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Andrew downs another shot to steady his nerves. He drinks enough nowadays to keep his memory all fuzzy and shapeless—hell, he barely remembers what month it’s supposed to be.
Still, there’s an old memory from science class that repeats in his mind ad nauseam, with stark clarity. It had been a lesson about symbiosis. Parasitic relationships, in particular. Science was never really Andrew’s favorite subject, but the example involving the horsehair worm had appealed to his poetic side.
He takes a generous pinch of tobacco and spreads it across a rolling paper. Ashley had bitched about the price of pre-rolled cigarettes, insisting that if he really needed his cancer sticks, he’d have to make his own. No matter. It’s a small sacrifice, all things considered.
Besides, Andrew’s used to not getting what he wants. Used to smothering himself for Ashley’s sake until he forgets he ever wanted anything at all.
The larva, once ingested, will grow inside the cricket host by stealing its nutrients.
After all those promises about how they’d get along and cook soup and sing kumbaya together, she’d made some efforts to be amenable. Ashley being Ashley, though, the good behavior didn’t last for long. The other day she’d spawned home, skittish and hunched, with something bulging out from her shirt. Her poker face was so abysmal it was almost endearing. Almost.
He places a filter on one end of the paper before folding it over.
After the worm has matured inside its vessel, it will drive the cricket towards water.
After some pressing, Ashley had relented, sullenly revealing the haphazard cut of human tissue wrapped in her shirt. She’d argued that their grocery budget for that month was running low, and the meat she was getting from rituals was just going to waste, and why did he care so much about a line he’d already crossed, anyway?
Andrew rolls the primordial cigarette between his thumb and forefinger until it takes on a cylindrical shape.
It will bore a hole through its host in order to emerge.
The ensuing argument was a blur. He remembers Ashley storming back towards the bathroom, threatening to stay with the demon and leave his sorry ass to starve. It was a bluff, of course. He knew that. Still, the very thought of it was enough to make him see red, so he’d grabbed a fistful of her hair. After kicking him in the groin to loosen his grasp, she’d dashed through the door and locked herself inside. Naturally, he’d bashed that flimsy lock in for all it was worth. He remembers landing solid blows against her body, one after the other, as she sobbed and screamed and begged for him to stop.
He licks the end of the paper and presses the wet end down neatly, the same way he’d close an envelope. Not that he’s had anyone to write to lately.
The hollowed-out host, after having served its purpose, will drown.
At one point, Ashley had uncurled from her fetal position against the wall to catch his fist mid-swing. She’d assured him that she hadn’t meant any of it, that she couldn’t imagine a life without him. Her watery eyes and quavering voice had cracked through his anger, flooding him with shame instead. She’d followed him to the bed like a kicked puppy, flinching back initially when he’d opened his arms to her before crawling into his embrace. He couldn’t even bring himself to care when the blood from her shirt seeped into his sweater.
After a practiced flick of the lighter, Andrew puts the lit cigarette to his mouth. He draws in a deep breath and puffs smoke at the yellow-tinged ceiling.
How had things gotten this bad?
It had been his job as Ashley’s older brother to protect her, to serve her, to keep her happy. He'd failed at all of the above. If he had to be a fucking cricket, he should’ve stayed as the talking one on her shoulder: her failed voice of reason, her provisional conscience. At least that role gave him the moral high ground. Now he’s sunk just as low as her, if not lower.
Despite the fact that she was bruised, battered, and hiccuping from residual sobs, her proximity—her hot breaths on his neck, her thigh wrapped around his, the smell of her shampoo—had been enough to get him hard. He’d made up some bullshit about physiological reactions and insisted that he didn’t actually want anything from her, honest.
Luckily, Ashley’s always been able to see right through him. Wordlessly, she’d unzipped his jeans and tugged down the waistband of his boxers. The wet heat of her mouth had engulfed him before he had the chance to vocalize his halfhearted protest. Over the past few months, she’d improved substantially at giving head, though he wished she didn’t always look so unenthusiastic about it. She’d taken his entire length into her throat, making it slick with her spit. He’d groaned and tilted his head back in turn, mostly so he wouldn’t have to look at her. It made it easier to mistake moments like this for intimacy.
She’d known exactly what to do, exactly how to climb into his lap and take him without so much as a wince. She’d grinded down roughly whenever he tried to buck into her, fingernails raking across his chest like she was trying to break him open. He’d dug into her hips with a steely grip, trying desperately to draw a sound out of her—any sound, even a whimper of pain—but she’d remained silent.
Something putrid had continued to fester inside him, even after he’d reached release. Maybe it was the guilt from battering his sister. Or from using her as a fleshlight. Or from accomplishing both things in the span of an hour. He’d reopened his arms to her, a silent apology. She’d swayed on his lap for a moment, weary and indecisive, before collapsing back into him.
“I, uh. Think, maybe…it’d be best if you stay with the demon after all,” Andrew had said, words scratching like sandpaper as they left his throat.
“You just beat the shit out of me for suggesting that,” she’d said flatly.
“But that’s part of the reason,” he’d argued. “I can’t stop hurting you. We just keep going around and around in circles, and it’s clear neither of us are happy. At least the Entity can keep you safe. You’re better off without me.”
“Not this loser talk again,” she’d said, desperation reanimating her voice. “I wouldn’t be anything without you, remember? Look, I’m sorry for pissing you off. It’s my fault, I shouldn’t have pushed so hard about the meat thing. I’ll try harder from now on, okay? I love you—”
He’d cut her off with a sharp laugh. “Love? You look at me the same way a prisoner looks at a guillotine.”
“Fitting, then, isn’t it? Seeing as you tried to chop my head off,” she’d spat.
“Will you ever get sick of—? That only proves my point, anyway. I really am going to kill you if we go on like this. I’m worried!”
“So how fucking hard is it to not kill me?!” she’d cried, pounding her fist into his chest. “Stop trying to take the easy way out for once! We can work through this, you just don’t want to try.”
“I do nothing but try! I’ve been working my ass off to get us out of this mess. You think I toil away at a goddamn steakhouse forty-five hours a week for fun?”
“First of all, do you hear how you sound? I could’ve mistaken you for Mom just now. Second of all, that’s not what I’m talking about and you know it. I’m willing to get beat up and have disgusting sex with you all the time because I love you so much, but you—name one thing you do for our relationship, besides bitch and moan and leave!”
“Ashley,” he’d sighed, summoning every last vestige of patience, “C’mon. We’re not doing this again.”
“No! No, I am so sick of you feeding me scraps and acting like I’m too dumb to know it. Go ahead and hit me again, asshole, it’ll only prove me right.”
Round and around in circles, until the end of time.
“You think I would’ve come crawling back here after you chained me up if I didn’t love you?” he’d snarled. “You think anyone else in the world is capable of tolerating your psycho bullshit?”
“Don’t act like that means anything—you only came back because your floozy bailed! I was your fucking backup option!”
Was this it? Was this really all there was to life?
“What is it that you want from me, Leyley?” he’d asked, despairing. “What am I supposed to do to make you happy?”
“I need you to care about me! It’s what I’ve been trying to tell you this whole time,” she’d said. Her voice had cracked as she tried and failed to hold back tears.
“Andrew, just—please, can you say you love me? And mean it.”
“I—” the words had dried up in his throat as his eyes roamed over her fresh bruises, the cum between her thighs.
How could I be this awful to someone I love?
How could I love someone I’m this awful to?
Crucial seconds had passed in silence. Ashley’s face, cautiously hopeful, had fallen flat.
“Oh,” she’d said, simply. With that, she’d turned and gone back into the bathroom. He’d watched her go, limbs heavy as lead, until the door shut behind her. There had been the distinct sound of the portal opening, then silence.
He had told himself that she’d come back in due time. After her temper tantrum had worn its course, she would slink back into their apartment as if nothing even happened.
He had ignored the hollow, sinking feeling in his gut.
Twelve hours and forty eight agonizing minutes had passed since Ashley left.
The end of the cigarette burns his fingers. He makes an effort to still his trembling hands so he can light up another one. He’d tried the summoning circle countless times, promising the Entity ten souls, twenty, the entire apartment complex, to no avail. The Entity was adamant about not welcoming Andrew back to his realm. When he got his hands on that stupid ball of eyes, he was going to punt it straight to hell.
Andrew wonders if the cricket, drowning and half-dead, ever misses the worm. He feels achingly empty without a parasite there to leech his nutrients, carve a home into his viscera, twist into his cavities.
He’s going to be sick again. He stumbles to the bathroom, hand over his mouth. He’s hunched over the toilet, emptying what little’s left of his stomach contents, when he hears the distinctive whoosh of the portal. He turns, incredulous and bleary-eyed.
Ashley stands in the summoning circle behind him, arms crossed.
“Ashley,” he rasps. He uses the sleeve of his sweater to wipe the bile from his mouth.
She snorts. “You look like shit.”
“You came back. I didn’t think you would.” He feels dizzy from relief.
“Yeah, well, I shouldn’t have,” she says, studying her nails, “considering you clearly don’t want me here.”
Andrew swallows down all the needy, wretched things on the tip of his tongue. “What kept you so long?” he says.
“Gee, thanks for the warm welcome,” she mocks. “Did you miss me?”
Yes. More than anything. “I just need to make sure you didn’t make any more stupid deals with the demon. We’re in enough trouble as it is.”
The air grows cold.
Ashley bends down until she’s at eye-level. “What I do or don’t do is none of your business,” she says slowly. Her eyes bore into him, gleaming dangerously under the dim light. “You don’t get the final say anymore, Andrew.”
Andrew averts his gaze. “Like hell I don’t—”
In a flash, the portal opens again. Before he can consciously realize what’s happening, Andrew’s lunging at her. He wraps himself around her leg before she can take another step.
“No no no no no please don’t leave again,” the words emerge from him, frantic, in a voice he doesn’t recognize.
Ashley giggles, evidently delighted by the pathetic display. His cheeks grow hot, but his grip on her doesn’t loosen.
“Aww. Does this mean you’re ready to say it?” Ashley says, tilting his chin up.
There’s no use in playing dumb. “I love you,” he says quietly. The words taste rusty and foreign from disuse.
Her grip on his chin tightens. “Say it again. Say you missed me.”
“I missed you so much,” he croaks, curling into her tighter. “I love you.” It comes out easier this time. He tells himself he’s only saying what she wants to hear.
She studies his telltale under-eye bags, the sweat plastering his greasy hair to his forehead.
“I’ve had lots of time to think, recently.” she says, releasing his face. “You wanna know what I’ve realized, Andrew?”
The portal shrinks. His dread grows.
“Even when it’s just the two of us, I have to beg you to pick me. But you’ve never had to ask me to pick you, not even once. You know you’re all I have.”
He’d expected another screaming match—that is, in the event she came back at all—but the Ashley in front of him now sounds calm, deliberate, almost rehearsed. The effect is unnerving.
“The day I came back home and saw those empty chains, I didn’t think you’d come back either,” Ashley continues. “I thought about jumping off the balcony, maybe, but the whole point of dying was that I was supposed to do it with you.”
The portal closes at last. With great effort, he manages to peel his hands off her thighs and stand up.
“So I just sat there, ripping my hair out, thinking you’d abandoned me.” She reaches back to grab something from her pocket, and Andrew flinches when he realizes it’s the revolver.
Instinctively, he raises his hands in an attempt at a mollifying gesture. “A-Ashley. I get it, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have left without telling you. You’ve made your point clear—”
“But then you came back,” she interrupts, clearly having no intention to hear him out. “And I couldn’t figure out why at the time, but I think I know now.”
She saunters toward him, lithe and loose-limbed, gun dangling by her side. Andrew feels the rapid staccato thumps of his heartbeat in his throat as he backs away.
“You can’t live without me either,” she breathes. “Because I’m the only one you can be yourself with. Anyone in their right mind would run if they saw what a scumbag you are, but me?”
The safety turns off with a dull click. “You can hurt me as much as you want, because you think I’ll stay anyway. Because I love you.” The look in her eyes, bright and volatile, reminds him of a gasoline fire.
His back is pressed flat against the wall. “Beloved—” he tries.
To his surprise, instead of blasting his brains out, she takes his hand.
“And you’d be right,” she says, wrapping his fingers around the handle of the gun. The steel is warm to the touch.
“I’ll stay with you. I have to, even if you kill me. It’s my only option,” her voice wobbles as she raises the muzzle to her forehead.
“It’s like you said: neither of us are happy. So just get it over with. I know you want to.”
She issues a wry laugh. “Let’s hear it for Andy and Leyley and the final finale, finally!”
Andrew stares down the trembling barrel of the gun. He pictures it then, as he’s done countless times before. The recoil of the blast, reverberating through his arm. The sulfurous smell of gunpowder. Leyley crumpling to the floor, dead at last.
He’d be next, of course. He’d hold the smoking gun to his temple in one hand, Ashley’s hand with the other. Red rivulets, zigzagging between bathroom tiles, stretching towards each other until they joined. Blood would bind them together like a childhood oath; Ashley and Andrew, inextricably tangled, always and forever.
It would be cinematic. A fitting solution to the mess they’d caused.
Ashley’s upper lip is stiff, jaw set with resolve. It’s a familiar expression: one she’s worn through every snubbed attempt at connection, every forgotten birthday, every time Andrew’s caught her crying alone. A lonely, neglected child, desperately pretending to be unbothered—even as she puts her life in his hands.
Not too long ago, he would’ve killed them both without hesitation. Now, as he looks at her face, he can’t bring himself to pull the trigger.
He lowers the gun. “...I can’t.”
“Why not?” she demands. “That was your original plan, right? Kill me so you can live happily ever after!”
“It was never just going to be you,” he says miserably. “I would’ve followed right after.”
Something softens in her tone. “...Because?”
“I love you. More than anything,” he admits. “Awful as you are, I can’t imagine living or dying without you.”
The gun slips from his grip with a metallic clatter.
Relief transforms Ashley’s face. “Oh, thank fuck,” she sighs, bending down abruptly to retrieve the revolver.
“I—wait, what?”
“You passed!” she gives him a detestable dimpled grin. “Congratulations, you didn’t try to kill me!”
“Ashley,” he says, sounding strangled, “please tell me you didn’t just make me put a loaded gun to your head as a test.”
She opens the chamber, revealing it to be devoid of bullets. “Well, I took them out first. I’m not an idiot.”
Something slimy and cold settles in the pit of his stomach. “…You’d really go that far, just to play games with me?”
“Can’t take it back now!” she chortles. “Ahh, man. For a second there, I was worried you’d actually pull the trigger. That would’ve been awkward.”
He regrets not doing it, pointless or not.
“So you weren’t really willing to die,” he says resentfully. That’s what hurts most—the brief spark of hope that his unrelenting devotion had been returned, snuffed promptly beneath Ashley’s heel.
“Nah. I’m sure I’ll die with you someday, but not today.” Ashley gives him a soft, slow kiss that burns with venom. “But I really did mean everything else I said.”
Leyley’s words meant jack shit. The cycle never changed, only started over again. She would hurt him, and he would let her. Really, it was his fault for expecting anything otherwise from this selfish, loathsome, terrible creature. His goodwill, his humanity, all of it—she’d hollow him out, little by little, until there was nothing left for him to give.
Maybe this was love.
Maybe this pitiful form of symbiosis was all they were capable of.
Betrayal must still be evident on his face, because she scoffs. “Jeez, quit moping. You’ve made your choice already.” That, he had.
It was clear by now that neither of them intended to break the cycle. He’d carry on like this, floundering and futile, until he’d outlived his use to her. Maybe it was the only use he had.
“C’mon, let’s go see what’s on TV,” she says. The broken latch makes a scraping sound as she opens the door.
Andrew’s so, so tired. He grinds the heels of his palms into his eyelids until he sees bursts of static.
“Whatever you want,” he hears himself say.