“Well, actually I guess it was you a few days ago.” Rupert said more sprightly, “until then however, it had been a long time.” Rupert got quieter, and much more melancholy, “After I started changing, Mom no longer wanted to touch me.” Rupert sniffed. “Then she died, and I was alone.” Edwyrd groaned mentally, he’d better stop this soon, or he’d never be able to tell the kid the truth. He just didn’t quite have the heart to interrupt. “I was afraid. So afraid I’d always be alone. That and be different. It was so hard. I mean the villagers were mean, made me feel like a monster, and then I had no one to turn to. All I could do was try and carry on. Try to find you.
“At times I thought it was a stupid, foolish thing. But I didn’t know what else to do. Then when you showed up, it was like the entire world turned upside down. You’d come for me, like I knew you would. How many other fourth order demons could there be that fit your description and would just show up when I needed them.” Rupert snuggle closer, his eyes closed. “When you carried me on the road, for the first time in my life, I felt safe.
“All my life, I’d lived in fear. My mother had let me know early on that I was demon-get, and that I could never tell anyone. Of course, I heard all the horror stories about demons and demon offspring. I didn’t know what to think. My mother, she wasn’t much help. She refused talk about you. She tried to be there, but even so, she sometimes seemed afraid of what I might become.” Rupert sniffed. “She couldn’t always help, but at least she tried, and then they killed her. Stoned her for ‘sins of the flesh.’ I managed to get her free, and we escaped, but she’d been wounded too much.” Edwyrd could feel Rupert shaking, sobbing slightly.
“I don’t know. I don’t know what I’d have done if you hadn’t come. I don’t think I could have held out much longer. I might have jumped off a tower or something. Of course, now I’m not so sure that would have done any good. It’s so hard to live in a world where you’re different. Where you have to live every moment in fear of discovery, fear that people will find out, and hate you for what you are.” Tom grimaced, he had certainly been finding that one out for himself.
“I was the only person like myself I knew. I’d never really seen a demon before you, just drawings or paintings, and hints from what was happening to me. All I knew were the evil stories they told children and students. It’s frightening to hear those stories and know they’re talking about you, about your own people.”
Tom, by this point, felt like shit. He knew he couldn’t let Rupert go on believing he was the kid’s father, but he’d have to be asshole of the century to say anything at the moment. Part of the problem was that Tom did understand. He’d had some similar thoughts very recently when he’d first gotten stuck in the demon business. He guessed he also knew a little bit about Rupert’s loneliness.
While his stepfather had been around until recently, they’d never been super close. He’d always been busy with work, or as his mother later said, late night assignments with his secretary. Even before the divorce, his mother had also gone back to work. Trying to get her mind off what she feared was happening in her second marriage. Tom had spent years missing his real father after the explosion at the lab. A leak in a very large hydrogen tank and an electrical spark was all it took to take his father from him.
Rupert continued, “But then you came. Finally, someone I could lean on. Someone who knew, who understood. Who I could trust.” The pit of Tom’s stomach rolled, here the kid trusted him and Tom was effectively lying to him by not saying anything. “Someone who wanted me. Someone to hold me occasionally.”
Tom gave Rupert a hug. The kid certainly knew how to guilt trip a guy, even if unintentionally. How could Tom say anything after this? Not tonight, maybe in a day or two, but not tonight. He gave Rupert a tighter squeeze, bringing his other arm around to pat Rupert’s head. What was he going to do? As much as he hated it, he wasn’t the kid’s father, couldn’t be, but how could he tell this to someone so dependent on him?
“I just need someone to be there for me now and then. Someone with whom I can be myself, who’ll accept me for who I am. Someone to teach me, someone to talk to, who understands me and what I’m going through. Someone to be there.”
That was another big part of the problem. Tom had never had anyone who depended on him. It actually felt kind of good. He’d never had someone who really looked up to him, someone to protect. Someone to care for. Who knew, maybe Tom was somehow wanting to be there for Rupert as a mirror for his own desires for more attention when he had been a child.
