Page 35 of Housesitter

“What the fuck,” Kel demanded. He glared at Shepherd. “Do you think that was funny?”

Shepherd pulled his knees up, sheet tented over them, and rested his elbows on them. He scratched his eyebrow and nodded at the mirror. Shithead’s foot stuck out of it, in a frilly sock and a scuffed black Mary-Jane shoe.

“I mean,” he said. “A bit.”

Kel gave a full-body shudder and grabbed his jeans from the dresser. He leaned awkwardly against the wall for support as he dragged them on.

“Why the fuck would you put that thing on my balls?” he asked.

“I didn’t,” Shepherd objected.

Kel hitched his jeans up over his hips and gave Shepherd a ‘really’ look as he buttoned them.

“Oh, so, what?” he asked. He freed one hand from what he was doing so he could use two fingers to mime walking. “She just crawled on in there under her own power.”

He paused expectantly.

Shepherd shrugged. “I told you that you’d not regret not having this conversation last night,” he said.

Kel rolled his eyes and headed for the door. He was still barefoot as he stepped over Shithead, so Shepherd figured he wasn’t actually leaving-leaving. That meant Shepherd could take the time to put his shorts on.

He had just done that when he heard Kel’s voice from downstairs.

“Shep?”

…Huh, Shepherd didn’t love that. He supposed it was the risk you ran fucking someone twice.

“Hold on,” he yelled back as he crouched down to grab the frame of the toppled mirror. “I’m coming.”

He manhandled the mirror back onto its base and nudged Shithead out of the danger zone with his foot. There was a new crack in her face, a jagged line that ran from temple to the corner of her mouth. Shepherd gave his reflection an annoyed look through the fly-spotted glass.

“Leave the doll be,” he said.

His reflection sneered at him in slow motion and dragged its thumb over its throat from ear to ear.

Shepherd raised an eyebrow at it.

“Oh, that’s nice,” he said. “After everything I’ve done for you? Yeah, well, just remember. I’m the one who knows how to feed you, and if anything happens to me, how long do you think it’ll take someone to come get Shithead?”

The reflection looked mildly alarmed at that reminder. It sheepishly fell back into mute mimicry of him, and Shepherd snorted as he bent down to pick up Shithead.

“That’s right,” he said as he tucked her under his arm. In the reflection, the doll swivelled its head 180 degrees and latched onto mirror-Shepherd’s wrist with its tiny, piranha-bone teeth. Mirror-Shepherd placidly didn’t react as pale, thick blood splattered over the floorboards beneath its feet. “Shithead would be your problem.”

He left it to think about that as he headed downstairs to see what Kel wanted.

It didn’t take long to find him. Six-foot-three redhead frozen in the doorway of the kitchen was hard to miss.

“What’s—” Shepherd started to ask as he came up beside Kel. The next word was going to be ‘wrong’, but as Shepherd looked past Kel’s shoulder, he worked out the answer to that for himself. “Oh. That’s…thoughtful.”

Breakfast was served.

Steaming platters of…food…were piled onto the kitchen table. It was a feast for a lord…of Hell. A bloodied rat king lay in a greasy bile sauce on a silver platter, a punch bowl of worms and black, writhing centipedes had been set out with a ladle for Kel to serve himself, and piles of moulded, crawling bread filled the toast rack.

“What?” Kel asked, his voice choked.

Shepherd dropped his voice to a murmur. “Well, you don’t want to look ungrateful,” he said out of the corner of his mouth. “That would get you off on the wrong foot.”

Kel turned his head slowly to look at Shepherd. “With who?” he asked.