Page 103 of Dark Souls

“Would you fight a tarantula for me?”

“God, no. You’re on your own there. And don’t think I have forgiven you for that giant freak you portalled to my room. Just because you’re going through something right now doesn’t mean I won’t make you pay.”

He burst out laughing, my head bouncing against his shoulder until he calmed down. “But I’m weely, weely sorry!”

“No, there is no way out of my revenge. It’s coming no matter what.”

He shrugged his shoulders. “Fine. Do your worst, sis. Not like my life can suck any more than it already does.”

“Pfft, nice try. But like I said, revenge shall be mine.”

“So…” He jolted his shoulder aggressively, forcing my head up, so I turned to glare at him. “Gonna tell me who you’re shagging?”

“What?” I snapped defensively and avoided his eyes.

“You can’t fool me. I am the king of sex. I can tell when someone is glowing from sexual gratification. Who am I going to need to kill, huh? Who dared to lay their grubby mitts on my perfect sister? Who shall I be challenging to a duel at dawn?”

“You really did inherit the idiot gene.” I smirked, grabbing the bottle in our little game of tug of war. “You won’t be killing anyone because I am not shagging anyone.”

“Now it’s my turn to call bullshit. BULL. SHIT. But if I’m being honest, I don’t have the energy to even care right now. So your lover boy is off the hook until further notice.”

“As if you care, anyway. What was it you accused dad of? Oh, hey, pot meet kettle!”

He smiled with his eyes closed. “Yeah. You’re right. I’m a fucking hypocrite. As long as you are happy, whatever. But I already know who it is.”

I glared at him, narrowing my eyes. There was no way he knew. He had to be bluffing.

“It’s that sexy human assassin, dude, right? What’s his name? Jonnie?”

“Ronnie,” I corrected with a roll of my eyes. “And no. It’s not.”

“Oooo okay. You’re going to be all mysterious about it. That’s cool. Keeping something a secret is awesome foreplay.”

“I…” Urgh. Leif was a master at getting secrets out of people. “It’s complicated.”

“Everything always is,” he breathed, turning and clawing himself up onto his bed. “What’s the problem?”

I chewed on my bottom lip. Leif was surely so drunk he’d barely remember this conversation tomorrow and even if he did, I doubted he’d say anything to anyone. He had too much going on in his own head. I thought about Luka and how closed off he was. How I barely knew a thing about him. Even after the last few days, we couldn’t become any closer physically, but emotionally. We were worlds apart. I didn’t know him at all.

“How do you get to know someone on a deeper level? Like more than sex,” I asked, as I climbed up onto the bed and sat over his sprawled legs. His face was half-buried in the pillow and I knew time was ticking before he was dead to the world.

“Wrong person to ask,” he mumbled. “I only fuck, remember. No strings attached. I’d use sex to get to know them. You can learn a lot about a person through sex.”

I sighed. “Just humour me. Say you wanted to really get to know the person you were sleeping with. Like every little thing about them, but they were very… private, even more than me. How would you go about it?”

“Hmm,” he moaned sleepily. “Suffocate them with persistence.”

“Huh?”

“I dunno. Just force myself into their life. Gain their trust. Find out what they liked and disliked by observing them closely. All that bollocks.”

“By stalking them?” I smiled, thinking of Heathen.

“No, that’s psycho. Just… be present.”

A mischievous smile appeared on my face as a plan formed in my mind. Leif’s light snoring into his pillow signalled it was time for me to leave. As I attempted to shuffle off the bed, his arm whipped out and grabbed my hand.

“Can you stay?” he whispered as I peered down at his sad face. My heart tugged at the vulnerability in his voice. “I don’t want to be alone.”