Belief In The Occult

Fourteen

Alto laid on his back, sprawled across his bed, scowling at the ceiling. Kodiak had gone into his room after the... could it be called an argument? The word didn't feel right, but he couldn't think of anything else, and hadn't come out for lunch or dinner (granted he only seemed to eat ice, but still).

His scowl deepened slightly. Why was Kodiak so confusing? At first he had been spooky, then he seemed really nervous, then absurdly laid back (and a little cute? He was still trying to sort that one out), then he was back to being scary again.

He felt bad for upsetting Kodiak. Alto liked making friends, but trying to get to know Kodiak was like opening a book to find that half the pages were blank and the other half were glued together. He sighed, thinking.

How could someone have no hobbies? Nothing they liked to do? Kodiak didn't even like eating, he just crunched ice so he didn't feel left out.

Alto's eyes wandered over to the broadway and movie posters lining his walls. He pursed his lips and got up, flapping his wings slightly as he crossed the room to his dresser and rifled through a couple of the drawers. He wanted to make it up to Kodiak, but what would he do if Kodiak didn't like anything?

He continued to dig through his dresser drawers. Where was it? Everybody liked some kind of music, didn't they? Alto had an assortment of old music players with various playlists on them... there it was! He pulled out the dark blue one, which he knew had the most songs and genres. Alto also retrieved the charger and a set of earbuds before leaving his room and trotting up the stairs.

There wasn't any light coming from underneath the door, but Alto knocked anyway.

"Come in." Kodiak's voice sounded from the other side. He opened the door and peeked in nervously. Kodiak was sitting on his bed with his legs stretched out straight in front of him, back propped up against the wall and his hands in the pocket of his pullover. His hair was in disarray and the area around his eyes looked raw. Alto swallowed his guilt.

"Uh, hi." he said nervously.

"Hi."

Alto felt his ears burn. There was that weird little note of cute again. "I'm sorry I upset you earlier. It was rude of me to push you like that."

"S'fine... most people do it..." Kodiak said, resting his head against the wall behind him and shutting his eyes as Alto stepped further into the room, more confident now that Kodiak didn't seem to be mad.

"Yikes, that's bad." Alto murmured, before speaking up again, "Still, it wasn't nice, and I feel bad about it." Alto said, "So um, you don't have to keep it if you don't want to but I wanted to give you an mp3, as an apology." His wings fluttered behind him nervously.

"What's an mp3?" Kodiak rasped, opening one eye.

Smiling, Alto flapped his wings in a more decisive manner and slid over, perching on the edge of the bed, holding his hands out to Kodiak, who leaned forwards to pay attention. "This is the power button, the volume, and you direct around the screen with these arrows. This port is for the charger, and this one for the headphones. It's already got a bunch of different kinds of music on it so you can delete anything you don't like and add new stuff."

Kodiak blinked impassively. "Thanks." His fingers were freezing where they touched Alto's hands.

Figuring that he was doing pretty well and shouldn't push his luck, Alto got up before he could accidentally say something stupid. "I'll see ya later Kodiak."

"See you."

The door shut behind the other demon, and Kodiak turned the smooth blue device over in his hand for a second, then flipped it back over and plugged the headphones in, turning it on. All the playlists had different names and covers. He picked the first one that caught his eye and hit play.

As the opening chords began, Kodiak let his head thump back against the wall, shut his eyes, and reflected.

Oh, there's a river that winds on forever

I'm gonna see where it leads

Oh, there's a mountain that no man has mounted

I'm gonna stand on the peak