Quinn rested a forearm above Merry’s head against the stall wall, and leaned to him.
“Ye listen to ye Quinn, now, Meriadoc McDaniel. ’Tis forbidden.”
Merry swallowed hard, and blinked once, twice, still dazed from his first kiss ever. “What d-do you mean?”
“Be forbidden for one o’ Fairy to care for a human.”
Quinn’s eyes seemed to plead Merry. “So, you c-can’t like me?”
“I cannot.”
Quinn’s words crushed Merry anew. “N-never?”
Quinn was grave as he shook his head slowly.
“It’s a fairy rule?”
Quinn nodded. “But it does no’ mean I cannot be ye friend.”
Merry’s heart ripped in two and unbidden tears welled again.
“Come on, little fella.”
Quinn held him against the muscled expanse of his chest. Merry melted into the warmth and comfort and fought to rein in his tears.
“Don’t jump to conclusions. A fairy’s friendship be as deep as he love.”
“I don’t want just your friendship,” Merry mumbled against Quinn’s chest.
“I know, but ’tis the way it must be.”
“You can’t break it?” Can I sound any more pathetic? Merry thought to himself.
“Break what?”
“The rule.”
“Put me in dire peril, if I do, Merry. Does no’ mean I cannot be with ye.”
Merry leaned back and looked up at him. “With me how?”
“I be ye friend.”
Merry didn’t want peril to happen to Quinn, especially the dire kind, and he couldn’t lose Quinn’s friendship. He couldn’t stand it if he were friendless again. He felt safe in Quinn’s arms, his strong, rhythmic heartbeat helping to calm Merry. He took a deep, shuddering breath and stepped one step back from Quinn. “Okay.” His lower lip quivered on the single word, and he hated himself for it. I am pitiful. He turned and tried the door of the stall again. It still wouldn’t budge. “I gotta get something to eat and lunch is almost over.”
“Nay, me Merry, I stopped time for ye.”
“You can stop time?”
“With good reason.”
The stall door slowly swung open on its own.
~*~
Merry glanced at Quinn as they walked to the cafeteria. The kiss had left him dazed, breathless, and all tingly inside. Then Quinn’s words had devastated him, leaving him feeling hollow and weak again.
They went through the cafeteria line and, when Merry put a bag of potato chips on his tray, Quinn looked down at him. “Ye need eat more than that.”
Merry had lost his appetite, but he reached for a banana and a salad to make Quinn happy, and added them to the tray.
They headed to an empty table and Rick ran by and knocked Merry’s tray from his grasp. The tray crashed to the floor and the food fell with an audible splat.
Fury ignited in Quinn’s eyes and Rick was suddenly airborne, seemingly having tripped over an invisible step. He face-planted onto a table with a yelp, and the food on it scattered everywhere.
Merry stared in shock as Quinn picked Rick up, straightened him out, and brushed food from the front of his shirt. “Now, ye listen and listen well, Rick Adams. Ye come near Merry again, and ye pay the piper, ye will. Ye take me meanin’?”
Quinn’s voice was low and full of menace. Merry had never seen Quinn lose his temper, and it scared him a little. Merry bent to pick up the tray and food, and glanced at them, fearful a full-fledged fight would break out.
Rick’s face turned as red as a beet as he slapped Quinn’s hands away and issued an earsplitting yell. “Get your hands off me!” He shoved Quinn in the chest. Quinn didn’t wobble. It was as if Rick had attempted to shove a boulder.
In a moment of unmitigated cruelty and gall, Rick moved around Quinn and kicked Merry in the side.
Merry hadn’t seen it coming. Air shot from his lungs as pain bounced off the walls of his mind. The tray went sliding across the floor, stars danced in his vision, and he fell onto his side with a stifled cry. From his pain-filled low place on the floor, he watched as Quinn magically transformed into a raging beast. A clawed hand wrapped around Rick’s neck and lifted him into the air. With a guttural growl, Quinn cursed him. A donkey tail and ears sprouted on Rick right before he was airborne again. He crashed through the cafeteria doors and landed with a sickening thud in the hallway.
Quinn transformed again, returning to his natural form, and went to Merry on the floor. “Merry, little fella, ye be hurtin’ bad?” Quinn’s brogue had thickened commensurate with his concern.
With Quinn’s help, Merry sat upright. “Uh-uh. Just knocked the breath out of me.” He coughed.
“Ye be certain?”
“I’ve had worse.” He tried to stand and slumped to the floor again.
“Here, now.” Quinn lifted Merry from the floor as if he weighed nothing, carried him to an empty table, and carefully helped him into a chair. He pulled a second chair up and sat next to Merry. “Ye be all right?”
Merry nodded as he looked around the cafeteria. It was if no one had seen a thing.
“Take a drink of ye juice.”
Merry turned back to find their two trays on the table, the food and drink restored to original states. He looked at Quinn, who proffered an open bottle of cranberry juice. Merry accepted it and took a swig, and wiped his mouth with the back of a hand. “So, um, so, d-does that h-happen often?”
“What?”
“The, ah, the, ah, well, you k-kind of changed there for a minute.”
“Aye, be me ugly side. It come out when I lose me temperament.”
That was understandable. Not. “Yeah, okay, no problem. I hope I never piss you off.”
Quinn leaned and placed a soft kiss on Merry’s cheek and it tingled again.
“Ye could never be the cause of me ire, Meriadoc. Sorry ye had to see it.”
“Um, yeah, okay. Are we, like, invisible or something? Because no one’s looking at us.”
Quinn shrugged. “Humans see what they wish to. Not be difficult to tease they minds.”
Merry scratched his head. He was almost afraid to ask. “If you c-can’t be my b-boyfriend, how can you kiss me, my cheek, I mean?”
Quinn gave him a long, considering look. “I should not but cannot help meself.”
Merry wasn’t surprised.
HE. WAS. THUNDERSTRUCK.
Quinn couldn’t hold himself back? From kissing me? A giggle bubbled up from somewhere deep inside Merry. Man, when was the last time I giggled? 3rd grade?
“Ye needn’t be surprised. I be very fond of ye.”
Very. It was that kind of fond. Not just the regular, everyday type of fond. Not just any kind of fond, but the very kind. V-E-R-Y! That kind! Quinn was very fond of him! Merry had never been very anything to very anybody and it very thrilled him. Very instantly became his new favorite word. He fought to collect his very jumbled thoughts. “Ah-huh, okay, um, thanks. I’m very fond of you, too.”
“Aye, ye be.” Quinn was matter of fact.
“Ah, okay. So, Rick has a tail and big floppy ears.” He was disbelieving of his own words.
“So long as he behave like an arse, he wear ’em.”
“Aaaaand no one’s going to notice?”
Quinn shook his head as he took a bite of fruit salad. “Won’t see ‘em but can feel ‘em. Teach Rick to stay away from others after a bit.”
“Right.” Merry watched Quinn for a few moments as he ate.
Quinn looked up from his food with a wink, all evidence of anger gone. “Ye need eat.” He peeled the banana and handed it to Merry.
Merry took a bite and looked around. It was as if absolutely nothing had happened. “How do you do that?”
“What ye mean to ask?”
“You can disappear, walk through doors, stop time, push someone without touching them, make a person grow a tail and ears, and put our food back together. And turn into a-a....” Monster seemed kind of harsh considering Quinn had just saved him again. “A, ah, well, into another being. How do you do that?”
“Be Fairy magick.”
“Magick. Okay.” His mind still ruminated on the monster thing. “Can you do anything you want to?”
Quinn shook his head. “Nay. They be limits. Eat ye salad.”
Merry opened the bag of chips and ate a few. “What kind of limits?”
“I cannot rid the realm of the perils of fairy.”
“Fairy perils?”
“Aye. Be things to make we fade.”
“Fade?”
“Lose material form.”
“You’re mortal?”
“Nay.”
“You just said you can lose material form. That sounds like dead to me.”
“Nay, we essence continue to exist in the dark realm. Be like a free fall in blackness to ye humans.”
That didn’t sound good. “What are the perils?”
“I cannot tell ye. Be forbidden.”
“Why?”
“Humans can use ’em again‘ us.”
“You have a lot of rules.”
Quinn sighed. “Aye, we do.”
Merry ate a few more chips. “Where do you live?”
“Fairy.”
“Not what are you, where do you live?”
“Fairy,” Quinn repeated.
“Fairy is a place?”
“Aye. Ye humans have a likin’ for the labels, don’t ye know? They be many an ilk of we fae, but ye humans put us in one kettle and call us by the name of we home.”
Merry knew all too well how people liked their labels. “What ilk are you?”
“Leannán Sidhe.”
“What’s a lah-nan shee?”
“We be of the High Court of Fairy.”
That explained it all. Not. “Where is Fairy?”
“Be the sidhe.”
“Shee?”
“Aye, the mound.”
“Where’s the mound?”
“Be about.”
Merry rolled his eyes. Here we go again. “How do you get to it?”
“What ye mean to ask?”
“How do you get there? You know, the directions. Like, I don’t know, take the 405 south, then the 10 west until you hit Pacific Coast Highway, then north to the California incline, then what?”
“Just like that?”
“Aye. Why ye ask?”
“Can I visit you?”
Quinn’s face darkened. “Nay. Be perilous for ye. Once a human set foot in the land o’ Fairy, he cannot set foot on human lands again. Ye be forever lost to we fae.”
Merry’s heart sank. “So, I can’t go to your house?”
Quinn shook his head.
“Can I have your number?”
“Me number of what?”
“Your cellular phone number. You have a cell, right?”
Quinn laughed. It was a full-bellied laugh and, despite Merry’s embarrassment, it warmed him and kept him from feeling awkward. “What’s so funny?”
“Ye simply wish for me and I be here, Merry. Be that simple.”
“I don’t have to call or text you?”
Quinn chuckled again. “Nay.”
That was kind of cool. “So, um, what do you guys do for fun?”
“Feast on humans.”
Merry blanched and Quinn burst into laughter again.
Merry realized Quinn was teasing him again. “Ha, ha. Very funny.”
“Ogres think it be.”
Merry’s eyes widened to the size of golf balls. “Ogres are real?”
“Be certain of it. They eat ye alive and use ye leg bones as they toothpicks.”
Merry felt ill. “What do you guys really do for fun?”
“Feasts, parades, balls, rings, duels, spells, curses, hand-fasts, and the like.”
“Hand fasts?”
“Ye call it marriage.”
“Can you marry whomever you want?”
“Must stay within we Court and caste.”
“So, if you’re born on the wrong side of the... the mound, it’s all over?”
“Ye wouldn’t want to see me hand-fasted to a troll, now, would ye?”
Merry nearly choked on a chip. He didn’t want to see Quinn married at all, let alone to a troll. “Ah, yeah, no, that wouldn’t be cool.”
“Aye, they breath smell of rotten blood.” Quinn shivered.
Eeeeeeewwwwww. “Is it okay to, um, to, um.... Can you be gay?”
Quinn finished the last of his food and sat back in his chair. “Setting apart we do not genderize, gender not be a class.”
“Genderize?”
“Gender, as ye humans see it, not be a class for us. It be matters of essence that concern us. What ye do with ye essence must be in the balance of nature. Thus, ye can love who ye wish if they be within ye Court and caste.”
“That’s cool.”
“Aye, but we have a rule.”
“No kidding,” Merry said without inflection.
“I not be. Ye must have ye one bantling.”
Now Merry did choke on his food. He coughed, cleared his throat, and took a sip of juice. “So, wait. You can marry another guy, but you still have to... to do the wild monkey dance with a girl?”
Quinn frowned. “The what?”
“You know,” he leaned in and whispered, “sex.”
Quinn chuckled and nodded. “Aye.”
Merry winced, unsure which was worse, his jealousy or revulsion at the thought of sex with a girl. He’d had sex ed, and he understood the mechanics, but he soooooo didn’t like the idea of it. Hella-gross!
Quinn laughed softly. “Ye be a jealous one, ye be.”
Merry’s cheeks flushed pink and he turned away.
Quinn turned his face back with gentle fingertips to Merry’s chin. “Don’t be takin’ a reddener.”
Quinn would know he was lying if he said he wasn’t jealous. They’d already covered that ground. “It’s not only that. It’s just... the whole idea.... It’s gross.”
“Ye not worry of it. Be a century or so afore it be required of me.”
Merry gaped. “How old are you?”
“Draw nigh seventeen. Same as ye.”
“Draw nigh?”
“Ye would say draw near.”
“Yeah, right. Almost seventeen what?”
Quinn’s emerald eyes twinkled with ancient knowledge as the bell rang overhead signaling the end of lunch. “Time we go.”
“Wait. Is there, um, is there a way for a human to become a fairy?” When Merry saw the look of shock on Quinn’s face, he wanted to crawl into a hole.
“Why would ye want to be fae?”
“S-so we could, I mean, y-you could like me.”
A sad smile replaced the surprise on Quinn’s face. “I tell ye I be fond of ye, Merry. I speak true.”
“No, I mean so you could be m-my boyfriend?”
Sadness flickered in Quinn’s eyes and was gone before it came to fruition. “Be that important to ye?”
Merry looked away again. “Yeah.”
A long moment passed before Quinn spoke. “Ye needn’t be fae to be mo chuisle mo chroí.”
Merry turned back to him. “Muh koo-shleh muh cree?”
“Me pulse of me heart. Ye be me pulse of me heart, Merry.”
Without warning, Quinn’s adoration imbued every fiber of Merry’s being, a tidal wave of affection against a careworn shore. Merry had never been in love before but, somehow, he knew that’s what it was.
©Cody Kennedy. All Rights Reserved.
v.10.7.20
v.10.7.20
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