us, but that didn't last for long because Maxwell lunged off the table and tried to attack Jack, kill him probably for being a witness, and I had to try to hold him back.

Fairy, after his initial shock, was inching forward towards the struggling Demon, amazed, enthralled.

"I don't believe it… it was true…"

Claws slashed across my arm as Maxwell tried to get free to tear Jack to shreds.

"Maxwell! Cut it out!"

He went limp but kept up a snarl that I could feel vibrating in his chest as Jack kept coming closer, then finally lifted Maxwell's head with two fingers under his chin, staring disdainfully into the angry black eyes.

"So this is what's happened to Brian. His own Demon survived him… such a beautiful waste…"

I held him closer, felt wings pressing in against my chest, and something else- Maxwell was shivering. He knew the trouble he was in. And I knew it, too.

"Jack… you can't say anything. They'll kill him. You know it."

"And it wouldn't be a pity. For his own good, really. Why try and protect him? Brian obviously wanted him dead."

I denied it.

"He didn't."

Jack shook his head, going to light a cigarette, forgetting his long holder. Maxwell wrinkled up his nose in disgust at the smell, which he'd never done if I had decided to have a smoke.

"You're blind, Curt. Look what he's done to you. You can't even remember Brian properly."

I shook my head. Jack was the blind one… or is it possible for Maxwell to have distorted this that much, that I didn't remember what had really happened? But I wasn't concerned with that then. I was busy trying to keep Maxwell calm and Jack from walking off and alerting the press. Or the cops.

"I don't care." But I did. It hurt me to speak against Brian, even if I knew what was being said about him was a lie. "I want him here."

"Fool." Jack hissed. "You could be doing so much more with your life, doing so much better for yourself… now I see why you aren't. He'll do the same to you he's done to Brian."

He turned to walk away and I let go of Maxwell to reach for him and grabbed his shoulder, begging now.

"Don't. Don't say anything…"

Fairy looked back not at me, but at Maxwell, who had fallen quiet and was sitting staring back at him with solemn black eyes and a distasteful expression. And Jack just shook his head and shrugged off my hand and walked out the door without another word…