Chapter 13 #2
“Of course I’ll stay.” Sidney sets the coloring book on the table.
“But you owe me an explanation. You said irrevocably linked this morning and then immediately left to go do god things without elaborating, and I’ve been sitting here all day trying to figure out if that means what I think it means. ”
Erath exhales through his nose. He rests his elbows on his knees and looks at his hands, which are large and idle and carefully still. “What do you think it means?”
“I think your five-year-old daughter has functionally married me to you because I let her paint my toenails, and I’d like confirmation that I’m either right or having a psychotic break.”
The corner of Erath’s mouth lifts. Just barely. “Married is a strong word.”
“You said your wife was the last person who could do what I’m doing. You used the word wife. I think married is exactly the right word and you need to start talking.”
Erath talks. He tells Sidney about Angelica, his ex-wife, who is part of the Hargrove Coven.
How they could only see each other for the short stretches Erath could spend in Haven.
How Penny’s birth changed the equation, because Penny could traverse both worlds as long as she was linked to one of them, and by linking to one of them she linked to all three.
The triangle. The three-pointed bond. The ability to exist in either the underworld or the above for as long as they wanted, as long as they were together.
“You left today, though,” Sidney says. “You were above for hours. How was I able to stay here if we weren’t together?”
“You’re thinking of together in terms of being in the same place.” Erath turns his head to look at him. “But you have to imagine together the way a child would. Together doesn’t mean in the same room. Together means a family, no matter where we are.”
Sidney is quiet after that. He stares at the fire and processes, or attempts to process, the magnitude of what Erath is telling him.
A five-year-old child has rebuilt the foundational structure of her father’s existence around a stranger she met in a bar because he gave her chocolate milk and markers and sat on the floor to be at her level.
Because he tucked his hair behind his ear and put his hands in his lap and didn’t talk to her like she was a problem to be solved.
Because he painted his toenails pink and ate golden Oreos with her on his couch and carried her the last block when her feet got tired.
She decided he was family. And her power, which doesn’t negotiate and doesn’t consult and operates on a logic that makes no sense to anyone over the age of six, made it real.
“Is that why you could heal my hand this morning?” he asks.
“I can heal you because you’re linked to me,” Erath says. “I didn't know if it would be possible before, but since you're standing in the underworld, it seems the connection is established.”
“And the…you really have to use your mouth?” Sidney gives him a look, flushing slightly.
Erath's mouth does curve into a smile then. “Your mother never kissed your scratches when you were a kid? Made them all better?”
“You can't be serious.”
“I didn't create the power. It came to me when Penny was born. She bumped her head crawling under a table, I kissed it, and it healed. Then I discovered I could heal Angelica.”
Sidney looks at him. He looks at the line of Erath’s jaw and the dark fall of his hair and the hands resting on his knees, still and careful and visible.
He thinks about the bruise that is still very much present on his own face, the purple and black that Penny had touched with her small fingers and said daddy can fix it.
He thinks about his ribs, which are cracked and aching and held together with linen and stubbornness.
He thinks about the burn on his palm that is no longer there because Erath’s mouth erased it this morning, brief and warm and over before Sidney could process it.
“Okay, if it works for me too, then why haven’t you healed the rest of me?” Sidney asks. “You healed my hand. My face is still a mess. My ribs are still cracked. I’ve been walking around in your house for two days scaring a child. Why leave the rest?”
Erath is quiet for a very long time. Then he says, carefully, the way he says everything that matters, “Because healing you requires touching you. I didn't think before I did it at the stove. I'm thinking now.”
The words land in Sidney’s chest and sit there.
They sit there with every other careful, deliberate thing Erath has done and not done since the first night he walked Sidney home.
He has the power to heal every injury on Sidney’s body and he’s been waiting, patiently, for days, for Sidney to decide whether he wants to be touched.
The god of death has been watching Sidney wince and favor his left side and breathe through the pain, has been looking at the bruise on Sidney’s face every time they’re in the same room with an expression that says he wants to erase it, and he’s been choosing, every time, to let Sidney come to him.
Sidney looks at his own hands. He thinks about the kitchen.
Not this kitchen. The other one, in his apartment, where Erath’s mouth had been on his and Sidney’s body had shut down and the shame had been so total it had swallowed everything else.
He thinks about every man who came before, the ones who didn’t wait, the ones who didn’t ask, the ones who touched first and gauged consent afterward, and the , devastating novelty of a man who has all the power in the world and chooses to hold none of it over the person beside him.
“Okay, well,” he says. His voice is quiet. “I want you to.”
Erath shifts on the couch. Not closer, not suddenly.
He turns his body toward Sidney and his hands come to his lap, open, palms up, and he waits.
He’s offering his hands the way you offer something you’re not sure will be accepted, and Sidney looks at them, at the broad palms and the long fingers and the stillness of them, and reaches out and takes them.
Erath’s fingers close around his. The grip is warm and light and familiar. Sidney doesn’t let go.
Erath lifts one hand. Slowly. He brings it to Sidney’s face, and the approach is visible, unhurried, giving Sidney time to see it coming and time to decide whether it’s welcome.
His palm curves against Sidney’s jaw, against the bruise, and the touch is so light that Sidney can barely feel the pressure beneath the warmth.
Erath’s other hand comes up. Both palms now, holding Sidney’s face, cradling it, and his thumbs rest against Sidney’s cheekbones and his fingers curl behind Sidney’s ears where the hair is tucked and the skin is warm, and Sidney’s heart is beating so hard he’s certain Erath can feel it through his jaw.
“Alright?” Erath asks.
Sidney nods, which is a movement that presses his face further into Erath’s palms, and he doesn’t pull back from it.
Erath leans forward. He tilts Sidney’s face, just slightly, and presses his lips to the bruise on Sidney’s cheekbone.
Sidney’s eyes close. He doesn’t decide to close them.
They close on their own, the way eyes close when something is too much to look at and too good to pull away from.
The press of Erath’s mouth against the bruise sends warmth through the damaged skin, through the tissue, through the bone beneath, and the ache that has been sitting on Sidney’s face for a week dissolves.
It doesn’t fade. It goes, all at once, the pain lifting and the bruise receding under Erath’s lips, and Sidney can feel it happening, can feel the skin knitting and the swelling draining and the color returning to what it was before a giant’s hand rearranged it.
Erath’s mouth moves. Down. Along the line of the bruise, from Sidney’s cheekbone to the edge of his jaw, pressing, healing, a trail of contact that is not quite a kiss and not quite not a kiss, and Sidney’s breath is coming in short, shallow pulls and his hands have found Erath’s wrists and are holding on.
Not pulling him closer. Not pushing him away.
Just holding on, the way he holds on to everything, with the grip that doesn’t know how to let go.
Erath’s lips reach the corner of Sidney’s mouth.
The swelling at the edge of his lip, the split that has been tender for days, is right there, and Erath’s mouth pauses against it and the heat concentrates and the split heals and Sidney feels the skin close and smooth and the tenderness vanish and Erath’s mouth is at the corner of his, not kissing him, not quite, just pressed there, healing the last of it, and the proximity is so total that Sidney can feel Erath’s breath against his lips and taste the warmth of him in the air between them.
Erath pulls back. His hands are still on Sidney’s face, thumbs against his cheekbones, and he looks at Sidney’s skin where the bruise was, watching it finish healing, watching the last of the discoloration fade into nothing.
His expression is focused and intent and barely controlled, and Sidney opens his eyes and looks at him and for a moment they are very close and very still and the pull in Sidney’s chest is loud enough to drown out everything else in the room.
Sidney takes a breath. Then he guides Erath’s hands from his face to the hem of his shirt, Erath’s shirt, and the permission is implicit in the gesture. Erath’s eyes search his face. Sidney meets them and nods, once, and Erath’s hands slide under the fabric and find the linen wrapping his ribs.