Knox still looked bewildered, if not a little fascinated. "Is this… common entertainment in your realm?"
"Don’t judge," Adrian chuckled. "It’s oddly addictive." He reached over to Knox, pointing out two buttons on the remote. "You can change to a different channel by pressing these buttons."
Knox acknowledged this, but he continued to watch the cartoon for a few minutes, shaking his head every now and then at the absurdity on screen. Adrian, against his better judgment, found himself relaxing into the moment.
There was something adorable about the absolute puzzlement on the demon’s face.
Half-watching the demon trying to figure out Adrian’s mundane world, Adrian settled back on the bed and checked his phone.
He’d gotten some responses to his last blog post, which caused him to open that website. Absent-mindedly, he scrolled through his posts.
To think that one of the characters he’d written about was now here, in this room with him…
It seemed impossible, and yet it was happening.
His eyes caught on a few lines here and there, then he scrolled on, unable to consolidate all of the different trains of thought in his mind.
He looked up at Knox—only to find the demon looking straight back at him. At some point, Knox must have decided that watching Adrian was more interesting even than watching the TV.
Normally, Adrian would have scoffed at such a thought, but Knox’s gaze seemed to communicate just that.
"What is that device?" he asked, pointing at the phone in Adrian’s hand.
Flustered, Adrian showed it to him. "It lets me communicate with others over long distances."
Knox’s eyes narrowed as he read the words on the screen.
"Wait," Adrian said. "You can read our letters?"
"I speak your language too, don’t I?" Knox responded distractedly. He was still focused on whatever he saw on screen.
Likely something Adrian had written about him.
Fuck.
Adrian realized his mistake too late.
He pulled the phone back, checking to see what exactly he’d revealed to Knox about his innermost feelings.
When he’d shown the phone to Knox, he’d been on a section of a blog post that read:
"Knox has done many terrible things in his life. Before he left the Night Court, he was one of their most valuable executioners. He often didn’t even know what crimes someone had committed, but if he was given the order, he would huntthem down and feed on them until no life remained in their bodies. He deserves to be called a monster."
"I’m sorry," Adrian said quickly. "I didn’t mean to?—"
"You wrote that?" Knox asked.
"I did," Adrian admitted, flustered. "But I didn’t mean to… I mean…"
Knox waved him off. "You’re not wrong about any of it." His eyes took on a faraway look as if he were recalling an event from his past.
"It doesn’t matter if I’m right or wrong," Adrian said, but Knox didn’t seem to hear him.
Of course not; why would he listen to Adrian when Adrian said terrible things about him?
Adrian was still trying to come up with a way to explain himself when his phone buzzed.
Irritated, Adrian glanced at it.