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Stephen woke to the sound of skittering paws along the baseboard. It was odd for his daemon to be wandering when he was asleep but not worrying. The combination of the sound and the warm weight of Tony at his back made him wonder if he would get to see Tony’s daemon sometime. It was one of the world’s most closely guarded secrets.
People made all sorts of assumptions about others based on the form of their daemons. Though people not knowing lead to all sorts of rumors and barbs too. His own daemon, Bengy, rarely corporealized which led to unpleasant speculation. Back when he was a surgeon his colleagues hadn’t been kind. Stephen snorted. He himself hadn’t exactly been kind but comments about his daemon still stung.
~~~
“How is your demon not a donkey? Because you're a jackass.”
“Cat? I beat it's a cat, the kind that aggressively shows you its asshole.”
“Nurse shark?”
“Weasel termite.” “There's no such thing.”
“Cassowary? He has that kind of personality.”
~~~
Stephen didn’t have to imagine what Tony had heard the same sorts of comments. Talk show hosts, news anchors, and media personalities loved to speculate. The kindest suggestions were a monkey, one of the cute ones, an octopus, or an eagle. The least kind were a shark, a toad, or a leech.
There was even someone who knew Tony at college, who popped up on morning radio every few years swearing that Tony’s daemon had the form of a dodo bird.
None of those animals seemed quite right for Tony.
The skittering paws returned following the baseboard in the opposite direction. Tony stirred behind him. “‘s at Shelly?”
“Shelly?”
“My daemon. Sounds like he decided to show himself.”
Stephen flipped on to his stomach and scooted to the top of the mattress. Bengy had a nest under the bed that Stephen could see through the gap between the headboard and the wall. Sure enough the hamster was there cheeks bulging from what most have been a midnight run to the kitchen. He also had a guest with him, a mostly white rat with a brown head and brown spots on its body.
Tony shifted next to him so he could see into the nest too. There was a second of silence before he said “I know what you’re thinking.”
“That rats are fiercely curious animals.” He smiled. “And very very social.”
Tony relaxed next to him. Bengy pulled a baby carrot out of his cheek pouch and started to gnaw on it.
And apparently it was Stephen’s turn to be nervous. Hamsters were cute, but they were also solitary and stress prone. And more than one of Stephen’s ex’s had viciously pointed out that hamsters ate their young. “And what are you thinking?”
“I’m thinking, wondering really, how much you can fit in your mouth.” Tony waggled his eyebrows for good measure.
Stephen laughed and smacked Tony with a pillow.