Page 22

Leopold

D id all fae taste like honey and strawberries when they kissed you, or was that just a Crispy thing?

Leopold hadn’t really noticed the flavor after the first kiss, but there had been Mothra pheromones involved at the time, so that probably interfered.

This time, however, there had been no moths, and Crispin had tasted like the world’s most delicious dessert, and?—

“You saved me!” Leopold suddenly exclaimed, grabbing Crispin’s shoulders. “Oh my God, your mother was going to kill me and your brother is a colossal douchebag but you stopped them and you saved me and your lips have the most amazing flavor!”

Crispin stared at him, eyes wide. “Leopold,” he whispered.

“You know what? Call me Leo. It’s fine. Anything is fine as long as you keep kissing me.

” A sobering thought hit him. “You wanted to, right? It wasn’t a spell or something?

You seem to be, well, into me and you care enough about me to go against your mother, who’s Queen of the frigging Fairies and?—”

“Leopold.”

The second time, Crispin said his name more firmly.

And Leopold realized that what he was seeing in Crispin’s eyes was genuine shock mixed with a healthy dose of terror.

Which was maybe understandable, given what had just happened to them, but Leopold would have hoped there would be some other stuff there too.

Like lust or affection or pride. Because Crispin should be proud, considering he’d just defied parental authority and fae royalty and saved Leopold and dragged them both into?—

Oh.

Dragged them both here .

Still hanging on to Crispin, Leopold took a good look around.

They were in a large room that looked a fair amount like his Sacramento apartment.

No—it looked a fair amount like everyplace he’d lived during his adult years, as if all the details had been mixed up, thrown in at once, and intensified.

The walls were painted in patchworks of varying colors, with old band and movie posters tacked up crookedly here and there, and even a bit of Sharpie graffiti from the time he’d thought a wall decorated à la Keith Haring was a good idea.

Which it would have been, had he possessed any skill as an artist.

The floor was a patchwork too, of scuffed wood, 1970s vinyl, shag carpet in technicolor hues, and threadbare rugs.

The furniture—couches, chairs, tables—looked like a Goodwill clearance sale, the large kitchen had mismatched cabinets and was cluttered with pizza boxes and potato chip bags, and all across the floor lay articles of clothing as well as empty packaging that might someday make it to the recycling bin.

Also, there were no windows and no doors.

“Crispy? Where are we?”

Crispin took a few steadying breaths. “I brought us through The Door. This wasn’t what I expected.”

“What door?” Leopold had a sense that he should know this, but his brain felt about three steps behind. And the nearest couch looked awfully comfy. Maybe he should sit down.

“The Door you came out of, all those years ago—the Door to Chaos.”

Oh. That door.

Leopold let go of Crispin and really did sit down. The old light-pink couch was squishy in the best way, as if he’d been sitting there for years, letting it mold itself to his body. Crispin remained as he was, standing in the middle of the immense room and looking stunned.

“This is Chaos,” Leopold managed. It wasn’t quite a question.

“Y-yes.” Crispin was hugging himself, as if he were cold.

“I mean, I know it’s messy. I’m not much of a clean freak.

And there’s sort of a lot of different stuff here, but I’ve never had much money, so I’ve stayed in all kinds of places, and…

.” He let the words trail away because a portion of one wall was transforming from splotchy pinkish paint to faded 1960s vintage wallpaper depicting wagon wheels and bucking broncos.

A light fixture descended from the ceiling nearby, like rapidly growing fruit.

It had three pendant lights with orange glass shades, one of them cracked, and two of the bulbs were burned out.

The effect wasn’t as disconcerting as it should have been, because the changes felt as familiar to him as the original décor, even if he’d never lived anywhere with precisely those details.

“This place feels like home,” he said. And it was true. For him, it wasn’t scary at all. And yeah, something gray and sort of roiling-cloudish was hovering in one corner, but it didn’t seem any more threatening than the house spiders he’d so frequently ignored.

“It is your home,” replied Crispin in a tiny voice.

No denying it. “Yeah. This is where I come from. I can feel it. But wait, I thought Chaos was a thing, but now I guess it’s sort of a place? I don’t get it.”

“It’s neither. Chaos is a… a concept. It can— you can—take physical form.

You can manifest in lots of different ways.

Some of them are really good, remember? Art.

Magic.” He managed a faint grin. “Um, sex and procreation and things like that. They all have some Chaos mixed in, like a spice. And Chaos has a home, a center, but that home may exist physically in a number of locations.”

“Like your mother’s home.”

Crispin nodded eagerly, apparently impressed with Leopold’s insight.

“Yes! Exactly. Mother’s been keeping your home enclosed within hers for some time in order to protect, well, everything.

But I opened The Door that time and a little of you escaped.

” Now Crispin winced. “I’m not sure whether to feel guilty over what I did or sad that you’ve mostly been imprisoned. ”

Leopold took a few moments to think this over and then shrugged.

“Don’t do either. You can’t be blamed for opening my Door—you were a kid, and jeez, you kinda had some difficult family issues, didn’t you?

Anyway, I’m glad I got out. But also, you know, this place isn’t bad.

It’s cozy.” He patted the arm of the couch, and when he did, the fabric changed from 1980s pastels to 1970s brown velour.

When he patted again, the couch became scuffed black leather that looked as if a dog might have gnawed on part of it.

His seat remained equally comfortable no matter what.

“Thank you.” Crispin gave one of his patented sighs, but at least a little of the tension seemed to leave his body.

“No, thank you . You saved my life. That was incredibly brave.”

“Oh, I’m not the brave one. That’s Aspin. I just do paperwork, mostly. And it turns out I only got that job because of my mother.” His brow furrowed.

Leopold leapt from the couch, ran to Crispin, and grabbed his shoulders again.

“You are incredibly brave. Look at what you’ve faced in the past two days, and you’ve never given up.

You also never abandoned me.” His throat almost closed at that last part.

Nobody had ever stuck with him once things went bad.

Maybe his parents might have, if not for the camels, and he couldn’t blame them for that.

But everyone else—foster parents, social workers, co-workers, acquaintances, short-term lovers—as soon as it became obvious that he was trouble, they ran off.

“I was daring with my mother,” Crispin said thoughtfully, his tight grip around himself loosening.

“You definitely were. Crispy, if not for you, I’d have been eaten by moths or kept as a pet by dinosaurs or… or probably a lot of other awful things. But I wasn’t, and I’m here, and I’m alive. And you kissed me.” He couldn’t resist that last reminder.

Crispin lifted his chin. “I did.” Then he sagged a little. “But you saw my brother. He’s more handsome. He’s much more?—”

Leopold snorted. “He’s an asshat. Seriously, Crispy, I spent just a few minutes around him and that was way more than enough. How do you think he would have behaved if he’d been in your shoes?”

“He wouldn’t be,” Crispin scoffed. “He’s not a pencil-pusher. He’s a?—”

“A snotwaffle. And if he did work for OotL, what would he have done?”

“A snotwaffle ?” Finally a smile. “That’s a… unique way to describe him.”

“It really fits, though, right?”

“It really does.” For a moment, Crispin frowned as if seriously considering the original question. “If Aspin had my job, he would have abandoned you as soon as he could. And if that wasn’t possible, he would have helped Mother poison you.”

Aha! “But you didn’t.”

Leopold could watch the full realization slowly sink into Crispin’s brain.

As it did, Crispin’s back straightened and his eyes brightened until he was—absolutely no lie—a zillion times more beautiful that his dickweed brother.

He was, in fact, more gorgeous than any human or mythical creature had ever been—and that included Orlando Bloom as Legolas, which was saying a whole lot.

It was a little unclear who initiated the next kiss.

Maybe they both did it at once, which would explain why they bonked their noses together sort of painfully before managing to lock lips.

It was a spectacular kiss anyway, and Crispin still tasted sweet.

Leopold felt as if fireworks were exploding around them.

“Leo?” Crispin managed a word.

“Yeah?”

“Is something… exploding?”

Oh. There really were fireworks exploding around them.

The really pretty sparkly ones and the big bright ones that made those satisfying boom noises, and the whole room was sort of shaking, clothing and boxes and wrappers sliding and furniture shifting and posters falling off the walls.

All very thrilling, Leopold thought, until he realized that Crispin was clutching him more in fear than passion.

“Um, Leo? Could you perhaps tone things down just a bit?”

“I’m not—” Oh. Wait. He was . This room was his home, was him , and that meant he controlled everything that happened here.