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Chapter 15

The next few months served as time for my relationship with Otis to get fixed, mostly by completely ignoring what had happened in the span between Halloween and Thanksgiving. I didn't complain about the avoidance of the problem; I, too, kind of just wanted to forget the whole ordeal. Over time, our connection had been nearly restored to what it was on Halloween.

Not much happened in December. The most interesting part was Otis's half-brother, Foxy, briefly showing up for Christmas. He didn't stay for too long, though, only being introduced to me before wishing the family well and quickly making his departure. Another notable thing that happened during Christmas was Otis's gift for me: a human heart preserved in a jar of formaldehyde. So romantic, isn't he?

Between opening gifts and having dinner, Otis took an unusually clean box out of a drawer in his room. He opened the box and revealed two needles. They were also sterilized, which made me question why these were pretty much the only clean things in his room.

"What're these for?" I asked.

"You'll see," Otis said before disinfecting a patch of skin on my arm and using a piece of fabric as a tourniquet. He grabbed one of the needles and removed the cap from the sharp point, then stabbed it into one of my veins. He drew a bit of blood from me, replaced the blood-filled needle into the box, and did the same procedure on himself. He labeled each needle with our names and put the box back away. He didn't tell me what he was using them for, and I wouldn't find out until February.

Hugo unfortunately passed away in January. The family held a small funeral for him, but returned to business as usual not too much later. Otis had also begun to change his appearance, if only by a little bit. He had ditched the stringy sideburns for a full beard, and he began to go outside more, making his skin more tan than its usual pale color.

Then, we were approaching my birthday in February. The Fireflies threw me a pretty large party, considering that I hadn't even been part of the family for a year. When the celebration was done, Otis pulled me into his room to give me a gift in private.

He pulled out a small box and said, "Now, don't ya start thinkin' too much into this. It's only a gift, nothin' more," before handing me the box.

I tentatively opened it and looked inside. I saw what looked like a silver ring in the shape of a snake wrapped in a circle and eating its own tail, kind of like an ouroboros. It had two blood-red gems as eyes, making me think that the gems were somehow infused with the blood Otis had drawn on Christmas day.

"Are these, like, blood gems?" I looked up and saw that Otis was holding a ring that was identical to mine.

"Mhm," he said, "I got yer blood, you got mine."

I inspected the ring further as a giddy smile grew on my face. In my examination, I saw writing etched into the inside of the ring. As I rotated it around, I made out the words "Till death do us part".

I could feel the blush rising in my cheeks. "Otis, I- I don't know what to say." I moved to put the ring on my fingers, but I wasn't sure if I should put it on my ring finger or not. After all, Otis told me to not read into this, meaning that this wasn't indicating that he was proposing to me. I saw that he did place it around his ring finger, so I did the same, assuming it was okay.

"Don't start thinkin' this is anythin' more than it is, got it?" he reminded me.

"Wait...you're telling me that you're not proposing to me?" I said in an overly-sarcastic voice, so as to ensure Otis knew I was joking.

He shook his head and said, "You wish," before pulling me into a deep kiss. I pulled my mouth away after a moment and turned the embrace into a tight hug. As I nuzzled my face into the crook of his neck, I decided to take a risk that could very well jeopardize the tender moment we were having.