Downworld

Part 2: Long Live the King

I woke from nightmare into the darkness of my Gateway apartment. Malik was laying half on me, half on the bed, and I managed to ease out from under him without waking him or dissolving into hysterics. Nightmares weren't common, but they weren't nearly as uncommon as I'd like, so this escape was a practiced one. I slipped into the bathroom, closed the door, flicked on the light and spent a while doing breathing exercises and reminding myself that the Black Bear was dead. Then I had a shower to wash away the rest of the nightmare.

I hated him more than ever. I was alive and he was dead, but he still wouldn't leave me alone.

I was standing in front of the mirror -- wondering where my tan had gone and how long I'd been such a pasty guy -- when Malik knocked on the door, letting me know he was awake and wanted to check on me.

'You can come in,' I said, and turned so that he wouldn't be standing behind me. With too observant eyes, he took this in and didn't come too far into the room.

'You all right?'

'Yeah. Just a nightmare.'

'A bad one,' he commented, because after almost a year together, he knew me better than I knew myself. If it hadn't been a bad one, I wouldn't have had to retreat to the bathroom; I could have stayed in the bedroom, or even not needed to move at all. It had been a long time since I'd had one this bad, and I could see that it worried him.

'Not that bad,' I said truthfully, because I'd had much worse. It hadn't been a memory this time -- they were the worst, especially when my fucked up subconscious decided to impose the adult me into those memories, just as helpless, afraid and hurting as the kid had been -- just an oppressive feeling of being held down, his breath ghosting my neck, me unable to escape.

'You should have woken me.'

'And have you do what? Sit outside the door worrying and feeling guilty?'

Malik chewed his lip, considering his answer.

This was an old argument, one that neither of us would win because I would always try not to wake him up, and he would always insist he wanted to be awake. I suspected he partly blamed himself for my nightmares, a side effect of the several panic attacks I'd had when he'd first started staying the night. The sleeping on top of me thing, which made escaping -- or even just getting up to take a piss -- so much more difficult, actually helped by keeping me from tossing and turning during the night, lest I wake up in the morning with him behind me. The last time that happened, I'd ended up elbowing him in the stomach in a panic. It had not been a good morning for either of us.

'We don't have to go have lunch with my father, you know. We could put it off.'

'Malik, I can handle it.'

'I know,' he smiled and I almost believed he meant it. 'But you don't have to if you don't want to.'

'It's fine.'

He nodded. 'Want to come back to bed?'

'Yeah. Just a minute.'

He left me alone, and I went back to contemplating my face in the mirror.

Up until now, outside of our families and their households, no one knew Malik and I were together. This was mostly for me, so that I could work on getting my shit together without half of downworld staring at me, thinking about how a nobody guardian like me -- who everyone knew was used goods -- could catch the attention of the Red Prince -- who was notoriously hard to catch. Given that I was an incubus, they would make the inevitable conclusion that Malik was just using me for sex. I knew the implication would insult him, though he hadn't seemed to have thought about it. Beyond that though, the secrecy was also a little for him -- because he lived his whole life with his father's household watching over him, and other nobles assessing him to see if he was a threat, and freaks everywhere trying to get close to him in case he succeeded his father -- and he wanted a relationship untainted by that scrutiny as much as possible. So he could decide whether I was worth it without our every argument and make ups becoming gossip for the vapid masses. To be fair, he hadn't said that, but I think it was implied.

But it was past time, really. Malik's father had become impatient and rightly pointed out to him that we'd been through more than most couples and survived, so it was likely we'd be together for the immediate future. He wanted to meet me as his son's partner, not as some random rape victim. Plus, Malik had said he was sick of getting hit on by overzealous social climbers who had no idea he was taken.

With a sigh that acknowledged I really didn't want to become involved in downworld politics -- but I needed to, and not just because I could only avoid it if Malik and I stayed a secret forever -- I flicked off the light and rejoined Malik in bed. He snuggled into me with more protectiveness than usual.