Chapter Fifteen
Antonio
It turned out, the only problem with bonding a revolutionary sluagh Murderpunk was finding the asshole. In the dark. In a forest outside Bo and Everil’s place. With only the bond as a guide.
Well, that and Declan’s vague proclamation that he would heal faster if he “got in touch with his aspect.” Antonio hadn’t taken him up on his invitation to follow, because he was an idiot.
An idiot who’d really wanted to take a shower without having to ask Declan to fix the temperature because in Faerie, water adjusted to your thoughts. Unless, of course, you were Antonio.
(At least he no longer had to ask Declan to make them ice cold.)
The shower had been fucking fantastic. But you could only stand under a stream of hot water for so long before it lost its novelty, and the anxiety came back.
He’d tried to stay in the house. He had. He’d grabbed a snack, chatted with Bo, and tried not to roll his eyes when the guy fawned over Everil, all brief little touches and affectionate pet names.
Only, it sucked. Holding still sucked. Waiting sucked. The memory of Declan crumpled on the ground, not moving, that terrible gash in his side, really sucked.
Unfortunately, wandering through a forest in the dark wasn’t great either. Still, the moon and stars were reassuringly familiar, and each breath tasted a little more like smoke and lilacs.
Finally, he saw the light of candles, there on a low, crumbling stone wall. And lit by them, Declan.
Gorgeous fucking Murderpunk, sitting in the moonlight, surrounded by gravestones. He looked nothing like human, he never did. But he looked right. Right for the setting. Right for Antonio, who would’ve stepped forward to pull the sluagh into his arms, if the guy hadn’t started talking.
“Can’t say that I have, no,” Declan said, looking at … something.
Antonio’s eyes didn’t want to see it. But as he stood on the other side of the wall, bond humming, the not-thing became clearer. A woman in old fashioned clothes, sitting across from Declan.
She glowed faintly, and Antonio could see the gravestones through her. A ghost. Because of fucking course.
Right, so, either he stood by the wall, leering at his boyfriend or he wandered in and interrupted Declan making nice with Casper. Antonio wavered, shifting in place, fingers drumming against the stone. This would be a great moment to conveniently break a twig.
Well, he and Declan were bonded. Antonio reached for it, the tangle where I became we. From there, well, he tried to send a pulse of feeling between them.
Just, a ‘hey, I’m standing here watching you and totally not in a creepy way.’
“…they pass through like the waters,” the ghost’s voice became clear as Antonio focused on the bond. “The gentleman, he says– Are you still listening?”
“Yes, of course,” Declan answered, but then he turned, glancing over his shoulder toward Antonio. “My apologies, ma’am, I believe my companion is here.”
Declan smiled at him, and any idea Antonio might have had of hanging out by the wall until the sluagh was done playing medium was immediately forgotten. That was the thing about the bond. There was no doubt in it. Plenty of confusion, but no doubt. Declan was happy to see him. Antonio knew he was.
“You came,” Declan said, getting to his feet and heading over.
“Can he see me?” the ghost asked, standing–or floating, hell if Antonio knew–as well. “I bet he can. Do you like jokes, handsome?”
“Depends.” Antonio bumped Declan’s shoulder with his own. “Is that your unfinished business? Jokes?”
“Depends,” the ghost echoed, “If business is open until I get out my share of jokes, will I actually get to finish the tale?”
“In my shoes, Everil would find a river.” Declan leaned into him, and the bond purred with the closeness, the miscatch of gears becoming smooth transition. “For me… well. Comedy in the graveyard, apparently.”
“Only if you attend, Grinning Reaper. And your friend as well.”
Antonio snickered at the nickname. “I’ve seen shows in shittier dives.”
“More the merrier,” the ghost said. “In the conversation, mind, not the graveyard. So, as I had been saying?”
“A gentleman asked a lady at Tunbridge,” Declan answered, clearly repeating whatever Antonio had missed. “She’d made a very large acquaintance among all the pretty fellows and beaus there. He asked her what she would do with them all?”
The ghost grinned, her small white teeth glittering in the dark, and picked up the joke from there. “‘Oh!’ She said, ‘they pass through like the Waters.’ ‘And Madam,’ he said, ‘do they all pass the same Way.’ ”
And, from the leer in her voice and the expectant look, that was obviously the punchline.
Some jokes, you probably had to be at least a century old to get.
Luckily, what Antonio lacked in centuries, he made up for in nieces.
Laughing along with nonsensical jokes was a survival technique when babysitting.
“You ever hear the one about the leprechaun and the nun?”
“No.” The ghost’s eyes glowed brighter, round cheeks dimpling. “I’m sure I’d remember it if I had. Indulge me? On the off chance I meet up with my husband again.”
“I’ve not heard it either,” Declan added. “Though I’ve suspicions based on the leprechauns I’ve known.”
“Fucking fae,” Antonio said, though the phrase came out fond.
He was about to tell a leprechaun joke to a fucking Irish fae.
And a ghost. Fine. Great. But he wasn’t doing the damned accents.
“So, these two leprechauns walk into a convent, and they go up to the Mother Superior, and the first one’s laughing the whole time, saying, ‘ask her, ask her.’ So the second one, all polite, says ‘Excuse me, Mother Superior, can you tell me how many leprechaun nuns you have in this convent?’ and the Mother Superior, she looks down and she says, ‘I’m sorry, my child, but there are no leprechaun nuns in this convent. ’ ”
It was a long joke. But it was too late not to tell it. And with Declan watching him, he didn’t mind so much, working the question and answer up from the convent to the Holy Roman Empire.
“So, finally, the poor Mother Superior has had enough and she says, ‘For the last time, there are no leprechaun nuns in all of Christendom. Not here, not in the entire world. There are no leprechaun nuns.’ The first leprechaun loses it. All but pisses himself laughing. He points at the second leprechaun, who’s gone all red in the face and says, ‘I told you. You daft bugger! You fucked a penguin!’ ”
Declan snickered against his shoulder while the ghost giggled behind her hands. The air tasted like flowers left for the dead. And like laughter.
“I think my dear late husband may die from another heart attack, hearing that. Well told, handsome.” The ghost turned on her heel, toward a nearby stone. “Business is closed. I’ve a husband to find.”
One, two, three steps, and she was gone, fading into the second grave, her laughter echoing after. Antonio might have worried, with her disappearing like that. But it was hard to worry with Declan close and a feeling like…
Well, like watching a dying bonfire at the end of the night, everyone else gone home while you sat close to the person you’d come hoping to see. Yeah. Whatever that emotion was, it felt like that.
“So, ghosts exist,” he said. “This mean I need to start going to Mass again?”
“Only if you want to.” Declan slipped an arm around his waist. “None of them will talk about what happens after death, though. It’s rude to ask.”
Antonio liked the way Declan tucked himself in close. Bird-light weight and sharpness, less heat than presence. Antonio draped an arm over his shoulders and held on.
“And you can just call them up whenever you want? Chat up your favorite dead musicians?”
Declan shook his head, and Antonio could feel an uneasy shift in the bond, like he’d hit on a sore spot.
“We invite,” Declan said. “And if someone’s interested, they come through. Calling up someone specific, that’s– It’s not done.”
Right, so, chatting up the grandparents was out. Antonio was fine with that. He’d never been the favorite grandchild.
“Got it. More of a roll the dice thing. They come through a lot? I might need to learn some shorter jokes.”
“Only occasionally.” And Declan was smiling again as he squeezed Antonio’s hip.
“But perhaps a few, depending. Even uninjured, I need to visit a place like this every few days in this world or interact with the passed.
Aspects are all the more literal, here. I won't take offense if you would rather not spend an hour or so chatting with them. Or sitting with me in a graveyard should none come calling.”
“Don’t mind keeping you company. Better than watching Bo and Everil make eyes at each other.”
“They are especially saccharine. Have been since the trials.” Declan sounded fond as he said it, pale blue eyes fixed on Antonio. “I like you, Antonio. A sentiment that falls quite short of the intent behind it. Thank you for not expecting me to call you something like ‘sweet Tonio.’ ”
Christ, the way Declan was looking at him. Warmth in a predator's gaze. Soft smile showing pointed teeth.
“Yeah, like you too. Wouldn't be here if I didn't.” The words rough with emotion and his own unease in expressing it. “But if you start calling me ‘sweet’ anything, you're not getting laid.”
“I believe I’ll be able to refrain.” Declan half turned into Antonio’s chest, shifting that much closer. “What about ‘beefcake?’ ”
White teeth behind black lips, the contrast stark when lit by nothing but candles and moonlight. Fucking hell. Easy to understand why it was here that Declan came to get in touch with his aspect. There was a magnetism to him, always, that seemed somehow heightened in the quiet and the dark.
“Anyone’s a beefcake next to your scrawny ass.” Antonio grabbed an illustrative lack of a handful, but didn’t let his touch linger. “But I think your friend the barghest might be a better fit for the name. Man’s a fridge with legs.”
“I wager he’d be more likely to accept the term from you than from me. Besides,” Declan’s smile turned that little bit more predatory, “I don’t want my teeth anywhere near him.”
“No?” And Antonio couldn’t help the way he grinned or the way he shifted closer to Declan, riding the high of the man’s laughter. “I feel you. Can’t say I’d want to fuck around with someone who looks like he collects femurs. Me, I’ve only got the two I was born with.”
“I’m a simple man. Anything more than two is excessive.”
Antonio could taste Declan on the air, burnt wood and new growth. He wanted more than that, wanted to trace his tongue over gray cracks along pale skin.
“You said you’d heal faster?”
“Aye.” Declan stretched in illustration, no longer favoring his side. “I’m much recovered.”
“We should get back. Promised your friends’ kid we’d be around for what she called an ‘awkward family dinner, like on TV.’ Then maybe you show me where you want your teeth.”
“We wouldn’t want to disappoint Talia in her quest of living the life of television. And then, maybe,” a smile, slow and pointed, “I show you just where I want my teeth.”