My Human

As Abbi put the straw to her lips, sipping her second vanilla milkshake, she looked at Eddus, who watched her, slightly amused and seemingly deep in thought.

“Where are you?” she asked him.

“What? I’m right here,” he said quickly.

Eddus blinked, with a small shake of the head. Although he’d been looking directly at her, he’d not noticed that she’d turned her attention to him. She watched him now, her head slightly tilted, her eyes searching his.

“Where were you?”

“I was just looking at you,” Eddus chuckled.

“I know, Eddus Brandt.” Abbi narrowed her eyes, then smiled at him playfully. “You were staring at me.”

Feeling his face flush, Eddus looked away.

They sat at a small round table for two, on the sidewalk outside of a small café in the old part of the city. In the days they’d been together, they’d gone to a different place to eat each day. Abbi had chosen their current location, having seen it as they walked through what was the most historical part of the city.

Eddus had been watching Abbi for some time; the way she enjoyed the sweet ice cream beverage, the way she looked so content as she sat.

As he watched, his mind had wandered again to the events of a few days before. Their meeting in the park, and then to the winged beings inside the mushroom ring. Everything that had happened ran through his mind like a whirlwind, but also like a dream.

Deep in thought, he didn’t even notice when the waitress set another glass on the table and then refilled his coffee, nor when Abbi had glanced up at him with a surprised look and a quick smile when she realized he hadn’t said anything for some time.

“I didn’t mean to stare,” Eddus stammered.

“What were you thinking about?”

Pausing for a moment, Eddus ran his finger along the edge of the serviette under the coffee cup in front of him. He did very much want to talk with Abbi about the things he’d been pondering, but he felt as though it was something that should be spoken of in different settings. He wasn’t sure that speaking in public about it was something that she would be comfortable with. He knew he wasn’t comfortable with it.

“Are you going to draw a picture of me?” Abbi changed the subject. She turned her head, holding her chin high in a mock pose as if for a portrait. She shifted her eyes, giving him a sidelong look. Dropping the pose, she laughed, stirring the ice cream with her straw.

“I just might,” Eddus chuckled softly. He was enjoying watching her. Almost every time she’d sipped at the drink, she would close her eyes, with a look on her face like it was the first milkshake she’d ever had, and as though it was one of the best things she’d ever tasted. Until she’d mentioned it, he hadn’t considered it, but he would have loved recreating this scene on canvas.

“Oh, really?” Abbi shook her head slightly. Biting the tip of the straw between her front teeth, she absentmindedly looked at the street they sat beside, a little smile on her face.

“I think I’d enjoy drawing you again,” Eddus said slowly.

A look of realization came over Abbi’s face. Her brows furrowed, and she released the straw, turning her head sharply towards him.

“Again?” she gasped. “You’ve already drawn me?”

She pushed her chair slightly away from the small table, its leg audibly scraping the sidewalk.

“When? When did you...? And without asking me?” Abbi’s voice rose slightly. Her brows knit, and she looked down at the table.

Again, Eddus felt his face flush. Abbi’s reaction to his statement startled him. He hadn’t even given any thought to the portrait of her since the day he’d finished it. He glanced toward the only other table outside the café. It was unoccupied, but still, he didn’t want to cause a scene. There were patrons on the other side of the café’s large street-facing window, sitting inside.

“It was after we met. Abbi, I didn’t-”

“Eddie, I’m just fucking with you.” Abbi sighed, raised her eyebrows. She bit her bottom lip as she smiled at him, suppressing a laugh. “Can’t you tell by now?”

“I wish I could,” Eddus said. He looked at her blankly, his heart racing. He held his breath for a moment longer. “And please, don’t call me Eddie.”

It was the only thing he could think of to say to make him feel like he was in some way in control of the situation. He’d almost forgotten about her teasing and how she seemed to rather enjoy making him uncomfortable. And strangely, while he didn’t think he would ever get used to it, he kind of enjoyed her telling him that she was fucking with him, and even found himself looking forward to the next time she would say it. Closing his eyes, he inhaled deeply.

“Did you really draw me?”

“I shouldn’t have said anything.” Eddus opened his eyes, shaking his head.

“But you did draw me?” The young lady’s eyes sparkled. “Can I see it?”

“I didn’t mean. I really shouldn’t have... Why?”

Abbi smiled. She took the straw again between her thumb and forefinger, stirring the slowly melting milkshake.

“Why wouldn’t I want to see it?” she asked. Her expression became concerned. “Why wouldn’t you want me to see it?”

Eddus blinked for a moment, a look of slight confusion on his face.

“Is it not very good?”

“What? No, the piece is very well done, or at least I’ve been told.” Truthfully, the only other person to have seen it had been Stiles. He shook his head. “I meant, why do you ask things just to mess with me?”

“I like watching you squirm, Eddus Brandt.” Abi leaned forward and put both elbows on the table, resting her chin in her hands. She paused for a moment. “So you’ve already shown it to someone else as well?”

Her eyes again sparkled as they fixed on him, and he could see the playfulness in them. For a moment, in his mind, Eddus could then see the finished portrait of her in her current pose, a half-finished glass of ice cream beside her elbow. He very much wished to capture her face, and its rather neutral expression, though the way the light hit her eyes suggested she was up to something.

“Do you just like making people uncomfortable?”

“No,” Abbi shook her head and leaned back in her chair, not seeming to mind that he had ignored her question, “just you.”

Eddus picked up his coffee cup.

“Just me?” he asked with a chuckle.

“Is that a bad thing?”

“You tell me,” Eddus said, watching her, amused. “What did I do to incur this?”

Abbi shook her head, rolling her eyes.

“I like you, Eddie,” she said. “I meant it when I said that you’re the sweetest human I’ve ever met.”

For a few moments, they sat in silence. Abbi gazed at him with a little smile on her face, and he looked at her, wondering how many humans she had met. She was outgoing, to the point of being forward. And if their interaction at the pub the night they met was anything to go by, Abbi was likable and could make friends easily. She had to have met her share of nice people.

“May I ask you something?”

Placing the cup on the table again, Eddus met her gaze. He didn’t wait for her to answer.

“Why won’t you let me apologize to you? What exactly did you mean when you said that I don’t owe you anything?”

“Have you ever been out of this country, Eddus?”

Eddus nodded. While growing up, he had traveled with his parents, vacationing in foreign countries. He’d also gone abroad in his junior year in high school, though he didn’t know how this had anything to do with what he’d asked.

Abbi gazed at the table in front of her thoughtfully before continuing.

“The best way I can think of to explain things to you is that it’s like differences in cultures. Every country has its own cultures, and sometimes those cultures can seem rather strange.”

“I don’t understand.”

“My people,” Abbi began, looking at Eddus, “the fae- faeries... all of us. We’re very similar to humans. We can look similar, or even the same as humans. We can speak the same languages. We enjoy many of the same things.”

Eddus nodded, waiting for her to continue.

“Some of your foods we can’t get enough of.” Abbi glanced at the glass in front of her. “But, like any people foreign to one another, we have our own customs and cultures and ways.”

Nodding, Eddus thought about this.

“And not accepting an apology is one of your ways?”

“Yes. No-” Abbi’s expression conveyed that she was trying to find the right way to say what she was thinking. “Eddus, an apology binds the person who gives it to the person it is given to. It is a debt that must be repaid, and the person who gives the apology remains in the other’s debt until it is paid. It’s not a small thing.”

He held her gaze, then let it drop for a moment.

“Are you fucking with me again?”

“Not at all. You don’t owe me an apology. You never did. You don’t owe me anything, and I don’t want you to. I do like you, Eddus Brandt. You’re my human, and I don’t want anything to change between us.”

“Your human, huh?” Eddus chuckled. It amused him that she referred to him in that way. And knowing that she was not, in fact, human, he found that, as foreign as it sounded, he liked hearing it.

“Well, yes, my favorite human.” Abbi lowered her chin, still looking at him. She wore a coy smile. “You’re... my human.”

Gazing at the young woman across from him, Eddus wondered just what kind of debt an apology carried with it. Not wanting to upset her, he refrained from asking.

He didn’t quite understand everything she’d said to him. It also wasn’t often that anyone had claimed he was their favorite before, apart from the supervisor at an ad agency who had once asked how the company’s favorite artist was.

“I don’t know what to say,” he chuckled. “That’s probably the nicest thing anyone has ever said to me.”

“Don’t.” Abbi glanced at him, shaking her head.

“Don’t what?”

“Don’t say it.”

“I wasn’t going to apologize for anything.” Eddus looked at Abbi quizzically.

“I know.” Abbi seemed a little uncomfortable as she glanced away from him.

“Abbi, what is it?”

“Don’t... thank me.”

“Really?” Eddus blinked in surprise and then laughed. “I do feel that I should. I don’t think I’ve ever been anyone’s favorite anything before.”

Abbi shook her head, her lips pursed.

“So I shouldn’t thank you for probably the kindest thing anyone has ever said to me?”

Abbi again shook her head. She looked into Eddus’s eyes.

“I’m not supposed to apologize or say thank you?”

“You show those things, you don’t say them.” Abbi watched Eddus nod slowly. “To display gratitude or sorrow shows a feeling, a respect for the person you’re acting towards. Words don’t hold much weight. Without meaningful actions, words are nothing, and can be of great insult to the person receiving them, if he suspects the words to be insincere.”

“I think I understand,” Eddus said slowly, wondering for a moment if she’d ever thought him insincere. He did his best to dismiss the thought.

“It’s the only way I can think of to explain it. Thanks is shown.” Abbi shook her head, watching him consider everything she’d told him. “I don’t think you could ever do anything that you’d need to apologise to me for. And you certainly don’t need to apologise when it’s me giving you a hard time.”

Eddus lifted his cup of now-cooling coffee, smiling behind it at her acknowledgement. Once again, he resisted the urge to ask about her age. She still looked so childlike, but the answers she gave, as well as their explanations... they weren’t anything he’d expect to hear from someone young or inexperienced in life. If there was evidence that she was older than he thought, as she said she was, the way she spoke with him and answered the things he asked certainly pointed to it.

“Abbi,” he said after a few moments, his eyes meeting her gaze, “I do think I understand. And I wish that you hadn’t apologized to me in the park. You could never owe me anything for what you showed me.”

Abbi’s smile faded, and she pursed her lips.

“I wish that were true, Eddus Brandt,” she sighed, shaking her head slightly, not sure if the stab of guilt she felt was at knowing that he had to come to grips with what she’d revealed, or for having shown him at all.

Eddus stared absently at what was left of the contents in his cup, not knowing just what to think. Holding the cup’s handle between his thumb and forefinger, he tipped it slightly, gently swirling the black liquid in it.

“What other questions do you have?”

“Other questions?” Raising his head to look at her, Eddus shook his head, a blank look on his face.

Still thinking over the answers he’d just received, he didn’t quite fully grasp the ones Abbi had already given him. The words and their meanings were clear enough, but...

“You have more questions for me, don’t you?” Although she smiled, Abbi wore a thoughtful, almost sympathetic expression. “You told me that after you’d had time to think about it, you’d have plenty of them. I suspect that if I were in your shoes, I’d have so much to ask. And I want to give you answers.”

“You do?”

“Of course I do.” Abbi smiled at Eddus, who sat looking at her as if he were lost. She felt a small pang of sympathy for him. She knew that humans had a hard time comprehending the idea of faeries. While she did feel as though she’d needed to let him know about her, she still felt that perhaps she’d been wrong to do so. “I’ll answer anything you want to ask me.”

“You probably say that to all your humans.” Eddus smiled. Giving her a wink, he picked up his coffee cup, holding it again between both hands.

’She is right,′ he thought. He should have a list of things to ask the young lady smiling at him, the right edge of her bottom lip gently between her teeth.

His mind was blank after hearing what she’d told him moments before. He wondered if she was at all uncomfortable answering his questions. He also wondered how many times she’d answered these questions before.

“I don’t have any other humans,” Abbi spoke softly, her smile fading. Her gaze rested on the cup in Eddus’s hands, her face holding no specific expression. Her voice’s tone hadn’t changed, except for the lowering of its inflection, but something about what she said gave Eddus the impression that his words had affected her.

“Abbi-”

“I don’t have any other humans.” Her eyes dropping further, Abbi was silent for a few moments.

“You don’t?” It was all he could manage to say. Eddus placed his coffee cup on the table in front of him again. He reached across the table, gently taking the girl’s hand, studying her expressionless face for a moment. “I really didn’t mean anything.”

“I know.” Abbi smiled, but Eddus could see that her mouth and her eyes were not portraying the same thing. “I’ve never told anyone before. And I would never show anyone.”

Eddus said nothing. The guilt he felt was strong, and he wanted to say something, even after what Abbi had told him earlier. What he’d said seemed to have more impact on the young woman than he’d intended.

"You’re my human, Eddus Brandt.” Answering an unspoken question, Abbi’s voice remained soft. Her fingers tightened around his. “My only human.”

Again, Eddus remained silent, a little smile on his lips. While he still had a nagging feeling that perhaps his spending time with Abbi was a bit inappropriate given the age gap between them, he did like it a little more each time she spoke those words. It was strange, but he found himself looking forward to the next time she said them.

“Why are you being so quiet?” Abbi said, after what felt to her like a long, uncomfortable silence. This time when she spoke, there was a pleading in her tone. “I like you, Eddie, and I trust you... Please say something.”

“I feel as though I should have chosen my words differently,” Eddus began. “I said them in jest, but I feel-”

“You worry too much, Eddus. I apologised to you the other night because I should not have told you what I told you or shown you the pixie ring. I should have asked you first.” Shaking her head, Abbi sighed. “And I’m not upset by what you said. I just want you to know that you are the only person I have ever spoken of the faerie realm with and the only human that I’ve ever trusted with that information.”

• • •

“Here’s a question.”

Eddus looked down at his hand for a moment.

Abbi’s demeanor seemed to brighten when he spoke. Eddus felt relief as she raised her eyebrows and leaned forward slightly.

“It’s about your dress.”

Abbi blinked a couple of times. She drew in a breath, her mouth slightly open, before breaking into a smile and laughing softly.

Eddus hesitated, taken slightly aback by her reaction.

“My dress? Well, I didn’t expect-” Abbi started, glancing down quickly, then back at Eddus. “Do you not like my dress?”

Again, he hesitated, feeling that he should have chosen different words, or perhaps a different question altogether.

“Eddus?”

“No, I do like your dress.” Eddus began to feel uncomfortable. “I’ve liked all of your dresses.”

“Well, that’s good. I like the way I dress.” Abbi’s hand went to her chest as she glanced downward again.

“I do, too.”

“So, what’s your question?”

“Well, it’s just that- I’m not sure how to say this.” Eddus’ face warmed, and he did his best not to look away. “You’ve been staying with me for a few days now, and every day you wear a different dress.”

“I can’t wear the same thing every day, Eddie.”

“What? Of course not. I know, I just...”

“Well?” Abbi’s eyes narrowed as she watched Eddus’ uncomfortable look. She wasn’t smiling, but there was a hint of mischief in her expression.

Eddus caught the glint in her eye and took a deep breath. He opened his mouth and just spoke.

“You didn’t bring anything with you, but you wear something different every day.” Eddus could see a look, ever so slight, of realization come over the pixie’s face.

Abbi’s lips pursed, and she stifled a smile.

“How is that possible?”

“I have wings, Eddie.”

“Are you two all right here? Can I get you anything?”

Abbi watched Eddus look up before turning her own head toward the waitress who had come out to check up on them.

“Would you like another coffee?” The waitress smiled at Eddus, her eyebrows raised. She gave no indication that she’d heard Abbi’s statement as her gaze turned to her. “And can I get you anything? Another milkshake?”

Abbi smiled up at the young lady, shaking her head. The waitress looked back at Eddus, who gave her a nod. She collected the coffee cup and the glass from the table and turned to go.

“Do you have any fruit?”

“Fruit?” The waitress thought for a moment. “We have pear halves with ice cream on the dessert menu.”

Eddus leaned back in his chair, watching Abbi look up at the waitress. Her face lit up at the response.

“Would you like chocolate or vanilla ice cream?”

“Oh- vanilla, please.”

Abbi smiled as she watched the waitress leave. When she’d disappeared into the café doors, she turned again to Eddus.

“I have wings,” she said, repeating what she’d said as the waitress had approached their table, picking up the conversation where they’d been interrupted.

“She could have heard you, you know,” Eddus spoke in a hushed tone, glancing toward the café.

His heart stopped momentarily when the waitress appeared at their table. Abbi had been speaking in a normal voice, as though she really didn’t seem to have any concern about being overheard.

“I change my appearance when I come to this world,” Abbi continued. “Changing what I wear is really not that hard.”

“Oh.” Eddus pondered this. “So, you can just...”

“I decide what it is that I want to wear, and that’s what I wear.”

“Just like that?”

“Wings, Eddus.”

“Right.” Studying the tiny young woman across from him, Eddus shook his head slowly, deep in thought. He’d only just been able to quiet his mind, stop himself from thinking about the impossible idea.

“What are you thinking about?” A look of concern on her face, Abbi reached forward with her hand.

“You can wear whatever you want?”

“Yes.”

“Anytime?”

“Yes.”

Eddus was quiet for a moment.

“So you really didn’t need the shirt I gave you to sleep in?” he chuckled.

Abbi smiled, her eyes glowing momentarily.

“Not really,” she said, remembering how much she enjoyed seeing her reflection in the mirror. “But just so you know, you might never get that shirt back.”