Chapter Twenty-Three #3
“Yeah, finally putting all that reading to practical use.” Bastian smiles wanly, then his face takes on a look of worry. “You didn’t feel pressured, did you?”
“No, I’m glad you did it,” I say. I feel strangely awkward talking about it, though.
It’s supposed to be this massive magical milestone that we passed together, but I don’t have words for the quiet anticlimax of it.
I’ve done the unthinkable, something no shapeshifter should do or has done in centuries (if my parents are telling the truth) but I feel utterly unchanged.
He might as well have borrowed a pen or my lecture notes.
I want to ask Bastian if he feels any different, but his face is already slackening with exhaustion as his shoulders wilt.
“That’s a relief.” His eyes droop. “You were so amazing, getting rid of it. Was it an exorcism circle?”
“Yeah, my blood and then some holy water. I was shitting myself. I didn’t know it would work but it turns out Professor Wallace was right, sometimes the oldest ways are the best.”
“Ha.” His eye opens and he gives me a slightly wry look. “Good thing you asked that question in class, then.”
“Is it too soon for an ‘I told you so’?”
“Maybe after I’ve slept for twenty hours.” He yawns, eyes drifting closed again. He really does have the most fantastic eyelashes.
“Do you want to go to your bedroom?”
I look around, trying to assess the distance to the nearest doors and if I can get him there safely.
“No, I don’t think I can move and this is wide enough for both of us.” He flops a tired hand against the sofa. I stare at him for a second, wondering if I’ve misheard him.
“For both of us?” I repeat.
“Oh. Um.” Bastian opens his eyes and shoots me an apologetic look. “You don’t have to stay.”
“Do you want me to?”
“I … Yes.” Bastian sighs heavily. “I probably need someone here, in case the wounds reopen and … I’d like your company.”
“Then you’ll have it.”
It would have felt beyond cruel to leave him now, on the sofa, barely able to move.
A part of me is still in the cathedral, holding his head in my lap, seeing his blood and panicking that he was going to die right in front of me, just like Elizabeth.
I reach down and unlace my boots, helping Bastian ease off his shoes, too.
“Thank you.” I feel Bastian’s hand stroking my hair, and my breath catches in my throat. I sit back up. He doesn’t move his hand away. Instead, he drifts it cautiously around, so slowly that I can pull away if I want, until his thumb is stroking my cheekbone and my jawline, mapping out my new face.
“I always want your company,” he whispers.
“Bastian…” I don’t want him to stop but I don’t know what to do, either. Don’t do this if you don’t mean it, I find myself thinking desperately. Please.
“I know.” He’s breathing sharply through his nose, each word costing him. “I know you’re not over your girlfriend, I get it, but I almost got eaten by a hellhound tonight, so I feel like I just really need to say … that I think you’re beautiful.”
My expectations go into free fall. My body is so heavy with crushing disappointment. This is a pretty form; I’ve got big eyes and nice cheekbones. This skin that barely feels like mine yet, that’s what he finds beautiful. Not me.
“Yeah,” I say hollowly. “This is … a nice form, I guess.”
“No.” His voice is so fierce and his hand holds my chin, forcing me to look into his eyes.
“Not your form, whatever it is, but you. All the time. Because whatever your form, you’re always sharp and funny and you always give me the same eye roll and the same annoyed look and eat biscuits like a weirdo—”
“Rude,” I mutter, and he smiles, rubbing his thumb over my new nose, my different freckles, like he’s been looking at them fondly for months.
“You’re always you,” he goes on. “And nobody else has made me feel…”
“Feel what?” I ask, wondering how I’m still breathing when he’s saying all this.
“This.” He takes my hand and presses it over his heart, just like he did when I had a panic attack at college.
This time, it’s no longer slow and calming, but vibrant and frantic.
I reckon it could match my own. “Whether you’re in a hoodie or daft dungarees, redhead or brunette, whatever, you always make me feel this. I think you’re … brilliant, Lando.”
He rubs a thumb across my lips. They tingle.
There’s a residue of spellwork in his hands and I can suddenly taste it, that smoky air of the magic inside him leaking out of his pores.
Maybe I should have hesitations, but how can I?
After everything, we are both here, unexpectedly together, miraculously alive.
“Is it really weird if I say I’ve been thinking about kissing you for weeks?” he whispers. The relief is unimaginable, it sweeps away every other feeling in its path. Fear, anxiety, even guilt dissolve into his soft brown eyes.
“I thought you were into men,” I blurt out, but I have to know, even as I’m leaning toward him, even as his other hand is slipping to my waist. “Are you…?”
“I’m pansexual.” His eyes are fixed on my lips. “Is that okay?”
“It’s amazing,” I say, and I kiss the life out of him.