by Quil Carter
But… the last thing I wanted as a fight. However, I didn’t want to lie to him. I wouldn’t lie to him, he had to get used to our family’s way of living. I wasn’t going to be changing any time soon and he had to get used to that fact if he was going to be my boyfriend.
“What else did you bring?” I said to him, and because I knew it would distract him, I smiled like my mouth was soaked in honey.
Julian huffed. “Okay… you win. I brought some cookies and I made you brownies too.” He leaned forward and took out a plastic container. “I get bored up here.”
I laughed. “It’s like you’re waiting for me to call you stupid for doing this. I absolutely love it.” I opened up the container but first took a big drink of the wine. “I have something in return as well. I brought you some money, since, well, I know it’s difficult for you to get any right now.” With the situation of killing his parents and all.
“Oh, are you my sugar daddy now?” He kissed me again, but before he could a second time I shoved a brownie in his mouth. He laughed but immediately started to choke, I offered him wine, the stupid smile still on my face.
There was nothing better than this. My body was relaxed, my mind at ease, there was a warmth inside of my heart that I’d never experienced before him, and the longer I was with this man, the more I felt like I could take on the entire world.
Or not so much the entire world… I felt like I could take on Silas. I felt like I could…
I think I wanted to help Perish. I don’t know how I would be able to do that… but if there was a way, I would do it. He was calling for help, calling me for help, and if Uncle Perish was trapped inside the body of an idiot savant… I wanted to free him.
Julian and I stayed on the roof for the next two hours, talking about so many things, yet nothing in particular. The time just flew by, it seemed like we’d only just stepped foot on this roof before we were both making our way back down to his apartment.
But to my embarrassment, the twenty-three flights of stairs up, and another twenty-odd down, had an effect on my body that I didn’t account for. Ten flights away from Julian’s apartment, and my backside began to ache, and badly. It was enough for me to begin limping, and to further the humiliation, Julian noticed.
When we made eye contact, I saw intense concern on his face, but he respected me enough to say nothing. However, there was no getting around it, by the time I walked into Julian’s apartment my jaw was twinging from clenching it so much.
“I didn’t even fucking ask what happened tonight,” Julian whispered, his lips pursed and his eyes welling. “I’m an asshole… I’m sorry. Come inside. I made us both tea.”
I limped my pathetic ass over to the couch. Julian sat down beside me after he plugged in the kettle, so close his legs were touching mine, and his arm wrapped around my back and pulled me close to him.
I sighed and grabbed Julian’s water bottle of vodka. I’d already had two glasses of wine, but I needed something stronger. Something that could blur the embarrassment that was quickly murdering my previously content mood.
“So… the guilt didn’t last long, did it?”
“Who knows,” I said quietly, a bitter taste on my tongue.
“Do… you want to talk about what happened?” he asked quietly, cautiously almost. He knew he was treading amongst landmines. But which were where I didn’t know, it looked like we would be finding out together.
“I gave him my body to save my sengil’s.” I took a long swig of the seventy proof vodka. I needed that burning pain in my mouth and throat right now. It was a distraction from the aching below me. I hadn’t checked to see if he’d torn me, but I wasn’t surprised that he had. “I suppose, deep down, I am a decent person after all.”
Julian tried to take the vodka bottle from me but I retracted my arm until it was out of reach. “There was a doubt?” he said. He sighed sadly when I took another drink. “You are a good person, Elish.”
I looked at his sad smile and shook my head. “I’m only fifteen and I’ve already killed four people and was responsible for the death of a fifth. I’m a demon living amongst monsters.”
“Or a god among insects.”
He rested his head on my shoulder as I stared into the bottle of vodka. “I wish I could make you see what I see when I look at you. You’re a fucking demigod that could take over the world if you didn’t hate yourself so much.”
“I’m nothing,” I said. “Just King Silas’s whore. He’s made that clear to me many times.”
“Hey.” Julian elbowed me in the side. “You’re not allowed to say things like that. It’s not true and I don’t want to hear it. You’re…” He snatched the vodka out of my hand when I tried to take another drink. “You’re amazing.” He put a hand to my face and turned me towards him.
He didn’t say anything however, he just sighed sadly. Damn, did he ever look beautiful tonight. I loved his pointed chin, those large navy-blue eyes that expressed everything. Even when he was sad, he was perfect.
Julian wrapped his arms around me and drew me to him. I let out a breath through my nose at this. I didn’t like being on the receiving end of such affection.
“Oh, deal with it. I can baby you if I want,” he said, obviously catching my reaction. He squeezed me and nuzzled his nose into the crook of my neck. “I wish I could save you like you saved me… I wish I could kill him for you.”
“Wouldn’t that be nice?” I muttered. Julian pulled me onto his lap. This would be the one and only time I’d allow him this. I hope he treasured it. “I used to say to myself… when I was older, when I was an adult… I’d fight back. I’d punish him and be the one to torture and torment him… and yet here I am at fifteen and I’m still his bitch.”
“You know you don’t deserve this treatment… right?”
“Of course I don’t,” I said. I batted away his hand. “No one deserves to be treated like that.”
“Then why do you let him?”
Why do I let him? His words cut me like each syllable held hidden razor blades. Was he fucking serious? “I don’t have a choice,” I snapped. My brain had me standing up before I even realized what I was doing. “He ended the damn world, Julian. And he literally rules what is left of civilization now. Not to mention he’s immortal and can fucking melt people’s brains with his mind.”
“If he’s so fucking scary, Elish… why is it you constantly tell me about how broken he is? How he’ll get so depressed and low he won’t leave his bedroom, or bathe, or eat? That he once murdered a man for failing to create Sky? He doesn’t sound scary to me, Elish. He sounds like a miserable asshole who can’t stand to see his kids happy.”
I paused, and there I stood with the bottle of vodka between my fingers staring off into the dark corner of the apartment. Julian’s words seemed to echo around this near-empty room, bouncing off of the bare walls and haunting me like forgotten ghosts.
“You… you think he’s perfect,” Julian’s quiet voice said behind me. “But from what I’ve heard from you… he’s got more weaknesses than all of his chimeras put together.” I heard him approach, and he put a hand on my shoulder. “You’re better than he is… in every way you’re better… and yet you still let him dominate you.”
“You don’t know him,” I said bitterly. “Don’t talk about shit you don’t understand…”
“Are you going to let your entire life be like this?”
My jaw twinged from clenching it. “Why the fuck do you think I was trying to kill myself?” I whirled around and snapped. “I was trying to end it so I didn’t have to fucking deal with him anymore.”
“There are other ways,” Julian said. “You can use his weaknesses against him, Elish. You can make it so you’re in control.”
The mere prospect made a dry laugh erupt from my throat. “Make it so I’m in control? Laughable.”
“You know Sky is his weakness, whenever something happens with Sky, Silas spirals. And you’re a scientist who has access to–”
> “Enough!” I whirled around and snapped. Julian jumped back, his expressive eyes growing large. “Don’t talk to me about shit you don’t understand!” That comment… it got under my skin. I don’t know why, but it did…
Sky is Silas’s weakness…
No. I wasn’t touching that. No way was I touching that.
“I understand more than you think,” Julian said, his tone heated. “I know Silas, from everything you’ve told me, I know Silas. And if you just had the balls to do it… you could control him. I fucking know you could, Elish.”
My teeth clenched. “Never talk to me about such things again…”
But he wouldn’t let it go. “You get one life, Elish, one fucking life. Are you going to waste it being tortured by Silas until he either eventually kills you? Or… you do end up doing it?”
“My life was never my own!” I yelled. “I was made to be his servant. That’s… my reason for being born. I’ll die if he choses for me to die, and I live if he choses–”
“What about when he comes after me?”
The mere thought had an icy hand clench around my heart. My worst fear, something that kept me up at night.
Here he was trying to fill me with false delusions of taking control of Silas, but all I wanted was to keep him safe. If Silas needed my body, he could have it, it would keep him from peering further into my life.
He couldn’t find out about Julian. “I’m doing everything I can to keep you safe…” I said quietly, the anger disappearing like it was vapor. I turned and grabbed the vodka, the potency of it making my ears go warm. It was loosening my lips as well which I never liked. “Your father will never harm you again. Right now you’re safe, and that’s all that’s important.”
He looked like he wanted to argue with me, but he only nodded. I sat back down on the couch and let him wrap his arms around me again. “I want to protect you, just like you protect me…” There was a pause. “What about the other idea? You know, running away. If we left Skyfall, just think of how much better it would be. Just the two of us.” His hold tightened, as if worried I was the one who was going to run away from him. “You could get us some money to live on… and enough for some mercenaries to take us to one of the free towns. Just think of how wonderful it would be to… just have the two of us.”
The prospect terrified me to be honest. I would be lying if I said it didn’t have its appeal though. To start out new… to be far away from Silas. Not having to worry about that knock on the door… or Finn and Julian’s safety.
But I knew I couldn’t. Silas would find me, and as long as Julian was safe…
“You’re safe now. That’s all that matters,” I said with finality. I turned to him and we shared a kiss. “You’re my boyfriend…” He smiled when I said that, and I managed a small one myself. “And your safety comes first. It’s safer here for you… so it is here you’ll stay until…” I sighed and shook my head. I had nothing. “Something’s gotta give.” Eventually… eventually something has to fucking give.
Julian’s smile faded, and I saw a heaviness come to his face. He put his hand to the side of my head, and gently brushed back the bangs from my eyes. “Nothing is going to change unless you make a change,” he whispered to me. “He’s almost two hundred years old, Elish. Silas isn’t going to change and you’ll grow old, or become immortal, waiting for something that’ll never come.” His eyes filled, and mine burned, and when he spoke again, there was a catch in his voice. “I wish I could make you understand just how powerful you are. You’re a white lion born in captivity, subservient to a weak master that has crippled you so many times, both body and spirit. You obey him because when you were just a little cub…” His lips pursed tight and the tears filling his eyes fell. “He broke you, over and over.”
Then he grabbed my hand. “But you’re not little anymore, Elish.”
I pulled my hand away. “Just stop… you – you don’t understand.”
“If you would just have the god damn confidence to…”
“To what?” I snapped. “What? Even if I am this god damn wild animal… I’m still in a city under that monster’s control. And what happens when the fucking wild animal gets lose? They get shot.” I snatched the vodka and took another drink, my world was starting to become tilted. I was getting drunk and I should shut up, but the liquor was like oil to my tongue and it moved easily around my mouth. “I was born a slave and I will die a slave.”
“He won’t let you die.”
“Yeah. See why I was so fucking keen on offing myself?” I threw the bottle against the wall and wiped my mouth as I heard it smash. “Now you understand, eh? This is my world, Julian. This is my life.”
“It doesn’t have to be!” Julian rose to his feet. “He has weaknesses, he has faults. I’m not saying go fucking kill him, Elish, I’m saying outsmart him, find a way to stand up for yourself.”
I guffawed at this. I walked to Julian and held out my arms in front of me. “See the scars? See the cigarette burns? See the huge silver gouges all over me? That’s me standing up for myself.”
“You were little back then…”
“He’s immortal, Julian. We’re all little to him.” My teeth ground when he walked to me, but I let him put his arms around my waist. With the liquor hitting me… I felt like receiving the affection.
“It doesn’t have to be this way, my lion,” he whispered. “You don’t deserve this treatment… and I can’t stand seeing this happen to you.” He sniffed, the bits of composure he’d been able to hold onto drifting away. “You killed my abuser and now I have to watch someone I care so much about… go through a thousand times worse.”
“You help me at least,” I said quietly. “You’re the best thing in my life. You’re the only thing that makes me happy. You and that damn sengil at least.”
Julian’s pulse rose just slightly. “You’re getting along with Finn then?”
I nodded. “Yeah. Like you, he gives me a reason to get out of bed. He’s been another thing I can protect… and it’s kind of given me purpose, I suppose.” I pulled away from his embrace and we both sat together on the couch. I picked out an Intoxone pill out of my stash and washed it down with some tea. “You know; he says he looks forward to meeting you. I think you’ll like him.”
Julian’s face became troubled. “I don’t think I should meet him quite yet,” he said. “I… didn’t even know you told him about me.”
I looked at him curiously. “Of course I would… I trust him completely. I don’t have anyone else to talk to about you…”
“What if he tells Silas?”
“He never would; he doesn’t even know your name,” I said defensively. “And he’s my sengil and he’s quite devoted to me.” I sighed, irritated by him once again showing distaste for my sengil. He really was the jealous type.
“I still don’t want him to know what I look like,” Julian said. He picked up the remote and turned on the television, a signal, I wager, that this conversation was reaching its end. “He could tell Silas and the less he knows, the better.”
“If I wish for you two to meet, I’ll have you meet,” I said back coldly. “Finn isn’t going anywhere, Julian. He’s my sengil. I enjoy his company, and he’s no threat to you.”
“Alright,” Julian said curtly. “Thank you for the orders, Prince Dickface.”
I pushed him and Julian snorted through a laugh. He pushed me back, but this time dug his hand into my ticklish side, and it was on after that. We wrestled together, acted like children together, and after chasing, tackling, and smacking each other with pillows, we retired to the bedroom and laid down.
By that time, I was exhausted, but being able to forget about my life, even if only for a few minutes, was worth every moment. It was only Julian who made me feel this way… I think one day I may see myself falling for him completely.
“I love seeing you happy,” he whispered to me. He was in my arms now, the two of us spooning in the room cooled by an oscillating fan. “I
just… I want what’s best for you. You know that, right?”
“I know.” I inhaled his scent and appreciated being close to him. “What’s best for me is you. I just… don’t want to instigate anything with him.”
Julian sighed. “Why can’t we just run away?”
I shook my head. “Because you’re safe and that’s all that matters. I’ll figure out me some other time…” I’d be lying if I said the prospect of running away to the greywastes wasn’t appealing. To just have Finn and Julian beside me and none other… it would be a dream come true. No family, no Skyfall, no responsibilities. A dream… that’s what it would be.
But that’s all it would ever be.
Julian turned to me and lightly kissed my lips, I could feel his sweet breath on my nose. “You will, and I’ll be here to support you.” I kissed him back, his time deeper. Oh, how I loved kissing those lips.
I stayed with him for the next several hours. Because of what had happened with Silas, I wasn’t in the mood to take it further than that, but Julian didn’t mind. He was the sweet, caring understanding man he was and wasn’t fazed by me making it up to him with only my lips.
Not until the sun was peeking out over the east did my feet carry me home. I walked through Skyland, past the supply men unloading their trucks, and weaved past the early risers commuting to their morning shifts. It was warm already, enough for me to not need my jacket, and it looked like it was going to be another beautiful day.
And today… seemed different to me. I looked around my neighbourhood, and even at Alegria looming in the near distance, and I saw beauty where I’d once seen only indifference. I saw… life surviving in the middle of death, the human race carrying on, even in the face of extinction.
Without even knowing he was doing it… Julian was lifting me out of this dark cave, and slowly he was bringing me to the sun. Yes, my life was still terrible, yes, I was trapped with a monster… but as long as he was safe, somehow I would endure.
