Chapter 24 #2
Oh. That was … something. Nice is probably the word he wants. But instead of letting it form fully, he becomes aware of how weak his legs feel. “I gotta sit.”
He means it as an invitation to join him, but suddenly Topher’s at his side, taking his mug with one hand and elbow with the other, helping him hobble to the couch. Topher retreats briefly to get his own tea, but then surprises Mateo by sitting right next to him.
“I got you tickets back to Seattle for tomorrow evening,” Topher says, slowly spinning his too hot mug between his hands.
“Thanks,” Mateo says automatically, pretending he didn’t already know. The idea of leaving makes it feel like he’s talking to a soon-to-be-dead guy. The demon reacts in a distressingly subdued way by making Mateo feel like a cowardly shithead about it.
Think of something encouraging. Even a hollow assurance will work. All Mateo’s done is take thousands from Topher and is about to leave him with a murdered or murderous loved one to deal with alone. The tea is finally cool enough to sip, so Mateo uses it to search for nice-person words.
“Do you think your mom’s dead?” Topher asks, and it blasts away any feeble platitudes forming in Mateo’s brain.
Topher realizes how it sounds and gives Mateo an even more startled look than Mateo’s giving him.
They’re not a pair of deer in headlights.
They’re both the headlights. “I’m sorry.
I didn’t mean—I was just thinking, because they’re both missing, and there was blood, so I was thinking.
Not that you were ever thinking. I mean, about yours.
Not that you have a reason to think that yours—”
He keeps going and Mateo can only stare.
Topher is trying to have a scared-about-my-possibly-dead-mom conversation and he’s fantastically bad at it and so concerned he’s going to upset Mateo that he can’t get a coherent sentence out.
There’s no need for the alarm, though. Mateo’s an empty husk of exhausted existential dread.
Which is why it’s so impressive when Topher peters out and Mateo excavates what he hopes is a smile and says, “Have you seen your mom in a dream since she went missing?”
“A dream?” Topher repeats, some of the tension releasing from his panic-face. “No.”
“So, this isn’t a promise or anything, but there’s this belief.
When a loved one dies, they come to you in a dream.
It might take a few months for their spirit to gather enough energy for the manifestation, but once they have it, they let the people they love, who love them, see them dressed in white in a dream.
It’s to let their loved ones know that they’re at peace. ”
The softest gasp from Topher, like he’d desperately wanted a salve for his mom’s terminal situation but hadn’t expected Mateo to have one.
And now Mateo’s profoundly uncomfortable, not sure why he said it. False hope is so much heavier than no hope at all. It’s a kind of weight that increases exponentially the longer you hold it, and at some point, you have to put it down or be crushed.
He wants to retract it, to remind Topher that the likely outcome of seeing blood in a house where, moments later, an attempted murderer showed up, is probably death. That an abusive dad and a missing mom almost always means a murder. But Topher asks, “Did you ever dream about your mother?”
“No.” It sounds like a positive so that baby deer smile creeps onto Topher’s lips in response and Mateo can’t say that he only dreams about eating people and Ophelia dying. Never anything else. Also, Mateo’s not sure he counts as a loved one to Ignacia.
Topher, urged on by this misunderstanding, goes back for more curiosities. “The, um, spell? That lets you heal? Did your mother do it before she left? So you’d be safe?”
Perfectly logical conclusion to make if you’d never met her.
His face must have done something because Topher flinches back. “Sorry. Sorry. We don’t have to talk about it.”
“It’s fine,” Mateo says for reasons beyond him.
He’d rather go out a window again than talk about this, but the alternative is lying down on this couch with nothing but his own terrible brain to keep him company.
Hell, maybe someone else’s family drama will distract Topher from his own.
That’s almost like being nice and supportive.
“Ophelia said my mom is a crazy powerful blood witch, right?”
Topher bobbles.
“She isn’t just powerful. She’s the scary person other scary people are scared of. When I was a kid, like, my whole childhood, I was convinced that if I said one wrong word, she’d kill me. Not an exaggeration. I’m talking ritual murder.”
“But …” Topher says, shifting closer, searching Mateo’s face. “It’s healing, isn’t it? So, she must have wanted you safe?”
Despite having a crappy dad and the questionable nature of his missing mom, Topher’s struggling with the idea that a mother could be terrible. To be fair, shoving a demon in your kid is a whole other level that Topher probably lacks the imagination for, even after a day like today.
This is a bad topic. Just blow him off and go to bed.
A million excuses flip through his brain.
Hell, even agreement is fine. It doesn’t matter what Topher knows.
It doesn’t matter if he lies to him. He’s lied to him a dozen times already.
Say he must be right, say moms are complicated, and say good night.
He’ll probably never see Topher again after tomorrow, a thought that sits sourly in the back of his throat.
“It’s not a protection. She didn’t do it to keep me safe. This kind of magic has a cost, and she’s not here to pay it. I am,” Mateo says instead of a lie, unable to even be shocked at himself because he’s too tired to be anything but honest.
Topher pulls in a loud breath, eyes doing that jittery thing they do when someone’s thinking. He even puts a cold hand on Mateo’s, probably trying to come up with a soothing line to follow that ill-advised truth-adjacent yet still vague comment. Good luck with that, Topher.
“You saved my life today,” he says with an unexpected firmness, leaning closer so they’re making a lot of direct eye contract.
For a fraught few seconds, Mateo thinks Topher’s going to kiss him again—and Mateo doesn’t lean back, doesn’t shout, doesn’t hold up a hand to block the other. He only stares between Topher’s pale lips and gray eyes.
But then Topher continues talking, tone earnest, squeezing his hand.
“Whatever the cost is you’ll have to pay for doing that, I’ll pay it with you, if I can.
I promise.” At this point, Topher seems to realize he’s made a bold declaration about things he doesn’t know jack shit about, while being really touchy.
His cheeks go scarlet, and he releases Mateo’s hand. “Sorry. I just mean, I want to help.”
Instead of thanking him and sharing a moment of honest human connection, Mateo says, “Wow. He really thinks he can buy his way through everything.” He’s truly horrified at his own pathological need to avoid all sincerity.
Topher cracks a smile, releasing his hand and standing.
“My platinum card has no limit. I usually can.” This important reiteration of how unexpectedly Topher’s always-down-to-clown delivered, Topher snatches the mugs from the table and whisks them away to the sink.
He doesn’t look at Mateo as he rinses them or as he loads them into the dishwasher.
He does look at Mateo just before leaving the room.
A second of full and horrible eye contact and that weak smile, and then he’s gone.
The silence that follows is filled with more fraughtness as Mateo diligently doesn’t analyze whether he’s disappointed or relieved that nothing happened there.
At least he’s no longer thinking about the nearly dying thing, when the hell Dagger Lady or Evil Wizard will pop out again, or the Schrodinger’s missing mom who’s either murdered or attempted murderer.
Now he’s thinking about how alone and defenseless Topher’s about to be.