Sanctuary - 4. Chapter 4 - Aki

“Hel?” Aki knocked his knuckles against the door softly, “dinner time bud.” When there was no answer, the young man sighed and rapped harder. “Hel!”

“Go away!”

Aki bit back an angry snarl and exhaled slowly. Since the kid’s spirit had appeared in his room, wolf shaped, in the middle of the night, Hel had stayed in his room and refused to come out. At first Aki had given him his space, figuring he would come out and talk in his own time, but now it was the evening, Hel hadn’t eaten anything all day, and Aki was more than slightly perturbed at being shut out of his own house.

“You cannot stay shut up in there forever: you have to eat something.” Twenty four hours ago the kid had been so weak he’d passed out, and all he’d had since then was most of a frozen pizza – and that hadn’t touched the sides. “C’mon Hel: I ordered American Barbeque…” Aki really hoped his persuasion and bribery were tempting enough, but the door didn’t open. “Hel!”

“Go away!”

Aki had enough. The door didn’t lock, and up until this point he’d been being polite by not simply walking in. Now he turned the handle, and though the door budged, it didn’t simply swing aside. Aki put his shoulder against the door and heaved at it: the cheap wood of the door crackled under heat and pressure, and then the tension gave way. Hel had barricaded himself in the room with the largely empty chest of drawers. The boy was cowering against the opposite wall on the other side of the bed, blue eyes wide as saucers.

“What the fuck?” Aki knew swearing in front of young teenagers was not very responsible, but he wasn’t feeling particularly calm right then.

“NO!” Hel made a mad dash to leap across the bed, but Aki caught him by the arm and pulled him back. He knew now that he needed to control his anger, or the kid might be adding third degree burns to his fading bruises. “Let me go!”

“Hey, hey… it’s OK. Calm down.” The boy struggled in his grip, but he was skinny like a rabbit, and there was not enough anger to give him the strength to free himself. Aki spun him around, searching the panicked blue eyes for some clue as to why the kid was so incredibly scared, and as he looked the light faded and Hel’s body crumpled in his arms. “What the-?”

The blue shape of the wolf stood in front of him, fur bristling in fear, ears laid flat back against his skull. He whined softly, and Aki suddenly realised that whilst the wolf might have been able to pass through walls whenever he wanted, he was not able to control when he left his body.

“Hey now, it’s alright,” Aki scooped Hel’s body up in his arms and cradled the unconscious young man against his chest, “I ain’t going to hurt you.”

The wolf followed him, sticking close to the dangling feet of his corporeal body as Aki carried him downstairs and laid him out on the sofa. The boy looked almost dead, his chest rising and falling softly as he slept. The spirit wolf jumped up onto the couch and curled up in his own chest, their lines overlapping in a soft blur that made Aki’s head hurt if he tried to focus too hard on it.

“So, I gather this is one of the reasons you ran away from wherever you were before?” Aki asked.

Hel-the-wolf didn’t acknowledge him, and Aki sighed.

“You’re a spirit animal; you know that? I’ve never meet one before, though my father used to tell stories in his more lucid moments. You’re an unusual thing: even more than me.”

Hel raised his head, one ear cocked forwards, and Aki detected a soft noise of curiosity.

“My grandfather was a demon; a fire demon, though you probably guessed that already by the huge soot mark I left on the bedroom door. I don’t have nearly so many cool powers as you might think though.”

Hel slipped off his unconscious body and padded across the floor to him. Aki held out a hand to the canine and watched as the glowing spirit animal examined him, but didn’t come closer. Hel blinked softly, and his glowing blue eyes reflected orange embers Aki couldn’t see in the real world.

“Do I look different underneath?” he asked softly, “I’m pretty certain I don’t look like you, you’re like a pure spirit.” Hel glanced up at him with a soft woof. “Well look at you: you’re all clean and glowing. I’m part demon: if there wasn’t black somewhere in my aura I’d be incredibly surprised.” The wolf seemed to consider this, and then his tail twitched softly from side to side, as though he was happy. Aki glanced across at the recumbent figure of the boy and suddenly understood how he had received such an awful beating. “You separated… didn’t you? They found you, someone hit you and then you separated?” The wolf began to whine, his belly pressing to the floor. “You couldn’t get up, or defend yourself. Did you…” Aki wished he wasn’t driven to ask, “did you watch?”

The howl was by far the saddest noise Aki had ever heard. No cry of pain or scream or shout could have been as bad as the animal sound which rose from his throat, a wail of loss and sadness. There were no words it could have translated into, and Aki wondered how anyone as young as Hel was still mentally capable of carrying on at all. The beating wouldn’t have physically hurt him at the time, but the weight of being helpless was more than enough to make up for the impact of fists. Aki waited for the wolf’s howl to end, then slipped onto the floor with him, and wrapped his arms around the incandescent figure.

Hel was solid in his arms, at least partially so, and Aki felt a chill shiver like mountain wind on his skin where they overlapped. The wolf made a distressed sort of noise, and when he pulled away, Aki let him go. Hel blinked at him, confusion written in his glowing features.

“You don’t have to worry now, Hel. I got you.”

The wolf regarded him with suspicion, but Aki just shrugged and settled his spine against the front of the sofa. To his surprise, Hel settled down next to him, lying with his head on his paws, his eyes distant and unfocused. After a moment, the part-demon reached out and ran his unnaturally warm fingers through the thick weft of pattern that made up the fur on Hel’s head between his ears. The wolf flicked one ear towards him, but he didn’t move, and for the next ten minutes, Aki sat and petted the wolf who was a boy until the shape of the spirit began to fade in the evening air. The moment the wolf was gone, Hel took a deep breath, and his eyes flashed open to look at Aki.

“You’re a demon?”

“Only a little bit,” Aki shrugged self depreciatingly, “full on demons are damn scary. Even my father wasn’t what you would call… stable.” He smiled at the kid, but Aki knew Hel wasn’t going to like his line of questioning. “How long has it been?”

Hel gulped audibly.

“Three months? I think,” Hel shifted uncomfortably and sat up, “can we not talk about it?”

“I’m guessing you’ve not told anyone,” Aki knew his guess was spot on, “it might help.”

Hel’s emaciated stomach rumbled loudly.

“You said there was dinner?”

“I did indeed.”

Aki lived on takeout, and whilst he assembled the things he’d bought onto plates, Hel stood chewing messily on a rib bone and leafed through the drawer full of brightly coloured menus. There was everything in there from Vietnamese salad bars all the way through to the American style diner Aki had ordered their evening’s dinner from. Hel didn’t seem to be particularly fussy, though Aki was sure he would become more so once his body stopped trying to consume itself in between every meal. As he watched Hel gnaw the cartilage from the end of the rib bone, crunch it and swallow, Aki wondered if he ought to learn to cook before the kid ate him out of house and home.

“How come you can see me?” Hel frowned at the bare bone, “no one else could see me. Not when I was the wo-,” he backed off from the word, and Aki wondered if the kid had even admitted the truth to himself yet, “Not when I wasn’t in my body.”

“I suppose it’s a supernatural thing: just like you managed to find this place. Humans don’t know about the Rectories; how could they?”

“But I’m a human!” Hel’s tone was instantly sulky, and Aki blinked at the change in his mood. He hadn’t met a teenager in a long time, not since he was one really, and Aki wondered if he could just get away with feeding the kid until he was happy.

“Hel…” Aki decided it wasn’t worth the argument with a boy who was already so obviously messed up, “let’s just eat, eh?”

“OK,” Hell seemed to be happy with that agreement, and set about demolishing the food more swiftly than Aki had though naturally possible. “What’s through there?”

“That’s my studio,” Aki gazed longingly at the little door into the garage, “I’m a potter.”

“A what now?”

“I make things out of clay.”

“You’re an art nerd?” Hel’s nose wrinkled dismissively, “oh.”

“Well we can’t all run away from home and turn into ethereal wolves, can we?” Aki snapped, “Some of us have to have jobs.” There was a clatter as the boy pushed his chair back quick enough to topple it over, and ran from the room. “Ah shit. Hel… I’m sorry.”

By the time Aki got upstairs, Hel was back in his room, and Aki didn’t need to be a supernatural to tell that the boy was leaning against it with his meagre weight, and crying. Aki dug his nails into his palms and growled internally. Hel had been out of his room for less than an hour, and already Aki had screwed up worse than he’d managed during his last serious relationship.

“I’m sorry Hel; I didn’t mean it.” A sniffle showed him what he’d said had touched a nerve, and Aki dragged his knuckles down the slightly singed paint of the door instead of knocking. “There’s still dinner downstairs.”

“I’m not hungry.” Hel’s stomach snarled.

“We both know that’s not true,” Aki pushed against the door, and it gave, but just for a moment, “I’m sorry.”

“Me too,” the door opened half a crack, and Aki found himself being examined by Hel’s bright blue eyes, “I shouldn’t have called you a nerd.”

“I suppose it’s OK: I sort of am.” Aki smiled softly, “you wanna come back downstairs?”

“No. I’m sorry Aki,” Hel collapsed against the wall as Aki pushed the door open slightly more. “I called a lot of people things they didn’t deserve.”

“Hey, now…” Aki frowned, “You’re not a bad person.”

“It’s true.” Hel sniffed, “That first time it happened, when I became the… the- when I left my body… I was about to hit someone.”

“Hel…”

“He was just this skinny little kid, all big glasses and pouty lips. He was asking for it: such an easy target. Then he starts wandering across the field when we were trying to have a game and screwed up the wicket. I yelled at him, but he didn’t back down.”

Aki shuffled uncomfortably in the hallway, unsure he wanted to know the rest of Hel’s story.

“I slapped that damn art book out of his hands, and he didn’t say anything. Just went to get it, looking all superior: like ‘cause we played sports we were dumber than him.” Hel’s voice cracked as he spoke. “I grabbed his shirt, he barely weighed anything, but he didn’t make a sound. I was so angry: why didn’t he get upset? It was like he expected to take a beating…” he swallowed, “I made a fist, and the moment it connected, I fainted.” Hel sighed, “I’m not a good person Aki; that’s why this is happening to me.”

Aki wanted to say that genetics was what had happened to him, but Hel’s rumbling stomach interrupted his train of thought.

“Ain’t no reason for you to starve to death. C’mon bud.” To his relief, Hel’s door opened fully, and the kid ducked under his arm, and trudged downstairs towards the smell of food. “Go ahead, I’m just gonna lock the front door.”

Aki grabbed the key off the shelf and put his hand on the door knob. He paused, and the metal glowed faintly under his touch. Afterwards Aki couldn’t have said what made him do it, but he wrenched the door open. There was a slim fist raised as if to knock, and then a smooth honey voice chuckled softly.

“Well I suppose that answers that question. Hi.”

Aki stared at the drop dead gorgeous man standing on his doorstep.

“So, can I come in, handsome?”