Brutus was on his feet too, a snarl peeling back his lips and his hackles rising as he glared at Niall. I’d made a bandana for him out of a sparkly pink top and he’d almost taken my hand off when I’d tied it in place. He was such a good boy.
Niall ignored all of us, a cold detachment dripping from his dark eyes as he walked slowly towards me.
The television was still on and my snuggly blanket was still tucked around me. I’d been up all night long, except okay, maybe I’d drifted off for an hour or two or five, but mostly I’d been awake. And I’d been confused and worried too, because Hellfire had sounded seventy shades of off on the phone when he’d called last night, and thoughts of him had been whirring around in my brain like little flies trying to fix together a chopped-up piece of string.
When Niall hadn’t come home, I’d realised he was staying the night with his fiancée and that was when the tears had started and I’d ripped the stuffing out of a pillow with my bare hands. It was all in smashy corner now, joining the rest of the broken things, and I was starting to think I belonged over there too.
Mateo had refused to sit anywhere near me while Niall had been gone, his fingers constantly flexing and his muscles bunching like he was a ticking bomb set to explode. I wasn’t sure what was going on behind his eyes, but the fierce looks he kept giving me made me wonder if it was to do with little old me.
“Mateo and I are having a Lord of the Harry Potter-thon,” I announced, hoping Niall might want to join us though equally not wanting him to because he was probably fresh from his fancy fiancée’s bed after his dick danced the rumba with her giant chimichongas. Still, I couldn’t fight the need in me to have him close, even though my heart felt like it was being stabbed repeatedly by a tiny man with a tiny pitchfork.
“A what now?” Niall mumbled, not seeming interested in anything much, but his eyes kept wandering to me as he drifted through the room like a sad pirate ghost caught on a sea breeze.
“We watch the first Harry Potter then the first Lord of the Rings, then half way through, we turn it off then watch the second Harry Potter, the rest of the first Lord of the Rings, then-” I babbled and Niall cut over me.
“Now why in the fuck would anyone do that?” he growled, irritation flashing over his features, but my intuition was buzzing around my ears like a wasp looking for some jelly and I was fairly sure that wasn’t why he was angry.
Mateo took a step towards me as Niall got closer, his knife still raised and Niall ignored him like he wasn’t even there as he came to a halt right in front of me and just stared down at me.
“Because, Hellfire, then you get the real story. The secret story,” I said seriously. “Oh! And we found out Mateo’s a Hufflepuff, isn’t that great?”
Mateo grunted like he wasn’t in agreement of his Huffly-puff ways, but that was such a Hufflepuff reaction. “I’m a Slytherin, obviously, and so are you. And Angry Jack’s a Ravenclaw!”
“Ain’t that the clever one?” Niall muttered, scowling deeply. “Jack ain’t no fucking Ravenclaw. There isn’t thoughts in his head. Not fuckin’ one of them.”
“Not true. I’ve seen the sparks in his eyes and the cogs whirring in his ears. You could carve all of our brains out, stack them up like a totem pole and it still wouldn’t be as big as Jack’s brain,” I said firmly.
Niall stared at me for a long time, a dark cloud seeming to hang over him, threatening a rainstorm. He shrugged finally, turning away from me and finding himself face to face with Mateo’s knife, Harold. Harold wasn’t much to look at but he really had a glint about him that spoke of the pain he could cause, and I didn’t much like him being so near to Hellfire’s lovely face.
“Move,” Niall growled, letting the tip of the knife press against his cheek.
“I could cut your eyes out in under thirty seconds, bastardo,” Mateo warned, a deadly energy rolling from him.
“Mateo,” I gasped, getting up onto my knees on the couch and taking hold of his arm as I tried to pull the knife away from Hellfire. I’d only agreed to get him the weapon from the kitchen because I’d thought it might make him happy, but it only seemed to have made him more stabby – and not even in a fun way! I guessed that was the risk I’d run with my gift but enough was enough. “Niall needs his eyes where they are. I know they’d look pretty on a necklace, but we can’t just go around making necklaces out of people’s eyes because we need some new jewellery.” I squeezed Mateo’s wrist, drawing his gaze to me and letting him see the pain spilling out of my soul at the idea of him hurting Niall.
Niall didn’t seem to care much either way what happened, and as Mateo’s arm slowly went slack, he brushed past him and walked upstairs without another word.
My throat burned as I watched him go, wondering if his big bopper bride had upset him or if it was coming home to us that made him sad. I’d been pacing all night （okay for like an hour and eleven minutes） wondering where he was and imagining all the things he might have been doing with her, feeling like a canary in a fish tank while I just waited to see if he was going to return with a worm for me or if he’d given up all of his insects to Anastasia. Even in my head, I said her name with a sneer. Maybe he missed her already. Maybe he was upstairs packing a suitcase so he could go and live with her. Maybe he’d leave us here like cats left behind after their meanie bambini owners moved on to a better life without them.
A noise of hurt left me and Mateo moved the knife under my chin, tipping my head up to make me look at him. My breath caught and flutters rushed over my body like tiny wingtips from the contact of that weapon.
I knew Mateo would never hurt me, but I liked the idea that he could. He could cut off pieces of me until I was nothing but blood and bone. He was powerful like that, a god that could create and destroy as easily as he could blink.
“Why do you pine for a man who is nothing but a butcher? He doesn’t feel for you, mi sol. He feels nothing. I may be darkness wrapped inside a man’s body, but I am capable of protecting you, of making your skin heat and your pulse race with pleasure. That is what I can offer you, what is it that he can offer that is worth this pain in your heart?”
One hard slice of that blade could end me for good, and that was why I gave him the truth. Because I wasn’t afraid of death, I was afraid of becoming someone I wasn’t. And who I was, was a girl who’d stumbled into a clan of men who were as different as she was. So this was where I wanted us to stay.
“I don’t feel odd when I’m with Niall,” I said. “He’s me in reverse, his cracks are in the same places as mine. You ground me, Mateo, but Niall makes me fly. And I need to fly sometimes as much as I need my feet down here with you too. When you’ve been as lonely as I have for as long as I have, feeling like no one in the whole wide world wants anything to do with you, and that no one could ever understand what it’s like to live in your head, I think it's impossible to let go of feeling accepted once you find that acceptance. I feel like I’m finally home, but I’m terrified, Dead Man, because nothing lasts in this world. It all vanishes, poof. Bit by bit or all at once. One day, it’ll be gone. All of the good, the bad, and I’ve known so much of the bad, now the good is here, I want to enjoy it while it stays. I want you and Niall and Brutus and AJ. I want to stay here for as long as life lets me, and I know that means it’ll hurt more in the end when the goodbyes come to claim me, but they’re inevitable. Everyone in this world is tied to their own train tracks and a train is coming, they just don’t know when. So let me be here, now, with you and him and everyone, because the darkness is going to consume us all eventually. At least let me open my eyes and bask in the sun while it’s still shining.”