“What?” Obie asks innocently. “Come on, puppy. We can cuddle in close, can’t we?”
Cass and Ez both laugh, and JJ and Roma look amused. And as for Chester himself?—
We don’t have to bethisclose, asshole.
Obie stiffens, his heart slamming against his ribcage and the beginnings of a headache starting next to his left eye. Roma jumps back into JJ and Cass’s epic love story, and Chester doesn’t seem to be paying the slightest bit of attention to Obie, but?—
But Obie just heard something. He heard somethingin his head.He’s always abstractly known that his internal monologue “sounds” a particular way, and that was most certainly not his internal monologue.
Actually, it sounded a lot like Chester. But why would Obie hear Chester’s voice in his own head? Why would he?—?
And then, like a lightning strike from another life, Obie remembers.
You made it bidirectional, lackey. Instead of binding me to you, it bound the two of us together.
Oh.
Oh, no.
Heart plummeting, Obie focuses on the sensation next to his eye. Now that he’s paying attention, it feels less like a headache and more like a tingling.
Less like testing the limits of the binding spell and more like something entirely new. Carefully, he presses into the sensation.Locke? Can you hear me?
Chester goes rigid on Obie’s lap. His arm tightens around the back of Obie’s neck, his eyes sweep around like he’s scanning for threats?—
Obie sighs internally.Thought so.
Chester stops dead. The tingling intensifies.Obie? Is that you?
Yeah.
Dude, what the hell?
I don’t know! You started it! You called me an asshole.
I didn’t?—
Abruptly, Chester cuts himself off. Obie takes the opportunity to argue the point.Yes, you did. You said that we didn’t need to be this close, and then you called me an asshole.
When Chester’s voice next floats into Obie’s head, he sounds more petulant than anything else.Fine. I guess I did. So what’s going on? Can we read each other’s minds or something?
Idly, Obie tries to see if he can access Chester’s memories through this bizarre new connection, but he’s not surprised when he comes up blank.No. At least, I still can’t push my way into your head. I guess it’s just… a communication method.
Why didn’t we know about it before?
Obie’s eyes flicker down to Chester sitting awkwardly in his lap.Maybe we have to be touching? We don’t have a lot of skin-to-skin contact right now, but I don’t think we’ve ever been this physically close before.
And it looks like we actually have to concentrate to use it.Chester is sounding more intrigued and bewildered by the second.That’s good, at least. No risk of us accidentally projecting our thoughts into each other’s heads.
You accidentally called me an asshole.
No, I called you an asshole on purpose. And, to be honest, I was kind of hoping you heard it. So maybe that’s what opened the connection.
Dickwad.
“Obie?” Obie jerks to attention to see Cass frowning at him from across the table. “You good, man? You look like you’re a million miles away.”
Is Obiegood?Well, no, Cassius, he really isn’t. He’s currently spellbound to, not only a Sanctum hunter, but a Sanctuminterrogator,and they can’t be more than twenty feet away from each other at any time, and apparently, they have atelepathic linkwhen they’re touching.
