"Mmmph," I groaned, rolling over onto something warm. My body was exhausted, my muscles sore.
"Mike!" I heard Colby yell. I slowly opened my eyes to see that I'd rolled over onto Colby's legs, which were straightened out in front of him. He was sitting up, leaning against the headboard of the bed we were both in with a book in his hands.
I heard footsteps thundering down the hallway and Mike burst in, Brennen behind him.
"She up?" asked Mike, out of breath from running to the room.
"No," I mumbled into the side of Colby's leg.
"Oh, thank fuck," Brennen sighed. "I really thought you fucked that up, Mike."
"It's not like I could have practiced doing it earlier!" Mike argued.
"Well, we know she's alive now. I'm going to finally go home," Brennen said, leaving the room.
"Me too. I'm dead. Call if there's any issues," Mike said, following Brennen out. He shut Colby's door behind him. Colby grasped my shoulders and slowly sat me up. He leaned my back on the headboard like his had been and placed my arms in my lap. I could hardly move my own body.
"Hey, you okay?" he asked, tucking a strand of my bright red hair behind my ear. They must have taken my wig off.
"Yeah," I grunted, trying to shift my body. "Jesus, today kind of sucks."
"You wouldn't know," Colby said. "It's not 'today'. It's next week. It's Friday afternoon."
"Huh?" I asked softly. My head was kind of foggy from everything.
"You decided to take a nice long nap on Sunday night. It's Friday now. You passed out. You've been asleep for five days," Colby said.
"Oh, god," I grumbled. I blinked a few times, trying to clear my vision.
"They were all pretty sure you died," Colby said.
"They?" I asked.
"Yeah, everyone else. I knew you didn't," he replied.
"You geniuses could have just found my pulse or heard me breathing," I pointed out.
"Ah, yes. There's that lovable attitude. And okay, I guess I didn't necessarily mean die. More like put into an irreversible eternal coma, during which you would still breathe. And you don't have a pulse," Colby said.
"You couldn't manage to find my heartbeat. For five days," I said. How fucking stupid...
"No, you literally don't have a pulse. You don't need one anymore. No need to overwork your heart. You still have one, of course. A heart. Just doesn't need to beat," said Colby.
"What, like a fucking vampire?" I asked.
"No, like a demon. Vampires aren't real," he said.
"Like I would fucking know that at this point," I replied. "So did it work? The ritual?"
"Let's see," he said. "Can you stand up yet or no?" I wiggled my legs side to side, which brought some feeling into them. I noticed I was wearing a big t shirt and Dev's spandex.
"Oh, yeah. Figured you could use a shirt," Colby said when he saw me staring down at it.
"Thanks. And yeah, I think I can stand," I said. I slowly swung my legs over the side of the bed and put my weight onto them. I was a little wobbly, but managed to stand without tipping over.
"Come here," Colby said, holding his arms out. He was a few feet away. I slowly staggered over to him and he gave me a big hug. "I knew you didn't die, but you really scared me. You know that? Freaked me the fuck out. I didn't know when you were going to wake up or if you would still be you since we had no idea if Mike had done anything right," he said. His voice was quiet and soft since he was talking right next to my ear. "I'm so glad you're okay."
I felt that thing in my chest again, stronger than a scratch or tickle.
"Oh, Colby, my cheâ,"
"I know, I'm doing it on purpose," he said. "Need to see if this works. If you can't breathe again, just poke me and I'll stop."
"Uh, okay," I said. He kept hugging me for another moment, the pain in my chest never going away but never worsening. He pulled back after a minute and kissed my forehead, which sent a shock of pain through me. I stumbled to the side a little bit and put a hand over my heart, but I could still breathe.
"Yeah, I'm pretty sure it worked," he said. He walked over to his desk and sat down in the chair in front of it.
"You going to tell me what that means now?" I asked.
"I really don't want to because it's slightly embarrassing for me. However, it is much more embarrassing for you, so I will," he said.
"Oh no," I said quietly. I walked back over to his bed and sat down.
"There's not really, like, a term for it. It's just a thing that happens at first. You know how souls are real? And how they have to do with romantic-type love?" asked Colby. I nodded. "Well, uhm, souls live in the heart. And when two demons start to, um, start to...love each other, their souls, like, bond with the other person's," he said uncomfortably, looking at anything but me. "And, uh, it hurts. When they bond together. It hurts the worst when the last part bonds. Which is why it was so weird that... that, uh, that it hurt so much the first time."
"The firâyou mean we love each other?" I asked.
"No! Or, well, I... we're starting to, I guess."
"And why is this embarrassing?" I asked. His face turned pink.
"Well, if you'd like to consider what caused us to start...falling, then it's pretty fucking embarrassing," he replied.
"Oh, what, because all you did was look at me?" I asked.
"That's not... It was more than that, okay? I'd just legitimately processed who you were and what was happening and then you came out looking like that and...," he trailed off. "But yours is way more embarrassing."
I thought about what he meant for a second.
"Oh, fuck," I said when I realized it. "That would be why Sam called me a masochist."
"You thought it was so damn hot that I was screaming at you while I had you pushed up against a wall that you literally fell in love with me a little bit," he said. "We didn't want to tell you in case you thought it was cute or whatever that I'd felt it from just seeing you. Because that might've made you fall a little more like you did when I was trying to help you breathe. There was a risk that we couldn't even speak to each other or be in the same room without feeling it. And like Sam said, it's ridiculously strong for us. For others it's like, I don't know, heartburn? I'm not sure since I've never felt it. But when the last part happens for other people, it'll maybe be strong enough to knock them over, if even. Clearly something is amplified with us and it could be strong enough to stop a human heart."
"A...a human heart? I'm not human anymore?" I asked.
"No," he said.
"Iâoh," I said. That was awfully blunt of him.
"Sorry. A little straight to the point but there's no reason to dance around it. You're a demon now. Just like us. In a human form."
"Hold on, I have another form?"
"Uhh, I'm not really sure, actually. Never switched a human into a demon before. Not sure that anyone has, actually, so this is a new thing," he said. "Does your neck hurt?"
I reached my hand up to where the wax things had hurt me. I felt a scab in the shape of a pentagram.
"No. Did it break my skin?" I asked.
"Oh, yeah. Bled everywhere. We had you sleeping on a towel on the couch for the first two days," he said.
"And I'm up here now because...?"
His face turned pink again and he shrugged. "I don't know. I just wanted to be there when you woke up and we didn't know when that would be. I couldn't fit on the couch with you and I got tired of sleeping on the floor downstairs so we brought you to my room so I could sleep with you in my bed. Shit, wait, no, I didn't mean to say it like that, I just meant next to you. So I could be there," he said, scratching the back of his head. I felt my chest flare up again.
"You slept on the floor next to the couch for two nights just so you could be right next to me?" I asked.
"Three nights," he said. I gave him a small smile.
"Well that's cute, Satan," I chuckled.
"Shut up," he mumbled.