Work Text:
RH-RH-RH-RH-RH-RH-RH-RH-RH-RH-RH-RH-RH-RH-RH-RH-RH-RH-RH-RH-RH-RH-RH-RH-RH-RH-RH-RH
“I don’t wanna play with him!” Michael whined in the kitchen as his mother set out breakfast for them. Michael stabbed at his eggs with a pout, mumbling to himself in irritation.
“Michael, you are having a play date with him. Gavin’s new here and he doesn’t have any friends yet. Why don’t you want to play with him?” she asked as she sat down, sipping at her coffee.
“Lindsay’s in his class and she says he’s an inky bus. And last time I touched ink, my hands were blue for a week,” Michael explained and his mother had to keep herself from spitting out her coffee.
“An inky bus? Michael, I think Lindsay meant to say ‘incubus’,” she said and Michael just looked shocked. He’d heard about daemons and stuff from his friends but there were none in his school. He had no idea Gavin was a daemon. He hadn’t seen the boy before, being in different classes and all but immediately, the mental image came to mind of a little boy with horns and sharp teeth asking Michael how tasty he is.
“Is he gonna eat me!?” Michael asked with a squeak and his mother, Lori, shook her head with a small smile.
“No, he’s not going to eat you. I’m sure he doesn’t eat little boys but if you ask Gavin’s mom, she’ll explain what an incubus is,” she said and Michael saw that she wasn’t nervous about Michael playing with a daemon, so Gavin must have been okay.
RH-RH-RH-RH-RH-RH-RH-RH-RH-RH-RH-RH-RH-RH-RH-RH-RH-RH-RH-RH-RH-RH-RH-RH-RH-RH-RH-RH
Michael held his mom’s hand as they walked up the path to the Free household, Michael getting a little more nervous with each step he took. Lori knocked on the door and a woman’s voice called through, telling them she’d be just a second. When the door opened, it was a pretty, young woman with dark brown hair and some blonde streaks in it. Her eyes were a startling shade of green and her smile was warm and welcoming.
“Lori, great to have you. And this must be Michael,” she said, kneeling down to Michael’s height while the boy half hid behind his mother. “You know, Michael. Gavin’s very excited to have you over to play,” she said and Michael perked up a little.
“Really?” he asked shyly and the woman nodded. Michael held his hand out for the woman to shake, surprising her with this oddly adult way of introducing himself. “I’m Michael. Nice to meet you, Mrs. Gavin’s Mom,” he said and she chuckled.
“Nice to meet you Michael. And feel free to call me Anna,” she said and Michael nodded. Anna opened the door, welcoming them into the house. Michael walked in, holding on tight to his mother’s hand, stopping when a young boy walked out from the hall, staring at Michael.
Gavin didn’t look anything like the monster boy Michael had pictured. He had sandy brown hair that stuck up in all directions, eyes that shimmered, one second blue, then brown the next and then green. The first thing that came to mind was that Gavin was very pretty.
“Hi Michael,” Gavin said shyly and Michael couldn’t respond because he’d been mentally knocked on his ass. If Gavin looked pretty, his voice was beautiful. There was a thick British accent to it that Anna had as well but coming from Gavin...Michael wanted Gavin to never stop talking.
“H-Hi Gavin,” Michael finally said, a light blush on his face.
“Gavin, sweetie,” Anna said and Gavin looked up at his mother. “I just need to talk with Michael and his mom for a second, so how about you go and pick some games and stuff for you and Michael to play with,” she said with that same warm smile and Gavin returned it, making Michael’s brain shut down again. His smile was prettier than his voice and his face combined.
“Okay. Oh! I’m gonna get my pokemon cards a-and my basketball and my-“ Gavin said excitedly as he ran off to his room to find some toys.
“Okay, Michael. Do you know what Gavin is?” she asked and Michael nodded a little. “Do you know what that means?” she asked and Michael shook his head this time.
“I only know he called an inky-...an incubus,” he corrected himself and Anna caught the correction.
“Alright. Well Gavin is mostly a normal little boy. But he doesn’t get hungry like everyone else. He eats normal human food but he also... ’eats’ affection. Do you know what that is?” Anna asked and Michael thought for a moment.
“It’s like when you give someone a hug or when mom kisses me on the cheek before school, right?” Michael said and Anna nodded but with a ‘nearly there’, look on her face.
“That’s right but it’s not just the action. It’s gotta have feelings behind it. You give someone a hug because they’re your friend, right? And your mom kisses you on the cheek ‘cause she loves you,” Anna said and Michael nodded, getting an understanding of it. “So he might be a little more...cuddly with you than most other little boys because that’s what he’s used to,” Anna said and Gavin ran out of the hall, arms full of different toys, a cowboy hat on his head with another on top of the pile for playing pretend. Michael smiled and looked away from Gavin and back at Anna.
“I don’t mind,” he said and he ran off to go play with Gavin.
RH-RH-RH-RH-RH-RH-RH-RH-RH-RH-RH-RH-RH-RH-RH-RH-RH-RH-RH-RH-RH-RH-RH-RH-RH-RH-RH-RH
Anna and Lori sat on the back porch with a coffee in front of each of them, watching the boys play with Gavin’s basketball, the young incubus absolutely trouncing Michael because the auburn haired boy was too worried about upsetting his new friend.
“So, since Gavin’s an incubus, that makes you a...” Lori trailed off a little awkwardly.
“A succubus, yes. Men and women really are different species when it comes to us,” Anna joked.
“And you...I mean Gavin needs affection but you and your husband need...” Lori mumbled. Anna gave her a quizzical look.
“You don’t get many of our kind around here do you,” she said and Lori looked like she was going to disagree for a moment before she nodded.
“We’re very ‘small town’ here,” Lori admitted and Anna just gave her an understanding look.
“To answer your previous question, yes, my husband and I feed off of sexual energy. But Gavin’s not sexually mature yet so instead, he feeds off of affection. Just being around people that love him keeps him sustained,” Anna explained and Lori just listened intently. “When he hits 16 though, he will start regularly needing sex,” she said as if it were the most natural thing in the world while Lori was just dumbstruck. Living in a human community, talking about your kids having sex as if it were as common as brushing your teeth.
“Mom! Look-Look what Gavin and I made,” Michael ran up, shouting excitedly. They had managed to pile a stack of sticks in the backyard to make a little fort, and although it looked a little shaky, with some supports it would be a nice little playhouse for them.
“That’s beautiful, honey,” Lori said, glad that Michael was having fun with the incubus boy. It took her a second to notice that Gavin’s hand sought out Michael’s, her own boy lacing his fingers with his friend’s almost instinctively. Lori smiled, almost missing when Anna announced that it was time for lunch, the boys running into the house, their hands still linked.
“So, are you guys really daemons?” Michael pretty much blurted out as he ate his sandwich, Lori hushing him, about to lecture him on manners when Anna spoke, still with that calm and understanding smile on her face. It seemed to be impossible to offend this woman.
“Sort of. Would you like to hear a story about how we were made?” she asked and Michael nodded excitedly, Gavin smiling wide as well from his spot at his friend’s side, curled up against Michael as if it was second nature at this point.
“Alright. So, once upon a time, there was a daemon. Now, in that time, daemons weren’t physical, they couldn’t touch things unless they could take over a human body. This daemon was very clever though and made a spell to make him able to touch things here without possessing someone,” Anna explained, the children taking this in quite well. “While he was in the real world, he met a woman and he fell in love with her right away. She fell in love with him too but he never told her that he was a daemon because daemons were only seen as monsters. But see, she had a secret too. She wasn’t human either,” Anna said with a sly smile.
“What was she?” Michael piped up, just for Gavin to answer from beside him, obviously having heard this story many times before.
“She was fae,” Gavin said. “A, um...a fairy?” he asked his mother for confirmation on the word. Gavin obviously seemed a little more used to the real terms than the human-friendly ones. Anna nodded and continued with the story.
“So she was fae and he was a daemon and those two kinds hate each other. So after a while, the daemon decided to be honest with the woman, being so in love with her that he thought he could tell her what he really was. He thought she would love him enough to not care,” Anna said with a sad smile. “She thought he’d tricked her, just being evil like all the other daemons. So they fought and the daemon died,” she said and Michael looked rather upset at this fact, comforted when Gavin curled into his side more, a reassuring hand in his while the boys’ sandwiches sat forgotten on the table.
“But because they’d loved each other so much, the fae had gotten pregnant and she had a little baby boy. A half daemon, half fae that was made from the very strong love between two magic people. That was the first incubus,” Anna concluded. Lori had felt herself being dragged into the story, sad to hear it finish but absolutely fascinated.
“But...that was sad. The daemon and the fairy didn’t get to be married,” Michael said with a sad expression on his face.
“Yes, it is sad Michael, but from that one sad story, came our kind. And with that, Gavin is here,” Anna said, smiling at her son. Michael seemed to perk up a little despite still being a little upset from the less-than-happy ending to a story he’d managed to get so immersed in.
RH-RH-RH-RH-RH-RH-RH-RH-RH-RH-RH-RH-RH-RH-RH-RH-RH-RH-RH-RH-RH-RH-RH-RH-RH-RH-RH-RH
“Bye Gavvy! See at school,” Michael said, giving Gavin a massive hug while Lori and Anna talked at the door.
“Thank you for having us. I’m glad they’re getting along so well,” Lori said, looking at the energetic boys talking a thousand miles a minute.
“Yeah, me too,” Anna said. Then the four said their goodbyes with Michael insisting they go there and play every other day and Gavin should come over and play too.
And Michael started the day saying he didn’t want to play with Gavin. Good thing he changed his mind.