A Demon for Midwinter

by K. L. Noone

  Years fell away like snowflakes melting. Mel’s voice, and himself with a problem. This time he knew he needed help. This time he was asking.

  More accurately, Mel was asking. “Is there something you’d like to talk about? Can you tell me how you’re feeling right now?”

  Oh. He knew why she’d assume as much, and he wasn’t bothered about it, but—“No. No, shit, sorry, not me, someone else—I need advice, right, I’ve got—ah, a friend—I need to know what to do. To help.”

  “Your friend wouldn’t be forty-three years old and suffering from fears about his musical legacy, would he?” Dry, but kind; Mel wouldn’t let him get away with anything, but she would also stay on the line in the middle of the night.

  “No,” Kris told her, “no, I can see why you’d think that, I probably even deserve it, but no, I’m serious, I am, honestly. He is a friend—” He stumbled less on the word this time. “—and he’s really hurt. Um. Not physically, or not exactly anyway, more emotional, sort of. His—his—” He couldn’t say boyfriend. Couldn’t. Those smudges of dried red across his sofa wouldn’t let him. “The person he was with. Hurt him. It’s not good, Mel, and I’m absolutely out of my depth here. I’m better at shallows. Shallow person. You know that. I need you.”

  “Oh, Christopher.” He could picture her as if he’d seen her yesterday: silver-threaded strawberry hair, glasses perched on her nose, notepad caught between fingers, at the ready. “Go on, then. Tell me.”

  He did, as much as he could, as much as he could quickly. No names. No details. Minor editing.

  He told her that his friend had come to him afterwards. That there’d been physical abuse from a partner, he was pretty sure for the first time, but that his friend had a random wild magical talent, healing, so that part’d been dealt with. A necessary lie, that. But plausible, and Mel didn’t ask.

  He glanced around, spotted Justin still asleep—or at least buried under blankets—and lowered his voice more. Suggested gingerly that he thought there might’ve been other things going on, emotionally unhealthy, though he didn’t know David well; Mel pointed that out immediately, though she made small “hmm” sounds when he mentioned some of Justin’s phrasing, being permitted chocolate or told that he wasn’t smart enough to understand his boyfriend’s job.

  “You don’t know this for certain.” Her pencil made tiny scratching sounds, oddly comforting. “You’ve said so yourself. You’ve barely seen them together, and I can’t diagnose anything based on that.”

  “I know. I only…” He leaned elbows on the countertop. Let his head hang. Hair got in his face, brown curtains between him and the world. He thought vaguely about tea; he felt the gaze of the electric kettle brushing a stalwart English suggestion at his back. He put the phone on speaker. Got out a mug. “I should’ve said something. If I thought I saw it. I could have. Maybe. I don’t know. If I thought—but he went over there and then he got hurt. It happened. And he’s scared and he was bleeding and he’s in my bed, Mel.”

  “He’s where, Christopher?”

  “Oh, no, not like that, come on—”

  “No, you wouldn’t. I know you, and you wouldn’t do that.”

  “Thank you for the vote of bloody confidence!”

  “But you are aware that that’s perhaps not the best idea? The implications—”

  “What else was I supposed to do? He needed to be warm. He needs to feel safe. He said—he came here because he felt safe. I’ll bloody well sleep on the couch or the floor or stand guard outside his door all fucking night if he asks me to—”

  “You care for him, don’t you? Quite a lot.”

  “Of course I—”

  “Not only as a friend, Christopher.”

  “I—”

  “Kris?”

  That voice. Hushed. Tentative. Echoing from a duvet-wrapped bundle of demon in the kitchen entryway. Justin had a hand on the wall for support; his hair frisked out from under cuddly fluff to shed some firelight on the night. His eyes were wide and tentative too. “Who’re you talking to?”

  “I’m…ah…”

  “Did you just say you’d stand guard outside my—your—bedroom door all night?” Justin came over. Close enough to touch. “Can I ask who you called about me?”

  “I’m sorry,” Kris said miserably. “I panicked. You’re hurt and I’m—I don’t know how to help. Enough. How to help enough. It’s, um, Melinda Fielding. Doctor Fielding. I don’t know if you ever heard her name, back when—”

  “Can I talk to him,” Mel said from the phone, “now that you’ve properly made a mess of this?”

  Justin tipped that head to one side, under the blanket. More fire-hair came out to play. “Melinda Fielding…I know that name…oh. I know why I know that name. Oh, Kris. It’s too much to ask of you, isn’t it, me being here—”

  “No!” He dropped Mel on the counter. Reached out—a last-second flinch away from outright grabbing Justin’s shoulder. Terrible idea. His hand wavered, not quite touching. “No, dammit, no, don’t think—I do want you here, I swear, I was only trying to find out if there was anything I should do, if I could—” He waved the hand about. “Help more.”

  Mel sighed, audible even over the phone’s speaker.

  Kris resisted the urge to bang his head on the counter. On his phone. It’d be a satisfying crunch. “I’m so sorry I woke you. Please go back to sleep. Rest.”

  “I’m up now.” Justin looked at the phone. “Doctor Fielding? You were—you talked to Kris once before? I’m sorry we’re causing trouble, it’s like five in the morning there…”

  “Twice before, as much as he’d let me. He’s dreadfully stubborn. Call me Melinda, please, and no need to apologize. It’s impressive that you’re up and about at all, you know, let alone worrying about Christopher, and it’s good for him in any case.”

  Kris opened his mouth to protest, conceded that this was fair, and gave up.

  Justin eyed the phone. Tugged duvet-folds in closer. “Kris is amazing. Which you know, because you know him, so you wanted to know what I’d say. He’s always—he’s never made me feel like less of a person. And that’s important. I wanted to come here.”

  “I do like you,” Mel said. “Do you have a name? Christopher wouldn’t tell me, being rather protective, and of course you needn’t give me your real one, particularly under the circumstances.”

  “Oh. Um…” Justin smiled. At Kris. Who had utterly no idea how to read that expression. “Okay. Alan.”

  “Alan,” Kris said. “Really?”

  Justin made a face at him. “Don’t say anything, it’s my middle name, my mother’s name was Ahla, they wanted to include her, all right?”

  “But. Alan. So normal. Tax preparer. Banker. Pharmacist. Do they let pharmacists have blue hair?”

  Justin gave him a wonderfully American one-fingered gesture, accompanied by a sideways and equally wonderful smile. “Doctor Fielding…Melinda…can I talk to you? Just for a minute, I mean, I won’t keep you long.”

  “Of course.” Mel sounded unsurprised; well, she had wanted to talk to Justin, Kris remembered. “Christopher, go and make tea.”

  “I’ll be quick,” Justin said to Kris, picking up the phone. “I only want to…there’s something I want to ask. And I think I should—you weren’t wrong, I should talk to someone, and she’s here, even if it’s too soon to even—but I was thinking. While you thought I was asleep. I’m sorry.”

  “You don’t have to say sorry,” Kris said, around his shattered heart. “Anything you want. I did say. I’ll make tea.”

  Justin took his phone and disappeared into the bedroom. Kris Starr, alone in the kitchen, made tea.

  Chamomile and steam filled up the space, slowly. He mostly had Earl Grey, but he’d found a half-empty box in the back of the pantry, after some fingers-crossed hunting for anything without caffeine. Five minutes trickled by; Kris got out honey, and curled fingers around a mug, and waited.

  He did not know whether to have hope. The tea thoug
ht maybe he should. The overhead lights glowed topaz and soothing.

  Kris told himself to breathe. The electric kettle told him everything might just be close to all right. He was here, Justin was here, Justin was feeling well enough to tease him, and Justin was talking to a qualified competent person. These collectively had to be good signs.

  He wondered whether Justin had forgiven him for calling someone, when they’d talked about reasons not to.

  His bedroom door opened. Noiseless, but it sent tremors down his spine. Straightening, summoned to upright.

  Justin came back out smiling faintly, a little pale, not visibly further damaged. He still had the duvet around his shoulders. “Here, she wants to say hi one more time.”

  “Sure. And this is for you.” He nudged a mug that way. It was covered in tasteless glittery pictures of London tourist attractions; he couldn’t recall where it’d come from, but he’d thought it might amuse those eyes. He was right. “Want honey?”

  “Yeah. Thanks.”

  “Hey,” Kris said to the phone, no longer on speaker. “Mel, listen, thank you, that doesn’t even begin to cover it but—”

  “Don’t worry about it, Christopher.” Like a pat on the shoulder, that voice. “For what it’s worth, I think you’re handling this quite well. I naturally can’t tell you what we discussed, but he’s doing better than I might’ve expected; he’s a strong young man, and a very kind one. He got himself out of a bad situation and he came to you, and you’ll want to be a bit careful about that because he’ll listen to you, but he knows how to make good decisions. From what he says you’ve been doing more or less what I’d tell you—make sure he feels safe, let him express emotions, don’t push him if he isn’t ready. Do let him know you’re not going anywhere no matter what he admits to, and do carry on treating him like the same person you know and love, which I think you’ve been managing, so that’s good.”

  Love. Mel’d said love. Kris stood dumbfounded in his kitchen, watching Justin take a sip of honeyed tea, watching the swallow. Was he that obvious? Could everyone see it? Reggie, and Steve, and Melinda—

  “He’ll be fine,” Melinda said. “I’d say so as a professional, and as your friend. And, Christopher—”

  “Yeah…”

  “I’m glad you called. Not merely for your young Alan, not his real name. You seem well. Passionate. Caring for him. I am glad you’ve found that.”

  Kris shivered, taken apart, dissected by a friend. Heat bumped his hand. His own mug of tea. Justin’d pushed the neglected beverage his direction, and now pointed at it: drink yours while it’s hot.

  He said good night, or more accurately good morning, to Mel, and got off the phone.

  He looked at Justin. Justin looked back, and then shrugged one shoulder, a sort of uncritical here we are gesture.

  Kris said, “I’m sorry I called. If you didn’t want me to.”

  “I don’t mind. It was probably good for me. Talking to her.” Justin’s hair curled itself, making spirals of flame. “I might call her again later. We’ll see.”

  “Anything you need. Whatever you need.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Did you want to go back to bed? Or…”

  “Not now.” Justin gathered up sliding blanket-folds, balanced that and tea, made his way over to Kris’s sofa. Rather bemused—Justin seemed to’ve become a comfortable possessor of his apartment—Kris picked up his own tea and followed.

  His house. His musical career. His heart. Pretty much all of him, to be honest. Handed over without argument.

  “Are you okay, though.” Justin tucked legs under himself again, under the blanket; he tended to sit that way, flexible and kittenish, and Kris knew this by now, and liked knowing it. He touched the sofa’s arm along the way; stains and stories blurred and vanished, because Justin and Kris’s sofa were loyal allies now and cared for each other. “If you were calling her for you—I know this’s a lot to throw at you—”

  “And I told you I don’t mind. Go on.”

  “Old and tough, you said.”

  “Leathery. Seriously, love—” Damn. He plunged on. “I called her to see if there was anything else I should be doing. Y’know, for you.”

  “Love,” Justin said, expression complicatedly inscrutable. “You’ve been saying that. To me.”

  Kris spread hands in self-defense. “English?”

  “How many years’ve you lived in New York, again? You’re English when you want to be.” Justin seemed poised to add something else, and just as clearly thought again and switched questions. “You know I’m not really good at having friends, right?”

  “Anna the receptionist,” Kris said. “The Witch’s Brew baristas. Me. Everyone you’ve ever met, as far I can tell, and I know emotion.”

  “Okay,” Justin decided, “I have friends. I’m not good at not lying to them. One big lie. About me. And with you it’s—” A pause, a contemplation of words. “Different, I was going to say. But you are different. I’m talking to you. It feels…”

  “Good,” Kris said.

  “Yes,” Justin said. “Good. Is that because of you? Are you projecting at me?”

  Kris choked on tea. He hadn’t been, not consciously, but—“Not on purpose, no, why, can you feel it, if you can I’m so sorry—”

  Justin shrugged at him again. “It doesn’t work the same way on me, I told you. I don’t think you are, but you’re pretty strong, and I’m only half a demon. You were the person I thought of when I needed to feel safe.”

  “Oh gods,” Kris said into his tea, aghast.

  “No, it’s fine. I think that was me, not you influencing me.” Justin paused to push up sleeves: the sleeves of Kris’s borrowed shirt, the sleeves of his armor. “That was me wanting someone who knew me. This me. Not the lie.”

  “Oh,” Kris said again, unreasonably happy, aware of the circumstances, but warmed inside nevertheless.

  Justin laughed. “That I did feel, thanks. It’s the middle of the night; you’re going to give everyone in this building good dreams.”

  “There’re reasons I live on the top floor.” The building management knew. The next floor down was occupied by mostly psychically dense inhabitants.

  “Yes,” Justin agreed, “because you care about other people. You do have decent control, though. Like now. You let me feel it and then pulled it back.”

  “Years of practice.” He was leaning closer to Justin, both of them half-consciously shifting in, not drawing away. “The teenage years were a bit rough. Mum at least had some skill too, kept me contained, showed me some tricks. At least it’s mostly outward. I don’t know what we’d’ve done if I’d been a sponge.”

  “And you use it to make people smile. Or cry. To make us sing along. Catharsis.”

  “No getting fancy.”

  “Once a writer, always a writer. You said I could write something with you. Lyrics.” Justin turned his glittery mug around in slim fingertips. “Did you mean that? Because I totally understand if you were just trying to make me feel better.”

  “I meant it,” Kris said.

  This time Justin was the one who said, “Oh,” and got quietly pink-cheeked and pleased, for a moment.

  And despite the seriousness of the situation and the horror of the whole awful night, that shy pleasure reached over and tapped at Kris’s heart, a knock on a rusty organ; he discovered himself smiling, and promptly cast about for a diversion. “Television?”

  “Sure.” Justin drowned the yawn in a sip of tea. “Something easy.”

  “I Married A Merman re-runs, or…some sort of bread-baking competition, or—”

  “Wait, go back, that was you!”

  “No,” Kris protested, but flipped the channel back anyway: one of those music of a certain decade specials, and yes, there he was, enormous hair and sequins and leather trousers practically falling off his hips, and how had he ever thought that was a good idea? Younger him, with Reggie and poor ill-fated Tommy in the background, was enthusiastically fondling
the microphone while singing, because younger him had thought suggestive full-body gestures were rebellious and sexy. “I don’t even recall this show. Is that Manchester? Where is that? Why haven’t they moved on to another band yet?”

  “They’ve just started talking about you. Instant fame after the public revelation that you were sleeping with not one but three other prominent musicians, Gabriel Hill and Lynnette L of Goldie and Nick Peters—”

  “Come on, the tabloids always get that one wrong, they all knew already! And no one cared I was shagging all three of them, Lynn introduced me to Nick in the first place and asked if she could watch! The problem was Nick’s fucking producer, he thought I was bad for his—Nick’s—reputation—”

  “I’m half a demon, and an incubus type at that,” Justin said. “I’m generally in favor of sex. Wasn’t the problem actually that you, um, persuaded Lynn to give your demo to her producer, or that was the rumor, anyway? I’m not saying you did.”

  Kris had meant to answer; Justin’s last sentence pulled the rug out from under weary indignation. “You don’t believe it?”

  “I believe you’re the kind of powerful empath that can scare people and you were way more reckless back then and you wanted to be famous, and all that made a good story.” Justin took a diplomatic sip of tea. “But I don’t think you’d’ve done it on purpose. You’re not that sort of person.”

  “Oh.” Justin didn’t believe he’d done it? That made one.

  He wished he could live up to that image of himself. He wished that he could be a better person; he wished that he could be the person Justin believed in. “I’ll tell you the true parts if you want.”

  On the screen, interview footage played; younger Kris blew cigarette smoke and left a lipstick kiss on the camera lens, in grainy artistic black and white. In the background Reggie’s voice said, “No, he’s always just like that, no, the one who’s high right now is Tom—” and Tommy, off-screen and impossibly young and owlish, said, “Huh?”

  “Yes,” Justin said. “If you want to tell me. I know you didn’t deny it, at the time…”