A Demon for Midwinter

by K. L. Noone

  Kris caught his own flinch—that human reaction when faced with a hungry demon, with that sharpened smile—right before it could physically manifest. Instinctive. Story-shaped. Learned. Nothing he could help.

  He knew that, and Justin knew, and he knew that Justin knew. He couldn’t not wish that he could turn back time and unlearn that suspicion; he thought that, given time, he’d do better. He swore he would.

  “You already are.” Justin licked lips, head on one side, hair rippling. Sensuous. Lapidary. That heritage. That open flame, the scents of autumn and heated skin, a throb of decadent smoke and spice. “You’re trying. That matters.”

  “I can try harder.”

  “We’ll have time.” Fire and crimson and black pupils, in that gaze. Less human, more a succubus’s child. But completely Justin, in the compassion and passion of the reply. “You’ve thought so. And we will.”

  Food began appearing on his counter. Small bites, easy to nibble from fingers. Apple slices. Honeyed granola squares. Chocolate, lustrous and dark. Justin’s laugh wasn’t quite human either, brushed by desert winds and sandstorms, but he yielded deliciously to Kris’s tug at his wrist, and let himself be pushed back against the countertops and kissed breathless.

  “If you’re not tired,” Kris said, equally breathless, tattered and elated, “then, bed, you, right now—I want you naked—”

  Justin threw him a scorching smirk, and they were there. With the food, which’d landed on the bedside table. Everybody naked.

  “What’d you do with our—”

  “Might’ve banished them. I can bring them back. Um…probably.”

  “Probably?—never mind. You. Bed.”

  Justin went. Kris came along and sat down beside him, and for a moment only gazed at him, drinking him in.

  Justin, balanced on one elbow amid decadent midnight sheets, hesitated between playfulness and self-doubt, mask slipping.

  “Don’t think I don’t want you like this,” Kris said. “I’m just looking.” He was. “Sit up.”

  Justin did that too, eyes wide but trusting.

  Kris glanced around. “Is that your new scarf? The grey one.”

  “Um…yes?”

  “Can I try something?”

  “If you’re thinking what I am, I’ve totally done that before, and of course yes, I want you to, yes, Kris—”

  The something he had in mind was perhaps not precisely whatever kinky pastime’d occurred to Justin, but did involve his demon sitting patiently in bed, scarf wound around wrists, pinning them together in Justin’s lap. Justin blinked, smiled more, got more wide-eyed in a different way, hazy and happy.

  “You like this? Good. Stay put while I feed you.” And he did, bite by bite, nibble by nibble. Apples and honey, granola and sweetness, chocolate like small drops of exquisite luxury. Justin stayed right where Kris’d put him, and accepted each piece and each sip of water as Kris fed them to him, neat and graceful.

  They didn’t try anything more. Nothing complicated, nothing they’d have to learn about, definitively nothing painful or punishing. They were even nearly eye to eye, perched on the bed. The moment found itself in Kris’s fingertips, and Justin’s bound hands, and Justin’s mouth, accepting everything Kris gave him. Tied up in love and cherishing, present, and true.

  After a while he eased Justin down to the bed. Guided those hands up onto a convenient pillow. Ran his own hand over Justin, shoulder to stomach, hip to thigh. Justin sighed, sinking into caresses readily, legs falling open in invitation.

  “Still good?”

  “Mmm. Yes. Can I…”

  “What?”

  “Kiss you?”

  “Always,” Kris agreed, and bent over him. Justin kissed back ardently and a bit clumsily, losing coordination, already evidently floating a little amid pleasurable clouds; well, he’d wanted that. They both had.

  He wouldn’t make this too extensive or demanding; despite what Justin said about being less human for now, they were both coping with emotional tolls, wrung out and aching with reprieve. Just enough, though. Enough to know: they were both choosing this. Here and home.

  Justin’s teeth were indeed sharper; the kiss did not draw blood, but might’ve. Kris sat up and touched his cheek, and then, curious and wondering, touched one of those intriguing uncanny curving horns. Justin said, “Kris—”

  “Should I not?”

  “No, you—you can, I—” Justin shivered in place, shut eyes, opened them. “I’ve never had anyone ever—no one’s ever even seen—they’re not even that sensitive, I only wasn’t thinking—why would you—”

  “You’re you. I love you.” He stroked a hand along that left horn again, where it curled up enticingly out of illuminating hair. Felt like what he’d expect from, yeah, a horn. Maybe a bit warmer. But then Justin did run warm. “All of you.”

  Justin started crying. Not loudly. But visibly. The shining overflowed and left tracks.

  Kris turned into a petrified statue, hand afraid to stir. “Are you—”

  “I’m—oh gods will you please fuck me, Kris, please, please, I need—”

  “Oh yes,” Kris said, laughing through sudden short tears, laughing because Justin was now also laughing while crying and swearing at him from the bed, all without moving obedient bound arms, “yes, love, right fucking now.”

  He took his time getting Justin ready, though. Not too much time, but some. Enough to make Justin swear at him again, not seriously but growing impatient. Enough to take care.

  When he pushed into Justin’s welcoming body, that tender tight space, they both groaned. In unison.

  He did not try to make it last; they did not need that. He thrust hard, and Justin moved with him, quivering around and under him; he cradled Justin’s head, and smoothed tear-tracks with rough thumbs. He kissed his sharp-toothed demon as Justin arched up to meet him, eager and hot around the plundering invasion, cock equally hot and hard and dripping want between their bodies.

  They came simultaneously, falling into infinite shared glory, Kris atop him and inside him amid the glowing snarled skein of euphoria and release and relief and love. Justin moaned when Kris kissed him again, and shuddered through a second climax, or at the very least an echo of the first.

  Justin’s wrists bore very light pink marks from bondage, after; they hardly showed against that skin. He smiled, touching one. “Yours.”

  “My half-demon. My…Justin.” His own arm glimmered. Not quite the same, but matching. Together.

  “Yes,” Justin said. His eyes remained inhumanly bright; his hair tumbled limp and worn out and resplendent. He lay in Kris’s arms as if he could stay there forever: drowsy, sweet, sated, radiant. “Yes. Everything you just—oh yes. Yes.”

  Kris ran a hand through his hair. They were thoroughly naked and sticky, as were the sheets; beyond the bedroom, the sun arrived to peek in on the story. The time had ambled cheerily toward afternoon; they’d need proper food soon. Lunch. Dinner. Justin’s aunt’s deviled eggs.

  Every meal. Every day, for all the days to come, unknown and wondrous, imperfect and fumbling and perfectly full of laughter.

  And love songs. Music. Lyrics. One more half-formed idea at the back of his brain. In his chest. Deep inside, made of holiday lights and scarlet horns and warmth.

  He murmured, “I promised you coffee.”

  “In a minute. I’m happy. I don’t want to move. I don’t want to move, like, ever. But absolutely not yet.”

  “We can do that.”

  “Kris?” Justin gazed up at him, head on Kris’s shoulder. “Are you? Happy. I mean, I think so. I can feel—I think you are. I love you. I love feeling this, with you. That’s right, isn’t it? What I’m feeling. You are?”

  “Yes,” Kris said to him, holding him, Justin’s hair waking up enough to leave flame-kisses against his cheek. “Yes, I am.”

  Epilogue

  Three months later, glimmering winter edging into pale newborn spring, Kris Starr stood on stage at the Gardens with
Brendan Alvarez and Incantation, and played a note on his guitar, electric and teasing. The crowd roared.

  They’d had an amazing tour, show after show, packed arenas and fans screaming for more encores. Kris had technically been opening, with some of Justin’s punk-scene friends having volunteered—stampeded to volunteer, more accurately, with an eagerness about which he’d been baffled—to step in as touring support at his back, drums and bass and second guitar and backup vocals. They were excellent. He was learning things about energy and new rhythms.

  He’d expected most fans would come to see Bren and the rest of the young attractive pop-punk kids. This was in part true, but only in part; people showed up for him and stayed, or showed up early and sang along, and he’d been offering up new songs, old songs, everything he wanted to share.

  He had been, in fact, having fun.

  Bren threw him a grin. Stampeded into a cover of “Little Black Dress.” Kris laughed, swung into the next line, and played along. Boot up on an amp. Leaning into the music, the crowd, the swinging brass that Incantation liked to throw in. He loved it. He loved all of it.

  He’d been a tiny bit worried about meeting Justin’s top-of-the-charts ex. He hadn’t needed to be; Bren had run up to Justin, punched him—not hard—in the shoulder, explained with vast dramatic intonations, “That’s for thinking you couldn’t tell me anything ever, like oh I don’t know maybe that you’re half demon and you’re banging Kris fucking Starr, what the hell, J!” and tackled him into a hug.

  Kris had, after this, decided to like the boy. Even more so when Bren bounced backstage, pulled him back out on stage, and started a tradition of party-rock-tinted Starrlight songs as encores.

  He’d learned one or two of theirs in reply. He’d got fairly good at “Angelica.”

  “So we’ve got a surprise,” Bren said to the crowd, conversationally, strumming notes under the words. They cheered. They loved him; he had the presence, the charm. He’d be better than Kris Starr, someday soon if not already.

  Kris, amused by this thought, raised eyebrows and played mock startlement right back. “Not another picture of your face taped to my drum kit?”

  “You love it. No, I was thinking, while we’ve got you, and everybody knows who you’re dating, these days…kinda hard to miss, that guy…”

  More laughter. Justin was here, naturally. Waiting in the wings, dressed in skinny jeans and a vintage Starrlight Sparkle Tour shirt—out of a box in Kris’s closet, never worn, some promotional design that’d been a gift—and looping bracelets and dancing jewel-hued hair. He looked like himself, every wonderful facet: Willie Randolph’s new favorite department head, a spark of brilliance who’d just hired a whole slate of impressive editorial talent and contributors both human and non-human in various ways, an unabashed demon with fire-tricks at fingertips, a boy who liked black leather and eyeliner and today’s blue-with-silver-stars nail polish, and—as Kris happened to know firsthand—matching blue hip-hugging underwear.

  Not that anyone else got to see that. For them alone. Later. Plus a few other items. Justin hadn’t got round to doing the piercings again yet, but certain toys had become definitely entertaining. Decorations for sensitive pretty demonic nipples. For his equally pretty cock. Sensation and exploration, inarguable belonging and shared discovery.

  Justin was himself. More than ever, now.

  So, of course, was Kris.

  “I was thinking we’d play that thing you wrote,” Brendan finished, hauling him back to reality and away from distracting thoughts about nipple clamps and boundless devotion. “For him.”

  They’d set this up, him and Bren and the band, of course they had: for this show, the last show, Kris writing in dressing rooms and odd snatches of time, scribbling lyrics when Justin was off having meetings with editors and contributing authors. His booklist was already impressive. Kris had known it would be.

  He nodded at his co-conspirators. Let the plan run ahead. “I’m thinking you’re right, yeah. Let’s do it. For him.”

  “Justin,” Bren yelled, “come out here!”

  Justin, pink-cheeked but thoroughly willing, nudged by Andy and Eddie, came.

  The twins had, a week after that tumultuous on-air declaration of love, hand-delivered a project. It’d been a collage, on canvas, a delicate many-layered work of paper and clippings and artistic care; it could’ve been shown in a gallery, not out of place among modern classic love-tales, comments on celebrity and notoriety and humanity underneath.

  They’d put it together out of Justin’s old magazine articles, pictures of Kris, pieces of history. Nothing large or tacky: simply stories mixed and mingled, joined and combined.

  He’d hung it up. In their apartment. And Justin’s family was here: for the final show on this tour, backstage, Bill and Kelly and James and James’s girlfriend and the demon-aunts and everyone, singing along.

  No one talked about David Ross anymore. Utter obscurity. He’d been let go from his law firm—the senior partners did not think he fit the values they hoped to uphold, declared the single follow-up news story—and he’d dwindled away. Kris had wondered aloud once whether this was enough; Justin had kissed him. Had answered that it was, moving on, not thinking about David at all, letting the past go.

  In the present the crowd howled more loudly. Of course they did; they’d do anything Bren said. But here and now they were cheering for Justin.

  Who blushed even more, but ran over across the stage and threw arms around Kris’s neck, and got passionately kissed. The twins applauded from the side.

  “So this one’s for you,” Bren informed the world, “Kris wrote it, so don’t blame me for anything,” and conjured up the opening notes of “Demon.”

  Kris’s rock anthem. Live. First time. Starting soft and slow. Filling the stadium, which listened in openmouthed anticipation. Bren lifted fingers off strings. “Although…actually…hang on, we got one more surprise.”

  This hadn’t been in the plan. Kris looked at Justin. Justin laughed. “My turn.”

  “So,” Bren suggested. “You guys want to see a Starrlight reunion?”

  Kris forgot how to talk.

  The audience shrieked various forms of yes. Incantation’s drummer, the tattooed and impressively muscled Kitty Anarchy, gave them a roll for emphasis. She was grinning so widely Kris thought she might explode; she must’ve been in on this part of the plot. They all seemed to be.

  But the words Brendan had said couldn’t be happening. Not possible. Not in any wildest dreams.

  Justin kissed him quick and sweetly. Then helpfully pointed to the left.

  Reggie Jones, in faded jeans and this tour’s white-on-grey Incantation-logo shirt, hair loose around his shoulders, carrying the familiar bass guitar with the silver and red cosmic glitter, strolled out from the wings and said, “Hey, Kris.”

  “Oh my god fuck me,” Kris said, which because of the microphones ended up being heard all around the arena. “Reggie…you…oh fuck…”

  “Not these days, thanks,” Reg said, and came over to hug him. He felt warm and tall and exactly right; different, with grey in that hair and a California tan and only barely enough make-up to work on stage, but exactly the same too, as years fell away. “I’m completely married and you have your adorable pet demon for that. Right over there. Who called me, by the way, if you were wondering about the mastermind.”

  “Justin,” Kris got out, in complete shock.

  “Don’t look at me.” Justin held up hands. “I only asked if he wanted to come to any of the shows. Since you’re back on tour.”

  “And you’re writing new terrible holiday lyrics to our songs,” Reg pointed out, getting everything hooked up, checking sound, running fingers over legendary strings. Other younger band members—the rest of Incantation, Kris’s back-up, everybody crowding back on stage—were watching the Starrlight reunion happen live, wide-eyed. The crowd, sensing history, had gone silent in a reverent kind of way, poised and quivering. They could say, after this, t
hat they’d been there when. They’d tell those stories: I was at that show. That night. “Couldn’t let you do that without me. At least once. One time.”

  “They’re not terrible,” Kris said. Recovering. Remembering. Falling into rhythm. “As if you ever did your share of the writing. Mostly you sat around mocking me.”

  “Someone had to.” Reggie had started playing a proper tune under words, the familiar thrum that meant the opening to “Sugar In Your Tea.” “One more time? One last show? Holly and the horde of grandkids’re backstage, they’ve never seen us live, don’t let me down.”

  “Guess we should,” Kris said: for Reggie, for Justin, for Brendan and the band members and the world onstage and offstage, holding respective breaths. “Are we doing ‘Sugar’? Or anything you want. Whatever you want.” He meant that, too.

  “Nah,” Reggie said, “we’re doing your new one, these nice kids in this up-and-coming band—you might know them, they also gave me this very attractive shirt I’m wearing, when I asked if I could have one—” The audience and the members of the multiple-times platinum-certified band in question screamed, and in some cases bounced up and down on stage, in delight. “They sent copies of your song notes over after I told your favorite demon I might stop by, so I’ve been practicing, but you start us off, go on.”

  “I love you,” Kris said to Justin. “I love you.” The entire arena, as one, sighed. Kitty tapped a cymbal to underscore the moment, crashing and windswept.

  “Okay,” Kris Starr said, guitar in hand, Justin at his side, Reggie and music at his back. “So this one’s brand-new. It’s called ‘Demon,’ so, well, you already know who it’s for…”

  The notes rang out. They filled up the silence. They sang.

  THE END

  Author’s Note

  My books always exist at the intersection of many beloved influences, and in this case those influences have a lot to do with music! There are too many to list, but here’re a few:

  —Justin’s initials do, in fact, spell JAM (this wasn’t originally on purpose but was too perfect to ever change!)