It's finally happened, everyone! Nezumi and Shion managed to escape from the Unseelie Court! But what are they going to do now that they've actually managed to escape, and what does this mean?
Thank you all for your amazing support. I'm so grateful to all of you. Your comments and kudos give me life and make me want to continue writing this fic, even on days when I'm not feeling like writing. With that said, I hope you all continue to enjoy this fic!
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
Shion and Nezumi didn't stop running until the Unseelie Court was far behind them. Shion didn't look over his shoulder as he sprinted through the woods, his bare, bloody feet snapping through discarded branches and dry leaves, mud splattering on the hem of his trousers and caking his bare toes in grime. He didn't stop even as his lungs burned, desperate for air, his heart hammering so hard beneath his ribs he feared it might burst out of his chest like a living creature.
The chains of his shackles rattled as he sprinted down the street. The silver rang loud, a dinner bell to any hungry beast that might have been lurking. Shion gasped, but no creatures dove out of the shadows to tackle him around the waist and rip him to shreds. The echo of Nezumi's heavy boots slapping the pavement echoed around him like the beat of a drum, rattling through his bones with each step they took away from the Unseelie Court.
As pale pink light began to reach over the horizon, the front of his mother's bakery slowly came into view. Shion's heart jolted at the sight of it. He hadn't stopped running, even as he sprinted over the broken glass bottles and cardboard boxes scattered on the sidewalk around the abandoned Latch Bill building.
Except it wasn't abandoned—it was a way-station for monsters.
The human world and the faerie world bled seamlessly together, but the glass door to his mother's bakery seemed like a portal to security. A world the monsters who'd tried to kill him couldn't touch. The brick building rose into the air like a beacon, welcoming Shion with open arms as he and Nezumi curved around the corner and entered the street.
At long last, Shion stopped running.
Nezumi stopped at his side, doubling over and catching his breath. He didn't look as thoroughly exhausted as Shion felt; he trembled lightly, his hands pressed to his knees, his fingers curled in a way that mimicked claws, and it was only then that Shion remembered he'd left his knife back in the heart of the Unseelie Court—embedded in the Unseelie King's spine, so far in his flesh that the blade had vanished completely, only the black hilt remaining.
"Oh, fuck," Shion gasped, the words bursting out of him. "Oh, shit." He clutched at his chest, his fingers shaking. The edges of his vision blurred together in a mess of gray and crimson. He felt like he was going to be sick.
Nezumi inhaled and exhaled through his nose, not a sigh but something close to it. His silver eyes were hollow and fierce as he lifted his head and peered at the street around them. It was abandoned, only the buttery glow of the early-morning streetlamps casting their ghastly visage around them. The sun had only begun its slow creep from beneath the mountains, an eerie shadow still clinging to the world and casting it into the hands of the cold monsters. But none of the solitary Folk skittered around the bushes or telephone wires, and Shion hadn't seen any of the massive deer or star-speckled bears lurking about, either.
"We need to get inside." Nezumi's voice was as hollow and dead as his expression, and the sound of it made Shion's stomach clench with misery.
Shion's knees trembled at the thought of entering his mother's bakery. They'd escaped from the monsters—but that didn't mean the monsters wouldn't find them.
"B-but," he said, looking at the bakery, down at the broken chains around his wrists, and then back at Nezumi. "My mom—"
"I'll handle it." Nezumi grasped Shion's forearm and hauled him toward the door. "We're not going to be staying long, anyway."
"W-what are you talking about? This is my home. I can't just—" Shion's head was spinning. He felt sick and furious and miserable all at the same time, so much so that he couldn't feel anything at all.
There was no anger in Nezumi's voice, no sarcasm or hatred, but somehow, that made it all worse as he muttered, "You escaped from the Unseelie Court. What did you think was going to happen?"
Sorrow cracked through Shion's heart like shattered glass. He didn't know what he'd expected after he escaped from the Unseelie Court. Now that he thought about it, the idea that the Folk would simply leave him alone was ludicrous. Nezumi had fulfilled his debt to Shion and murdered several of the Unseelie Folk. He'd stabbed the Unseelie King and freed Shion from his bonds, and then, together, they'd escaped from the Unseelie mountain and sprinted through the woods until they burst through the brush and landed back on the concrete.
Nezumi's eyes were no longer dull and hollow. They glinted in the streetlight like the edge of a blade. His lips pressed into a line, and for a moment, Shion couldn't tell what he was thinking. His shoulders dropped and he nudged Shion back toward the bakery.
"Let's go inside," he said softly. "We can figure it out once we're… safe."
The word didn't seem quite what Nezumi was going for, not quite the word he seemed to want to say, but it was the closest. Shion felt himself relax at the mention of safety, even more so at the realization that Nezumi couldn't lie even if he wanted to; he allowed Nezumi to steer him toward the backdoor of the bakery, slipping into the side alley.
"Wait." A bolt of cold shuddered through Shion at the realization that there were iron bars in the walls of the bakery. The doorframe was its own natural ward against the Fair Folk, and Shion's heart cried out at the thought of leaving Nezumi to huddle in the alley, ducking behind one of the dumpsters to keep hidden from the Unseelie Court—those who hadn't been chopped apart in the riot. "How—how are you going to—?"
"Don't worry about it." Nezumi reached to the neckline of his armor. Shion saw a strange, small stone glint in the soft glow of the streetlamps, and then Nezumi seemed… different. The edges of his ears were still pointed and inhuman, but the unnatural glow radiating from his skin and eyes dulled to a haunting gray.
"What… what was that?" Shion murmured.
"A glamour," Nezumi responded. He waved his hand toward the door. "I can stomach the iron for a little while with it on. I'll explain inside."
Shion carefully unearthed the spare key from beneath the fake rock Karan kept nudged against the wall. How they had never been robbed was a miracle, but Shion supposed the human side of Kronos was far safer than the faerie side. He unlocked the door as quietly as he could and nudged it open; the inside of the kitchen was pitch black.
Nezumi nudged the door shut behind them with his shoulder. Dim light trickled in from the outside windows, and Shion drew the tiny lace curtains shut, not wishing the outside world to peer inside and spot them. The silver chains clinked against the sink; he winced at the sound, darting a glance over his shoulder.
Without the light, the kitchen was dark and Shion couldn't see two inches in front of him. His heart gave a little flip of terror, but he felt Nezumi's hand slip around his wrist and guide him through the shadows and toward the staircase.
The stairs creaked beneath their combined weight, even though Shion made every attempt to go up them quietly. His heart pounded at the thought of what he was going to tell his mother. It'd been two days since he'd been snatched from the bakery. What had Karan done? Did the police know he was missing? Oh, God, did Safu?
Shion reached the top of the stairs and felt around for the door handle. He cranked it to the side, the suction of the door popping as he nudged it open, and Shion stepped into the upstairs apartment with Nezumi in tow.
The combination living room and kitchen were cold and empty, the lights turned off. Only the faint beam of moonlight trickling in from the window let Shion see anything in front of him: the old green couch, the little coffee table, the fat-backed television that crackled and sputtered every time Shion tried to watch the news.
His eyes watered at the realization that he was home. He'd managed to survive the sacrifice and make it back to his mother's bakery with all his limbs intact.
Fat tears welled in his eyes, but Shion refused to let them fall. He sucked in a deep breath and gestured toward the kitchen. "Do you want something to drink?" he whispered, so softly he could barely hear his own words.
Nezumi's hearing was far superior to his own. His knife-like ears picked up the sounds of Shion's voice, and he mouthed back, "Water's fine. We probably shouldn't make tea."
The whistling of the boiling pot might wake Shion's mother. Shion's stomach clenched. His mom. He needed to let her know that he was safe. He needed to wake her up and let her know that he'd managed to survive—
What was he going to tell her?
Karan didn't have the Sight. Karan didn't know about the Folk. She couldn't see the glamours that kept them hidden from Unsighted humans. She might have been able to see Nezumi, who stood next to Shion without any form of glamour, but what would she think if Shion told her where he'd been and why he'd been there?
He walked over to the kitchen cupboard and quietly took out a ceramic mug, mindful of where the chains dragged against the cabinet. He placed it delicately on the counter top, fetching himself a mug. He grabbed his favorite one—a purple mug with the chipped rim Karan had bought for him from the thrift store—and filled both with water from the tap. The sound of water trickling out of the faucet made his skin prickle with anxiety, and he filled them up as quickly as he could before jamming the nozzle off.
He handed one of the mugs to Nezumi, who took it gratefully. He drank the whole thing in a single swig, tipping his head back so the column of his long, pale throat caught in the moonlight. Shion must have been staring, because when Nezumi finished, he turned to look at Shion and raised his eyebrow in question.
Shion turned his face away and took careful sips of his own water. He'd need to close the curtain in the living room before a gargoyle or a sprite fluttered by and spotted them.
"Do you have a pin or a butter knife?" Nezumi gestured to the chains. "I can pick those off."
"Y-yeah, give me a second." Shion rifled through the miscellaneous draw in the kitchen. He and his mother kept an assortment of items tucked inside, on the off chance one became necessary. It wasn't hard to find the small sewing kit his mother had picked up from a gas station several years ago, a variety of needles tucked inside.
"Here," Shion murmured, handing one of the longer, thicker needles to Nezumi.
Nezumi seized the needle in his gloved hands and quickly set to work wriggling it in the small lock on Shion's shackles. He focused quickly on the task, expertly jerking the point into the areas needed to undo the silver. Shion clutched the chains in his hands so the links didn't clatter to the ground once the first one came undone.
Nezumi made quick work of the second, and once Shion's wrists were free, Nezumi took them and the bent needle and deposited them in the trash can. Shion wrung his wrists, grateful to be free. He could feel the phantom sensation of the silver wrapped around his skin, the weight he'd been dragging along since fleeing the Unseelie Court.
"If, um," Shion whispered, "if you need the bathroom, it's down the hall. The last door on the left. Just, uh, try and be quiet, if you can."
"I'm fine," Nezumi murmured back. He placed the empty mug in the sink.
Shion nodded, picked up his own cup, and took another sip of his water. He let the cool taste wash away his insecurities and ground his thoughts.
He and Nezumi had escaped the Unseelie Court. Nezumi had stabbed the Unseelie King in the back. They'd escaped through the tunnels and out into the woods. And now, Shion didn't know what was going to happen to either of them.
"Your necklace," Shion murmured. Nezumi raised an elegant eyebrow. "Um… you said you'd explain it when we were inside."
Nezumi pulled the thin rope from around his throat and let the stone sit outside his armor. It was a tiny, unremarkable thing, but even without his Sight, Shion could tell the stone was precious. Precious and valuable. Nezumi stroked his finger down the side of it thoughtfully, a strange look passing across his face before smoothing into impassivity.
"A… friend gave this to me," he explained quietly. "Before the Equinox. It's meant to create iron-defensible glamours. It's not strong, and I can't really touch it, but combined with the fact that I'm kind of used to the smell, it makes it so I can thrive in the mortal realm for a bit."
Shion's heart gave a painful lurch. A friend had risked their own safety to provide Nezumi a way to live in the mortal world. That meant his friend had known Nezumi would try to rescue him.
Shion's eyes burned with tears as he thought of all the things Nezumi had risked for him. He'd made his own mistakes—allowing himself to confide in a faerie that he'd been cursed with the Sight—but Nezumi was a member of a Court that reveled in death. Nezumi served a king that hated humanity, even going so far as to kidnap humans off the streets and slaughter them for entertainment. And now Nezumi had put himself on the King's hit list just to get Shion back to his mother's bakery.
"The King," Shion whispered suddenly, panic bolting through him like a shock of electricity. "Is—is he dead?"
Nezumi looked down at his hands. "I don't know."
Shion's stomach plummeted. "You… you don't know?"
Nezumi folded his arms across his chest and looked out the window. His posture seemed unperturbed, but his expression, when Shion caught it, seemed like a pane of glass in a building that was on fire. "If I… killed him, I would know. The Unseelie crown passes through murder. If I killed him, then I'd be the new Unseelie King."
The mug nearly slipped out of Shion's fingers.
"When the Unseelie monarch is killed," Nezumi explained carefully, "their power passes onto the one who killed them. The Unseelie crown gets stronger with each new monarch. The King was powerful before the crown got passed to him; when he killed the Unseelie Queen, he got her power, too. Whoever kills him gets his power, plus their own. So, if I'd killed him, I'd be a hell of a lot stronger than I am now." He flexed his fingers and looked down at them, horror dancing across his expression for only a moment before vanishing. "But I don't feel anything."
"Then…" Shion swallowed the lump in his throat. "He's still alive?"
"Like I said, I don't know. Someone might have killed him off while he was unconscious. He had plenty of people who'd love to see him dead. Then again, he might not be." The fierce silver of Nezumi's irises flashed as he turned away from the window and stared Shion down. "That's why we need to get out of here, in case he isn't."
"And where are we going to go?" Shion demanded. "I can't just leave my mom, Nezumi!"
"You don't have much of a choice," Nezumi said. "If he's still alive, he's going to be pissed when he finds us. And he will if we don't leave. Do you really want to put your mother through that a second time?"
Shion flinched back, his chest burning, tears welling in his eyes. He couldn't let them fall. The second he started crying, he'd lose all his steam. "And how is me leaving going to be any better? My mom probably thinks I've been kidnapped—and she'd be right! So, if I vanish, what? She's just going to think I've been kidnapped for the rest of my life?"
"Shion, calm down."
"How the hell," Shion snapped, "can you expect me to just calm down after what happened?"
"If you don't stop shouting," Nezumi said through his teeth, "then you're going to—"
A door down the hall banged open, and Karan swung into the kitchen. Her dark brown eyes were wide and disoriented, cloudy with sleep and red with tears. She wore a long white nightgown with a tear in the left shoulder; Karan had taught herself to stitch her own clothing, but the thread must have come undone sometime in the night. Shion could see her pale skin, could see the tension in her knuckles as she gripped the door and gawked into the darkness.
"Shion?" Karan's voice trembled, thick with sleep and sorrow.
"Mom," Shion said carefully. He darted a glance to Nezumi, who stood in the middle of the kitchen like an unholy, avenging angel, dressed as if he were about to march into war.
Karan squinted through the darkness, as if she couldn't quite believe what she was seeing. Her fingers itched toward the light switch on the wall, and Shion's heart gave a cold lurch. It was one thing to stand in the darkness and remember the things that'd happened to him. But under the unnatural light of the buzzing, cheap 40 watt lightbulbs, Shion knew he'd have to face reality—that Nezumi wasn't human, that Shion was covered in blood of all colors that'd come from a murderous King and a Court of monsters, and that because of his poor decisions, this would be the last time he'd ever be allowed to see his mother.
"Shion!" Karan's hand slid across the wall as she plunged through the shadows and gathered Shion up in her arms.
He exhaled hard as his mother yanked him against her chest, curling around him as if she could shield him from the horrors of the world. His eyes burned, his throat raw as he forced back the tears welling in both. His fingers trembled, his hands lifting to rest on his mother's shoulder blades. His chest ached as he realized she was shaking.
"Where—where the hell were you?" Karan almost never swore. The sound of it falling from her lips send a bolt of panic through him. Karan wrenched back, taking his face in her hands and staring deep into his eyes as if she didn't quite believe it was really him. "I came home and you were just gone! The door was open and it looked like… it looked like you were dragged out of the room, and I thought…" Her lips trembled as she stumbled over the words, her brown eyes wide and glittering with tears. "It didn't look like a robbery, but I couldn't find you anywhere and—"
Karan looked up at Nezumi, as if seeing him for the first time. Shion suddenly remembered that Nezumi had covered himself with a strange glamour that protected him from the iron in the bakery. Shion hadn't anticipated that it also meant his mother would be able to see him. His mouth went dry as a thousand excuses flared up in his head.
"Who are you?" Karan shoved Shion behind her and stood between him and Nezumi. Her hands trembled with terror as she took in the shadowless black of his armor, the unnatural glint of his silver eyes. "Why are you in our house?"
"Mom—" Shion said, reaching his fingers out to catch his mother's shoulder. How was he going to explain this?
Nezumi looked at Karan as if she were as threatening as a buzzing fly. His silver eyes flashed in the dim light radiating from the windows behind them. He cocked his head to the side, staring Karan dead in the face, and then he said, "Everything I say to you in the next few moments will become as real to you as your own two hands."
Karan froze.
Shion flinched at the sounds that came from Nezumi's mouth. His voice sounded honeyed and sweet, sticky in the same way the apple spice wine had been. It slid over Shion like a shroud, pressing his skin and sending an assortment of goosebumps rippling down his arms. His eyes darted to his mother, who stared at Nezumi as if he was little more than a decoration in their house, something she'd purchased that day and hadn't quite become accustomed to.
"You will return to your room and sleep until morning," Nezumi commanded. His sweet voice cascaded through the kitchen, so tantalizing and beautiful that Shion almost surrendered to it. "Nothing will rouse you until the sun touches your face. When you wake, you will not remember the past two days. You will not remember that your son was taken from you." He cocked his head to the side and added as an afterthought, "Your memories of this encounter will fade, but you will know that your son is not alone in your house. You will not fear this stranger."
Karan smiled dreamily and nodded, all too eager to please.
"Good." Nezumi drifted his hand through the air and gestured toward the hall. "Return to your bed and sleep."
As mechanically as a wind-up doll, Karan hurried away from Shion marched to her bedroom. The door clicked shut behind her.
"I've never tried that on a human before," Nezumi said, his voice trembling with exhaustion. He shook his head as if clearing a strange fog. "I wasn't sure it would work, but it looks like it did." He turned to look at Shion and remarked, as if he were simply stating the color of the sky, "There. Problem solved."
Shion clenched his fist and punched Nezumi in the face. It wasn't a good punch, by any means. His knuckles cracked against Nezumi's cheek, and his head barely turned from the force behind it. But Nezumi looked horrified all the same, his silver eyes flashing as if Shion had shoved an iron poker through his chest.
"You—you son of a bitch!" Shion shrieked. It didn't matter if his mother heard him or not. After the words Nezumi had murmured to her, peering deep into her eyes and twisting her sense of reality with magic, it didn't matter what he did. "What did you do to my mom?"
"I enchanted her," Nezumi explained, looking at Shion as if he were the unreasonable one. "Did you want to explain to her where you've been for two days?"
"No! But that doesn't mean you can just—" Shion curled his fingers, fisting them into his hair. If he didn't do something with them, he was going to hit Nezumi in the face again.
His eyes were already watery, and the stress of the situation seemed to push him over the edge. He couldn't hold back his tears, and he left them drip down his cheeks. It seemed so ridiculous that this would be the thing to rattle him, but Shion sobbed, scraping the backs of his hands across his cheeks and rubbing his eyes until they were raw and red.
He felt sick, more like curling over the trash can and vomiting what little there was in his stomach than standing in front of Nezumi and making a fool out of himself, but he couldn't do anything other than cry until there was nothing left inside him.
"I'm sorry," Nezumi murmured. "I shouldn't have done that."
Shion smeared the tears on his cheeks and sniffled. His nose felt thick, like he'd picked up a cold somewhere between the Unseelie Court and home. "No," he agreed. "You shouldn't have."
Nezumi looked over his shoulder at the dark window. The streetlamps outside sent a pale beam of light across the carpet, glittering on the soles of Nezumi's heavy black boots.
"Do you want me to leave?" he asked.
There wasn't any violence in his voice, or any threat. Simply a calm understanding, as if he'd miserably resigned himself to the possibility that Shion would want him to leave after what he'd done.
And it was tempting. Part of Shion wanted to command Nezumi to leave his house, to send him out into the streets to fend for himself against whatever nightmares came his way. But the thought of doing that wrenched his soul apart. He might have been angry with Nezumi at the moment, but that didn't mean he wanted him to die.
"No," Shion whispered, suddenly exhausted. "I don't want you to leave."
They hurried down the hallway, heading for the door which led to Shion's bedroom. He felt a faint wave of self-consciousness at the realization that a boy was about to see his bedroom—but it felt so stupid now that he almost laughed. Misery and exhaustion blended inside him like a cocktail, muddling his thoughts and making him tremble.
When the reached his bedroom, Shion opened the door and peered inside. It seemed decently organized and not at all a wreck. It wouldn't have mattered if it was, anyway. It wasn't as if Nezumi's room back in the Unseelie mountain was any cleaner.
"Well, I borrowed your clothes," Shion said softly. "I guess now you get to borrow mine."
Nezumi walked carefully through the room, as if the tan carpet were a pit threatening to open and swallow him whole. His boots left tracks of mud and grime in his wake that Shion would have a hard time cleaning and explaining to his mother—except his mother was dozing in her room, enchanted into believing nothing was strange about the black-armored boy who'd been towering in her kitchen or the blood caked on her son's clothes.
Shion shoved the thoughts aside. If he thought about the dreamy smile on his mother's face, the way her brown eyes had glazed over as she took in the sight of Nezumi and Shion as if they were little more than decorations in her apartment, he'd go mad.
The faerie clothes felt sticky and heavy around his shoulders. Shion couldn't rip it off fast enough. He didn't care if Nezumi stood behind him. He didn't care if he would see him mostly naked. Shion ripped the blood-splattered shirt and slacks off, chucking them into the corner. As soon as he had access to a lighter and a dumpster, he was going to light the whole thing ablaze. Maybe he'd even dance in the ashes, just for the hell of it.
Shion dug through the ratty dresser and pulled out a paint-spattered, oversized blue shirt. He yanked it over his head and smoothed the sides down. He felt strangely self-conscious standing in the middle of his dark bedroom in nothing but his boxers and a tee shirt, but also free. He felt more like himself than he did in a week.
He rifled through the dresser and found another shirt that he remembered being just a bit too large on him. Nezumi wasn't that much taller than him—certainly enough to notice—but Shion wondered if his shirts would be too small and uncomfortable for Nezumi to wear. He figured it didn't matter. Anything was better to sleep in than a suit of armor.
Shion fished out a pair of plain black sleep pants. He shifted the fleece between his hands, hyper aware of the hole torn in the left knee. He quickly shook aside the thought, knowing that Nezumi wouldn't care about a rip in his clothing. He gathered the two articles of clothes and turned to face Nezumi again.
He stood next to the twin-sized mattress, looking oddly out of place in his shadowy black armor. He glanced sideways at the comforter and the pillows. Shion made his bed every morning, and it was still perfectly neat from the day he'd been kidnapped by Rikiga. Shion swallowed the lump in his throat, his eyes lowering to the pile of clothes as he crossed the room and set them down in front of Nezumi.
"I'm, uh, going to go brush my teeth and wash my face." Shion wrung his wrists and looked at the floor, the wall, the mattress—anything to avoid having to look into Nezumi's searching silver eyes. "I think we have a few spares if you want. I mean… do the Folk even brush their teeth?"
"Baking soda, if you have it," Nezumi replied. He reached down and plucked the shirt off the bed, lifting it up and inspecting it.
Shion mumbled something about going to the kitchen and seeing what they had and then ducking out into the hallway. He scurried across the hall, struggling to keep his steps quiet and calm. He didn't want to wake his mother—he chose to ignore that the enchantment would keep her asleep until morning, refusing to think about her dull brown eyes and the faded smile on her lips as she bid them both "good night" and drifted back into her bedroom.
He quickly sought out a box of baking soda and went to the bathroom. He set the baking soda on the sink and sought out one of the spare toothbrushes. He and Karan didn't have many guests, but they both preferred to be prepared. Shion set the plastic-wrapped toothbrush beside the baking soda and grabbed his own from the holder. He wet the bristles, put a dollop of toothpaste on it, and set to work scrubbing his teeth, allowing the artificial, minty flavor to erase the lingering scraps of apple spice and blood.
The methodic, human action dragged Shion's mind out of the shadows of the Unseelie Court. He scrubbed the bristles across his teeth, reveling in the sensation of calm that washed over him. He stood in the dark and squinted through the dim shadows at his reflection. He couldn't bear to turn on the light, couldn't listen to the loud whir of the automatic fan as it clicked on. He stood in the shadows and brushed his teeth, rinsed his mouth, then returned to his bedroom.
As he nudged the door open, he froze as Nezumi finished stripping off the last of his armor and set it neatly in the corner with complete nonchalance. He'd already removed the heavy boots and leg guards, slipping into Shion's sleep pants. The black fabric clung to his thighs and calves, just a bit too tight in the hips to be comfortable. The blades of his pale, strong shoulders were scarred and severely burned, stretching down the length of his spine and standing out bright pink and brown against the pallor of his flesh.
At the sound of the door creaking, Nezumi looked over his shoulder. His silver eyes were chilling in their vacancy; he stared at Shion for a moment before seeming to remember something about "human modesty". He grasped the tee shirt and yanked it over his head, unearthing his hair from the collar and letting it fall loose around his shoulders. The bright red comb with its sharp teeth sat menacingly on the little nightstand beside Shion's bed.
He looked strange and unnatural in human clothing, but no less beautiful as he sat on the edge of the mattress, his bare toes scrunching in the tan carpet as Shion eased the door shut and hurried over to the window to shut the curtains as an afterthought. The alley might have been vacant of Folk on a good day, but tonight had been anything but.
"Baking soda's in the bathroom," Shion said quickly, unable to look over his shoulder at the otherworldly boy perched on his bed. "I—I left a toothbrush there for you, too. There's towels in the cabinet, if you feel like washing up. My mom gets all-natural soap, so there shouldn't be anything in it that, um, that you can't put on your skin."
"I appreciate it."
Shion watched as Nezumi crossed the bedroom without looking back and slipped into the hall. The whir of the bathroom fan clicked on as a bar of unnatural, buttery light spilled out from beneath the shut door.
While Nezumi was in the bathroom, Shion rifled through the little closet in his bedroom and found a spare comforter. He tried to search for a few spare pillows to make the floor a bit comfier. He'd offer Nezumi his bed and sleep on the floor. He supposed he could sleep on the couch in the living room, but the thought of being out of Nezumi's sight made him anxious. He exhaled miserably and piled a few beaten-thin pillows on the floor at the foot of the bed and stretched the comforter out.
His floor might not be the comfiest place in the house, but anything was better than being sprawled out on the stones back in the Unseelie Court.
He hoped his bedsheets were clean enough for Nezumi to sleep on. He gave the collar of his shirt an experimental sniff, unable to smell anything except the lingering stench of metallic blood and lavender fabric softener. He sighed, hoping his pillows didn't smell too much like sweat. It'd been a cool autumn, after all.
The door clicked shut, and Shion looked up to see Nezumi wandering back into the room. His cheeks were damp, glistening in the dim light filtering in from the alley beneath the white curtains, and he smelled like lemon soap as he stepped toward Shion and began to crouch down beside the pile of blankets and pillows.
"Oh, no," Shion said quickly.
Nezumi lifted his head, his silver eyes flashing like coins in the darkness.
"You, um… you can take the bed." Shion fiddled with the hem of his sleep shirt. "It's the least I can do for you after all that."
"It's your bed."
"I know it is." Shion fisted a hand in his hair and gave a sharp yank. The ends were sticky and sharp, but he was too exhausted to head into the shower. He felt achy and cold and miserable, and all he wanted to do was curl up beneath the blankets and cry until it didn't hurt anymore.
Nezumi stared at him. Shion felt his gaze like a shot through the gut. He lowered his gaze to the pile of blankets on the floor, the pillow he'd shoved in the closet because it was too thin to be comfortable on his bed.
"You're exhausted," Nezumi said, his voice dripping with what might have been amusement or annoyance. He jerked his head toward the mattress. "Come on. It's not like this is the first time we'd be sharing a bed."
Shion flinched, his face burning. He mumbled a "thank you" under his breath and climbed onto the mattress. The springs creaked beneath the addition of his weight as he crawled as far against the wall as he could get. Words died on his tongue, pricking the back of his throat like burrs, thousands of ways to thank him vanishing between them because Shion suddenly remembered that the Folk didn't like to be thanked.
He felt the bed creak down as Nezumi stretched out beside him. The mattress was small, but not much smaller than Nezumi's back in the Unseelie Court. Shion didn't face him—couldn't, his body locking into place as soon as he buried himself beneath the comforter—but his stomach twisted with warm butterflies as he felt Nezumi toss and turn, tangling the bedsheet around his long legs.
"Nezumi," Shion murmured a moment later, the darkness swallowing his voice.
Nezumi stilled beside him. "Yeah?"
"You're… you're not going to leave, right?"
He felt the mattress shift as Nezumi rolled onto his side, facing away from him. Shion's chest ached from the effort it took to swallow back the insanity writhing within him. Nothing felt real anymore.
"No," Nezumi whispered into the shadows. "No, I'm not going to leave."
Shion closed his eyes and breathed out a sigh. All the energy seemed to rush out of him with the motion. His eyelids dropped, his head sinking into the pillow. The warmth from the comforter, from the thin heat rumbling up from the grate in the floor, and the sensation of the boy sleeping beside him lulled him into a comfortable slumber.
And for the first time in years, Shion didn't dream.
To Be Continued...