Page 58 of Oh, Sacred Dark
“Sure. Go sit, I’ll bring it to you.”
Roman went to the couch, perching on it gingerly. His skin felt itchy, too small for his body. He scratched at it under his sleeves where nail marks already littered his arms.
“There you go,” Cross said, making Roman jump.
“Oh. Thanks.” He’d forgotten about the water but gulped it down, the relief immediate. “Thanks.”
“You want more?”
“No, I’m good.”
Cross watched him carefully, nodding eventually as he sat next to him. “Not that I’m not happy to have you visit for no reason, but did you want to talk about something in particular?”
“Oh. Uhm. Yeah. I don’t know if you want to talk about this, though. It’s none of my business.”
Cross tilted his head slightly, lifting his eyebrows encouragingly.
“Well. I…you said that, in the beginning, you wanted to practice Chaos Magic. I was just wondering…why? What were you getting out of it?” Roman blurted.
Cross’s expression twitched before smoothing out, every detail taken out of a mask.
“Sorry,” Roman apologised quickly. “I don’t know why I’m asking. I just—”
“It’s okay,” Cross interrupted. He was silent for a long time, eyes distant.
“Cross—”
“I didn’t have the best childhood. I was raised by my mother, and she was a…hard woman. I guess you can relate.” Cross smiled, although the tilt of his lips was anything but happy. “I don’t know if it’s because I’m a Dom or because it’s just what I’m like, but that helplessness I felt then…it made me angry. Desperate.”
Roman didn’t speak as Cross took a moment to gather himself.
“When Keegan—your father, I mean—when I found out what he was doing…it made sense to me. We’re all given a certain amount of power when we’re born, right? A certain ability. And we can hone it, perfect it, but that’s it. Those are the cards we get. But with Imbalance Magic…you can have more. You cantakewhat you want. Make yourself stronger. Do things no other person can do.”
Roman reached out to press the tips of his fingers to the back of Cross’s hand.
Cross twitched slightly but didn’t pull away as he continued. “It felt good to me, Roman. It feltgood, the first time we sacrificed something—a goat—and I could feel that small bit of life used up by magic. I didn’t know then that I’d get addicted. That it’d lead me to do things I never…”
Roman stared at him. “It felt good? Doing it? Not, like…I don’t know. It didn’t make your skin hurt or give you nightmares?”
Cross frowned. “No. It was a rush. It was only when Keegan kidnapped that woman that I…but even then, the sensations were good. I just couldn’t stand them anymore. Why? Who told you it made your skin hurt?”
“Oh. No, I just…I guess I wondered if my father…it was nothing. Nobody told me that,” Roman assured him.
“I see. I…yeah. I don’t know what more to tell you. It was just…”
“Thank you. I guess I just needed to know why they did it. I’m sorry to make you talk about it—it makes sense that the magic is addictive. Sometimes, I could see it in my father’s eyes, like a madness…like it was taking over him.”
Cross nodded slowly. “Yeah. Greed consumes.”
They sat there, their shared experiences orbiting each other, similar but not the same.
And not, as Roman had half hoped, what he was going through at the time.
“You okay?” Cross asked.
Roman nodded reflexively. “Yeah. Yeah. I’m okay.”
And he was. Or he would be. When he figured out what the hell was happening to him.
