Chapter Twenty-Seven • Killing Time • Lillith #2
He rolls his eyes and continues. “But I thought you knew that I care about you. That you’re a dear friend to me, and that your happiness and safety are things that matter to me.
But you’ve been acting surprised when I make moves to assist you with important matters.
You gave me a false name for Damien because you thought I would hex him.
And now you’re acting like I’m some peeping tom. ”
“Bastion, I’m not even fully dressed,” I groan. “You basically are a peeping tom.”
“I’m not here to ogle you,” he says.
“Yes, we’re all very aware of just how much you do not need me in your life,” I say through a long-suffering sigh.
His brow furrows. “What in the four corners are you talking about?” he says. “Of course I need you in my life. Why do you think I go so far out of my way to help you?”
“Bastion...” I sigh. “I don’t want to have this talk.”
“What talk? What is there to talk about?”
“You say I’m not disposable, but nothing about us has ever been permanent, Bash. Not ever,” I say. “You are kind and sweet and affectionate when it suits you. And as soon as you’re finished with that, you cast me aside.”
“I have never cast you aside,” he says.
“Then what would you call the aftermath of Beltane?” I ask, finally sitting up and glaring at him.
He looks genuinely perplexed by this line of discussion. His words come out slow, hesitant, as if he’s concerned that I might be delusional. Or disconnected from reality. “I invited you to act as my maiden. We performed a symbolic ritual. The ritual concluded, and we continued being friends?”
“You hurt me, Bastion,” I tell him. “To feel so close, to feel so treasured by you during those few hours, just to have you practically forget me as soon as the ceremony was over. It fucking sucked. I know I shouldn’t be surprised; you did the same shit after you took my virginity, but...”
“Lillith—I want to be very clear that I admire and respect you very much,” he says. “You’re a beautiful witch. You’re talented and capable. You’re a treasured connection in my web.”
“But?” I prompt, bracing for more hurt.
“There is no but. No caveat. That is an indisputable fact. I care about your happiness. I care about your wellbeing. That has always been the case and will never change.”
“Then why?”
“I simply don’t engage in interpersonal relationships the way you do,” he says.
“I think it goes without saying how highly I regard you. I don’t see the need to flatter you and shower you with praise.
It would be patronizing and useless to do that.
I’ve told you multiple times that I’d marry you with no hesitation, but you’re not interested in that. ”
“You want to marry me to make all-powerful witch babies,” I say bitterly.
“One of many reasons I see you as an advantageous marriage prospect, yes,” he says. “You’re also an excellent cook, and easy on the eyes. I’ve very much enjoyed fucking you in the past—more than I have anyone else so far.”
“Bastion, do you not hear how you speak about this?” I say, suddenly exhausted. “Not everything has to be a chess move.”
“Lilipad, this is simply how I think,” he says. “There is more to life than romance and companionship.”
I realize all at once that this is why we never worked out into anything stable or permanent.
Bastion is far too good at compartmentalizing the facets of our lives.
A place for everything, and everything in its place, even down to his relationships.
If I’m a messy palette smeared with different swathes of oil paints that never quite dry, he’s a tidy tray of watercolors, each little cube of pigment pristine.
Nothing ever missing—nothing ever overused.
Compared to him, Damien is a goddamn tray of paint buckets thrown against a canvas, excess dripping to the floor and making art of that, too.
He showers me in every part of him. The love, the regard, the admiration, the stern hand, the humor—he’s constantly, overwhelmingly, charmingly him at all times, and he has no fear of letting me know exactly how obsessed he is with me.
There is nothing tidy about how he loves, and it’s thrilling.
Gods, I miss him.
And it’s okay that Bastion isn’t like him. If he had been, I wouldn’t get to enjoy Damien the way I’m enjoying him now. It’s okay that we aren’t compatible as partners. It’s okay that Bastion isn’t unraveling because I love someone else deeper than him and in different ways.
I don’t know if he senses my racing thoughts, but he takes my hand in one of his.
“I’m sorry for giving you the impression I ever thought of you as disposable or forgettable,” he says.
“I know I’m an ass—but I have no problem with being the me that I am, so long as you know that you and Wren are the closest thing I have to family in this world.
I will always show up and protect you and root for your happiness, regardless of whether your taste in men is...
baffling. I have no desire to disrupt your pursuit of a fulfilling life.
If you care about someone, I will at least make sure you’re in every position to continue caring about them.
” He shakes his head and adds as an aside, “I still can’t believe you thought I would hex your lover. ”
I snort at his use of the word, shaking my head along with him. “You really do sound like a Sondheim character,” I mutter.
“A who?”
“Nothing,” I say. “I love you too, dickhead. Get out of my room. I’m not wearing pants.”
“But I—”
“I don’t care if you’ve seen it all. Part of having a boyfriend is being respectful of our commitment by not letting other men see me half naked.”
“How droll,” he says with a shrug. “Fine. I’ll be in the kitchen. I’m making tea.”
“Great, sounds perfect. Make me some too.”
He gives a noncommittal grunt as he makes his way out of my room.
When I hear the tap creak from the kitchen, I get out of bed and shuffle over to the closet to put something on.
Upon arriving there, I’m surprised to find an unfamiliar hoodie hanging on the back of the door.
It’s a pullover, the black fabric a little worn out along with the screen-printed PORTENT logo.
I take a quick photo of it and send it to Damien, and immediately get a text back.
It doesn’t fit me anymore, but it’s the first merch we ever had printed for the band, and I’m a sentimental fucker. I thought you might like something that smelled like me while I’m gone.
I chuckle down at the message and send something snarky back about the parallel between this and puppies with separation anxiety. I tug it on all the same, immediately burying my nose in the pilling fabric and inhaling deeply.
Yeah. That’s the stuff.
I pair it with some ripped jeans and a pair of scuffed boots before joining Bastion in the kitchen.
He sets a cup of tea on the breakfast table for me. “Three sugars, splash of milk.”
Just how I like it.
“Thank you,” I say. The words are muffled through the fabric of the hoodie. I drop it and settle into the seat.
He pours his cup and sits across from me, taking a sip at the same time I do.
“So,” I say as the warmth from the tea spreads through my chest. “What’s the plan today?”
“Wren’s shop and reading, mostly, I think,” he says. “How has your independent research been going?”
He peers at me over the edge of the teacup he’s borrowed, and it strikes me that it’s the very look that used to make me breathless with its understated elegance. With the gravel of Damien’s morning voice still fresh in my mind, it just feels like drinking tea.
“Well enough,” I say. “I still haven’t been able to find any information on the original bargain that got my family into this mess, but I’ve picked up even more questions than I thought I could have about this whole thing.”
“Care to elaborate?”
“Well, some of the journals and grimoires seem to vacillate between these states of tenuous allyship with someone they call Aemon. Some of them refer to him as a familiar to the family, others seem to hate him. The description matches the demon who attacked me the night of Damien’s show, though.
It’s hard to imagine them thinking of him as an ally. ”
“Well, we know the source of magic is the union of metaphysical beings with mortals,” he says. “That’s how witches came to be.”
“Right,” I say. “And I think Aemon is where we got our power; I just can’t figure out why he seemed to be well liked by some generations and hated by others.”
“Well, perhaps we should ask him,” Bastion says.
I look at him, feeling the incredulity of my expression crinkling my face. He rolls his eyes.
“Think about it, Lillith. For the last, what, four generations? The story has been passed down to the next of kin that this is a curse haunting your family. But what if it was a bargain? An honestly struck one that someone decided not to keep?”
I shift a little in my seat. “Regardless, it’s a check I can’t cash,” I say. “I’m not marrying that guy.”
“Maybe the terms can be reworked,” Bastion says with a shrug. “Maybe we can renegotiate.”
“He didn’t seem interested in negotiations,” I say.
“No?”
“No, he was pretty furious,” I say. “He kept telling me to go home and drop the wards.”
“I wonder why he chose now to be so dogged about the whole thing. I mean—he’s mostly left your family alone these past hundred years or so, hasn’t he?” He props his chin on his hand as he looks out of the window, eyes unfocused as he thinks.
I nod, stomach twisting because I’m pretty sure I know exactly what has him in such a hurry.
And I know Bastion is going to be just as furious with me for what I did as Aemon was.
If not more. Still… If he’s going to help me, he deserves all the facts.
And he deserves to hear it from me and not Aemon if we go through with this insane plan to try to contact him.
“Bash, I have to tell you something,” I say.
His eyes flit back to mine. Something in my tone has him straightening up. “...Okay.”