Burn

CHAPTER 17

TRIGGER WARNING: Mentions blood, explicitly implies suicide
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I first he thought it was just the heat of the kiss.

That rush of heady flame, burning in his veins, searing through his blood, scalding him from the inside out.

Except this was like nothing he'd ever felt before; this was fire and lightning and every bright, fierce thing imaginable, compressed into the singular space between their lips.

It was thrilling, it was exhilarating, it was like flying, like rising higher and higher until you could barely breathe-

And then it was like falling.

It was like descending into a ruinous pit of pain and despair, like every gasping breath was flame and torture, a kind of inner hell he could not escape.

It was too much, too much, too much-

A gasp tore itself from his ruined throat-when had his voice become so soft, so raspy and small?-and he stumbled away with a broken cry, tears leaking from the corners of his eyes.

When he looked across at Ryu, he was wide-eyed and-and bleeding-

"Oh god," Carter cried, surging forward, fingers curving over those leather-clad shoulders. The demon felt so strangely physical beneath his hands, and hot, so searingly, unnaturally hot. "Oh god, oh god, oh god...Are you okay?"

Black smeared across Ryu's face and lips where Carter had been kissing him and now dribbled in inky rivulets down his chin, dripping like tiny puddles of oil onto moss-wrought pavement.

"What did I do?"

The whisper tumbled from between numb lips and hung limply between them, and another followed it, and then another, until it was like some kind of sick mantra, marching relentlessly through the stale air.

"WhatdidIdoWhatdidIdoWhatdidIdo-"

"Carter."

When he snapped his gaze back to Ryu's, the demon was regarding Carter's hands, still resting on his shoulders, with an uncertain frown.

"Remove your hands."

Carter did so immediately, yanking his hands away as though he'd been burned-because he had.

The flesh of his palms were raw and red, and now that he wasn't hyperventilating quite so much, he could feel the pain, pulsing in sharp, hot bursts through his hands.

Ryu leaned closer to inspect them, brows furrowed over hell-bright eyes.

"Are those...from me?"

At Carter's shrug, he clucked his tongue in distaste and cautiously prodded one hand, then let out a sharp hiss and flinched back; when he lifted his own hand, blood was running down his fingers and pooling into the crevices of his palm.

Carter's outraged gasp would've been humorous to him in sheer dramatics if he wasn't so horrified.

"Are those from me?" Carter demanded, repeating Ryu's question.

Then he raised his singed palms to his eyes as revelation dawned on him, ice coiling in his gut and cooling whatever fire had blazed there during their kiss.

"Of course it is," he whispered, the words numb on his lips. "Of course it fucking is. I did this."

"Carter?" Ryu prodded uncertainty.

"The spell," Carter hissed. Darkness bore down on him as he pressed his palms further into his eyes. They'd begun to shake. He could feel the tremors in his very bones. "The protection spell. From the book. It's made me some kind of..."

"Human crucifix?" Ryu interjected, but despite his light tone, his tone wobbled precariously.

Carter recalled, with a sickening jolt, the image from the book, of a demon encased in a bubble. "I think it's made my touch harmful to you."

"You were hurt too," Ryu pointed out.

"It's already fading. See?" Carter lifted his palms away from his face to hold up his paling skin. He'd felt it, the cooling of his skin, a sweet rush as his skin healed over. "I think it's a causality of the spell. I doubt I'll be seriously hurt. But you..."

Blood was still streaking down Ryu's skin, and Carter could barely stand the sight of it.

"I'll heal," Ryu protested when Carter tried to lean closer for a better look. "Don't worry about it. Really. Barely a scratch."

Carter bit his lips as it began to wobble; tears were gathering in his eyes, he could feel it, and any minute now they'd run in salty tracks down his face.

"Ryu," he began, "I am so-"

The sudden ringing of Carter's phone startled them both into flinching. Carter bit back a frustrated groan as he fished his phone from his pocket, thumb already seeking the decline button-

His blood froze at the name on the screen.

"Mum?" He whispered, pressing the phone so firmly into is cheek it was sure to leave imprints.

He didn't care. Gloria never called him. She could barely bring herself to use her phone; Carter had asked about it a few weeks after his Dad had gone, and she'd merely shaken her head and murmured, "your father was always better at that technology stuff."

"Carter?" She called now, like she was standing outside his room calling him to dinner. There was something so unnerving about hearing his mother's voice through the phone, like a green sky or a purple sun. "Carter, are you there?"

"I'm here, Mum," Carter replied, trying to keep his voice steady and firm. She needed him to be solid. Immovable. "I can hear you."

"Oh, good. I wasn't quite sure how to use this thing." Gloria laughed, the sound breathy and tear-stained and hysterical.

"Is everything okay, Mum?" Carter prompted. "Is there something I can get for you?" Maybe she was calling to request soap or food from the shops; Carter's heart soared at the prospect.

"Carter..."

Oh no. It was her bad news voice. The voice she used when she couldn't take him to the movies like she'd promised, when she'd decided a savannah cat was just too expensive a pet, when she'd admitted to skiving off work again.

"Carter, I just wanted...to say goodbye."

He'd been wrong, this wasn't like a purple sun at all. This was the sun exploding, wiping out entire solar systems with it.

This was oblivion.

"Mum," Carter said, and it was as though he wasn't in his own body anymore, as though he'd floated right out of it and was watching the entire scene play out from above. "Mum, just-just hold on for a minute-"

"Carter...I'm sorry." She sounded so tired. Why did she always sound so tired? "I love you, okay? I love you."

And then the phone went dead.

Carter stared at it as though it had personally wronged him. The sleek black screen reflected him back.

When had a zombie stolen his face?

Goodbye, she'd said.

Goodbye.

Goodbye.

Goodbye.

"Carter?" Ryu prompted.

"I'm leaving," Carter announced. His feet were already moving to the shed entrance at such a pace his brain could barely keep up. "Are you coming?"

And though he knew Ryu had no choice, that of course he was coming, he was bound to Carter, it still meant everything that he said,

"Of course."

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