Chapter Four #4
Surprise flashed over Antonio’s face, drew his eyebrows in, had him blinking. The only response to the news came in the form of an emphatic, muttered, “Shit.”
‘Shit,’ indeed. Aisling felt much the same, albeit due to Declan cutting his life short rather than the other way around. As with his mother, Declan kept his mouth shut on Antonio’s succinct commentary.
The human didn’t see fit to continue his line of questioning, and Declan couldn’t find the words to trudge on himself.
It was almost a relief to have that sharp flash of cold pain in his senses, something else to focus on.
Not that it hurt. Not exactly. But he could sense Antonio’s discomfort, a bladed edge with every flick of Antonio’s thumb against his index finger.
“Did you hurt your hand?” Declan offered his own hand cautiously, palm up and glamour down from elbow to nail tip. “May I help?”
“It’s nothing. Splinter from the bench,” Antonio said dismissively. He held out his hand, though, just as Declan started to pull back, and offered Declan a twist of a raw-edged smile. “No big deal. I figure you’d tell me if it was gonna kill me.”
The lines that crossed Antonio’s palms whispered of cracked clay and well worked jackets, the back of his hand heavy and warm against Declan’s careful touch.
It would feel like his favorite leather piece against his chest, a coat he’d had for years upon years.
Still did, the weight and fall of it known, worn to comfort.
Which had nothing to do with the here and now. His coat hung in his closet. Antonio, flesh and blood and breathing, was not a thing.
Declan huffed a laugh, looking down at Antonio’s hand to hide his half-smile.
“No gangrenous end for you this day, Antonio.” Slight pressure and the touch of his nails, gingerly done, at the visibly reddened mark where the splinter rested.
“On a grossly self absorbed note, I admit I’m curious to see if my clothes will still suit me once the wrinkles set in.
Black jeans are always a classic. Studs and cut off sleeves, possibly less so.
I imagine they’ll require a tailor, if nothing else. ”
“I thought fae didn’t age.” Antonio’s words were all distant puzzlement, the splinter gone, his hand still warm in Declan’s gentle hold. “But I’m not sure there’s an age limit to being a murder punk.”
Declan ought to let go. Touching Antonio was risk enough, future bond or not, but to keep doing so was little more than pure selfishness. Except, Antonio hadn’t pulled away. Nor did he look as though he wanted to. Just, there. Comforting, old warm metal and a wrap of leather against the chill.
Declan traced a line up Antonio’s palm with his thumb, the middling one. Fate line, he’d been told, absently remembered while mapped with a brush of his thumb, the barest side of his thumbnail.
“I’ll age,” he said simply, attention focused on the picture of their hands, not looking up at Antonio in the distraction.
He smiled again, regardless, faint but genuine.
He wasn’t Teth, the pre-convergence Council member, bondmate to a longtime friend.
Declan didn’t want to live until the suns exploded.
“Everil will age. The records I found all agreed that. The lifespans of human-fae bonds end up matching. I’ve no reason to doubt them. ”
Antonio tensed slightly. Declan glanced up only to find the human already staring at him, startled, arm tight as if he were trying to not pull away forcefully.
Declan let go. He did so with as much consideration as he had the first time, lowering his hand carefully.
He knew how some fae treated their pet humans.
Even the well loved were subject to a species that didn’t spend much time learning what damaged, nor would they care overmuch.
And whatever kind of companion Calloway had been, it sent Antonio to Declan with shamefully few requirements.
It made Antonio hold still and let Declan touch him. Pet him, for all he’d not meant it the way it must have seemed.
“Oh,” Antonio said, and swallowed hard. He drew in a deep breath, the steadying kind, and asked, “So, do we doing this?”
He didn’t sound flat. Nothing reminiscent of I’ll do it. Did that count as an improvement?
It wouldn’t be so bad, bonding to a person that thought of him as a murder punk. Maybe in time, Antonio would find some kind of cheap value in a friendship with Declan. In him, as well as the protection he afforded.
And maybe in time, Antonio would realize he was madly in love with Kesk, offer to adopt a baby with Everil, and yell at a puppy, all in one go. Equally as likely.
“If you still wish to, I’m happy to do so.
Florian is by the treeline, likely grumbling about kids not tidying up the leaves.
He can stand witness.” A corner of Declan’s mouth kicked up in a rueful ghost of a smile.
“It’d not do for Calloway to assert we weren’t properly acknowledged and try to claim the bond null. ”
“I’m an ex-con. Car theft,” Antonio answered, flat again, the words abrupt and no answer at all.
“I have a parole officer. Mandatory therapy and meds to keep me from seeing fairies.” And, oh, his smile could hardly be more bitter while still claiming the title.
“My sisters will call the police if I’m more than ten minutes late to family dinner.
And… until you answered I was trying to decide whether blue or black ink was better for a suicide note. ”
Only practice kept Declan from repeating ‘Pardon?’ for the ten hundredth time in the last fifteen minutes. That, and Antonio’s unnaturally flat voice, his words continuing even as he shifted away from Declan, staring at the ground.
“Just– You should know all that. Before you say you’re ‘happy’ to take me. I’ve fucked up a lot in thirty years. Think, maybe, if you’re trying to save the world, you might be better off looking for someone who’s never had their shoelaces treated as contraband.”
…what in the blood-soaked voids was Declan supposed to say to that?
“Blue ink,” Declan said, rather stupidly, while he turned the whole of it over it in his mind. He heard Antonio exhale, that same man who spoke of a six by eight, what pushing back on The Man got someone. “It fades faster, unless you’d like them to have a souvenir for more than a couple decades.”
Which wasn’t the actual bloody question or issue presented. Declan lifted his hands, palms up. He didn’t like the way Antonio, fierce and resigned and forward, with his “that’s not gonna happen” wouldn’t look at him for the first time since the bench.
“What would you have me say? I’m not a fan of peelers on a good day. You were ill used and sent back to a world that no longer believes. It isn’t like you bombed a busy civvy street in hopes of taking out a couple specifics.”
“Fuck, Christ, no.”
“Grand. I understand those are… that humans have ideas about those who haven’t toed the line or experience the world differently.
I’m not human.” Declan shrugged, struggling to find the right words.
“I don’t know the equivalent of ‘I can’t promise not to get wasted, but I’ll deal’ is, but if I did, I’d say so now. ”
It was the right thing to say, somehow. Antonio flashed him an exhausted smile, and met Declan’s shrug with one of his own.
“We can both get wasted,” Antonio offered generously. “But first, tell me how this oath shit works, so I don’t fuck up the words and end up turning into a tree or something.”