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fromnewashes · 2 days ago

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Reunion Music: Kit & Oliver

TIMING: Recent

LOCATION: Oliver’s Home

PARTIES: @oliver--fox & @fromnewashes

SUMMARY: Oliver and Kit see each other again after multiple lifetimes apart. What starts as a frosty encounter ends with the promise that the two will continue to be in each other’s lives even if they aren’t physically in the same place going forward.

WARNINGS: parental death tw, child death tw

Oliver was here. She’d started a new life, she’d changed her name again, she was a doctor, she had a lot to make up for, and Oliver was here. Kit wasn’t sure how to feel about it, wasn’t sure how to react. No one wrote how-to guides on what you were supposed to feel when the guy who’d raised you from an egg two lifetimes ago and missed out on your last go-round all together popped up unexpectedly in your latest attempt at life.

There were a lot of things she wanted to say to him; a lot of issues she wanted to bring up. She knew some of it was… leftover bullshit from her first life, from a biological father who hadn’t understood her and had never wanted her to be all she could be. The part of her that wanted to accuse Oliver of abandoning her was the part of her that was still a little girl begging her dad to see her as she was instead of as what he wanted her to be. The part of her that felt betrayed felt that way not because of Oliver, but because of someone who’d probably been dead for centuries now. Kit was smart. She knew that.

But the ache remained.

Immortality — or, as Kit referred to a phoenix’s cycle, immortality-lite — came with baggage. There were wounds that never quite healed, things you could never allow yourself to let go of entirely. The psychological scars her biological father left on her in childhood were so easy to transfer onto an adoptive father she felt hadn’t tried hard enough, even if she knew it wasn’t a fair exchange. Oliver didn’t deserve her anger.

She was angry, anyway.

Her heart was pounding as she approached the door to the house he was living in now, and she felt hot all over in a way that had very little to do with the whole ‘firebird’ aspect of her physiology. She thought she wanted to yell, but she knew Oliver would let her yell and that made her want it less. She hated how complicated this was; she’d always preferred things simple.

Clenching her jaw, she rapped her knuckles against the door. “Hey, old man,” she called out, “it’s me.” You know, the kid you ditched last lifetime. (He could have looked for her. She didn’t know, didn’t get to know. He could have looked for her. The anger burned hot, anyway.)

—

Oliver struggled to sit still when he was anxious. It was a trait that he had carried since he was a child; feeling the need to move when things were stressful. It was why, after giving Katie his information he had felt an overwhelming need to clean, to move, to do something. He had cleaned up his house, not that it was particularly dirty to start with. It wasn’t just a quick clean though, it was a proper deep clean; which had led him to organize his closet. Later, he would say that he hadn’t even meant to open the box that he kept hidden behind the Christmas decorations. Subconsciously, he knew that he had only gone into the closet to open it. On the outside, it just looked like a normal cardboard box; but within it was a smaller safe. Oliver had owned it for at least a century; bought to hold things that he didn’t want just anyone to find. Trinkets and photos that Oliver had collected over his life.

Carefully, he moved the items around before landing on the photo that he wanted. It was of him and Katie; they had gone to a photo studio to have it done. She was young, and Oliver was pretty sure they had only had it done to try and pass off the idea that Oliver was truly her father. That fact didn’t stop the wave of emotion that hit Oliver as he looked at it. After her death, he had boxed up just about anything that reminded him of her. He had failed her, and having a picture staring at him from the coffee table had done nothing but remind him of that. Oliver moved a thumb over the dust-riddled glass, before glancing up at ceiling light to fight back the tears that so desperately wanted to come out. After a moment, Oliver placed the picture back in the box. It was hard, and whenever he opened this; it made him want to go through everything. However; that activity was reserved for when he had alcohol and a night where he could laugh, cry, and fall asleep surrounded by the memories of his life. Tonight wasn’t that night.

Oliver had just finished placing it back in its spot when he heard the knock on his door and Katie’s voice from outside. It caused him to suck in a breath, she even sounded the same. He doesn’t know why he thought she would sound any different, she never had previously. Maybe it was more the fact that he had never expected to hear it again. He quickly ducked into the bathroom, fussing with his hair for a moment before resting his hands on the sink; and taking a deep breath. They hadn’t covered the topic of your dead daughter showing up again in any of the parenting books that he had read. Finally, Oliver went to his front door and opened it. Seeing her was far more startling than just hearing her voice had been. She had said that she was a doctor, so Oliver had known that she wasn’t going to be a kid, but she looked almost identical to the last time he had seen her. “Hey Ka-Kit.” He corrects himself as he holds open the door for her to come in. “Hope the ride over was easy?”

—

The door opened, and he looked the same as he always had. It was jarring, even though she’d known it would be the case. It was Kit who had changed, wasn’t it? It was always Kit who changed. Other immortals, proper immortals, lived their lives in a straight line. They had a point at the beginning and a point at the end, and their whole life existed within those confines. It was different for Kit, who existed in twists and turns. She had beginnings and ends that lead to more beginnings. Oliver lived and continued living. Kit lived and died and lived again. He looked the same as he always had, and maybe she did, too. She wasn’t much older now than she’d been when she’d died on him, after all. But everything felt different, anyway. She had a different name, a different accent, a different story. She was standing at the door of the man who’d raised her, and she was a stranger. It didn’t matter how many times she did this, it never felt any less odd.

She took note of the slip, the way he almost called her by that old, affectionate nickname. Everyone else in that lifetime had called her Kate. It was Oliver who’d used Katie instead. And, in the next life, when she’d used Katie as the default, she’d thought of him. She’d wondered if he might find her, if he scoured public media in search of her or if he hadn’t bothered looking at all. Which would hurt more — the idea that he’d searched for her and failed, or the idea that he’d never looked? Kit wasn’t sure. There were few things Kit hated more than not being sure.

“I took an Uber,” she replied, slipping by him into the house. She’d never been here, of course, but it felt familiar all the same. It felt like Oliver, like a house she’d grown up in once even if the architecture was entirely different. She could see pieces of her surrogate father in every corner, saw him painted across the walls. (She saw nothing of herself here. Was it because she no longer recognized Kate as her, or because he hadn’t kept any part of her with him? He was immortal. How much did the measly decades he’d spent raising her amount to in the grand scheme of things? How much did he actually care about it, about her?)

The air in the house felt stilted already, felt awkward. She thought of the last fight they’d had. Had that been their last conversation? It was hard to remember now, two lifetimes later, if they’d ever made up after the fact. She wasn’t sure how much that mattered, either, how much anything did. She stood in the living room, feeling uncomfortable in her own skin. Kit was never like this. Kit was suave, was confident, was unapologetic, but right now she was none of those things. Right now, she felt like a child again. And it was frustrating. “Nice place.” There was a hint of bitterness to her tone. “Looks like you’re doing well for yourself.” She wasn’t sure why she was angry, or even if she was angry. There was no handbook for this kind of thing, was there?

—

“Ah, gotcha. I can, uh, Venmo you the cost of it if you want?” Was Venmo what people still used? Oliver had also stumbled a bit when it came to technology, more than often not relying on the people around him to keep him updated on what was the new ‘hot’ technology. It helped that he still came off as a late 20-something; since he could just eavesdrop on conversations and then google whatever he wasn’t sure of. If there was one thing that Oliver was thrilled to see, it was the fact that technology was so much better now than it was a few decades ago. Of course, there were some downsides; and the fact that there was so much of it could feel like a lot sometimes. However, Oliver tended to stay pretty disconnected as is; trying to stay updated enough that he didn’t get strange looks when he mentioned something but not so much that he actually knew about any drama happening online. If it was important, he tended to hear about it one way or the other. Oliver supposed he could ask Katie if she wanted cash instead, but that felt…like the wrong move in this situation. Oliver shut the door with a soft thud behind her before following her further into the house.

He felt almost nervous, watching her take in his home. There was a small part of him that hoped she liked it, for reasons he wouldn’t be able to explain. The houses they had shared had always looked a little different, set up to house a family rather than a single adult. The house's identity had always been something that showed both Oliver and Katie; and the fact that his current one only showed him wasn’t something he had even considered as something different until Katie stood in the middle of it. Oliver wasn’t even sure what the last place they had both lived in had been, he knew they had moved a few times. “Oh, thanks.” He scratched the back of his head, ignoring the way it felt as if a weight had been lifted off of him with her approval. “It was a bit of a fixer-upper when I got it, but I’ve been able to make it into my own.” Was the only reason he got a good deal on it because someone was freaked out by the way the woods maybe weren’t the most normal? Maybe. But he would take it.

At her statement, Oliver gave a gentle shrug. “I suppose, I have enough.” Money was something that Oliver didn’t think about that often. He had been forced to get a bank account a few decades ago, and moving the money every time he got a new identity was annoying, it was why he had avoided it for so long, but eventually asked for his money to be in cash or check form raised more eyebrows and so he had bit the bullet and gotten a direct deposit set up. He did have to admit that it was much easier to have his money all together somewhere rather than on his person. That didn’t mean that he didn’t have a squirrel fund hidden away in his home. He had been witness to far too many recessions to have any faith in the banks for it to be anything other than a holding cell. “The shop does well enough.” It typically made just enough to break even with the cost of renting the building and paying all his employees, but he knew he could use his own as well if needed. Perks of being around for so long; money was something he had quite a bit of. “You rent, right? How’s your place?” This small talk had a sense of awkwardness around it, but Oliver didn’t know how else to break the ice. Had it been a mistake to even reach out to her? Would it cause more harm than good?

—

“I can afford it,” she replied flatly, feeling uncomfortably aware of every aspect of herself. She could feel the way her hair hung on her shoulders, could feel the air prickling her skin. Each breath became a conscious thing instead of a natural one, like she had to remind herself to do it. No one but Oliver could shake her like this, these days. No one else knew her well enough to try. Kit had taken such great care to close herself off after Ezra rejected her, made sure that no one would ever know her well enough to make her ache the way he had, but Oliver came before that. He was a gaping wound, and she was good at stitching herself up, but she swore she forgot everything she knew when he looked at her like she was a kid and he was her dad again. She almost forgot her own name, almost went right back to being Kate again. (He was the only one who’d called her Katie, back then. She’d thought if she adopted the name in her next life, he might find her. She’d thought a lot of things.)

The silence stretched on, heavier than she’d wanted it to be. She cleared her throat, looking around the room to avoid looking at him. “You use Venmo?” She used to make fun of him when new technology came out — though, granted, new technology had been slow to come out when she’d seen him last. It was so much quicker now. She wondered if it was difficult for him to keep up. Kit had an advantage there; with each new life, she started from the beginning. She grew up with the new tech, evolved alongside it. Kids picked up on changes like that so much easier than adults did, even if it was their tenth time being a kid.

Oliver spoke about the house and Kit nodded and she knew that neither of them was saying anything they wanted to say. He told her the house was a fixer-upper and she said, “I guess you were always pretty handy,” and it was all so painfully artificial that it hurt. It was like a can of soda or a piece of candy; sticky and sweet and with no trace of anything remotely natural inside it at all. Kit hated it, but she thought she’d hate the truth a little more. The truth hurt more than anything they could say here. It always did. That was why she avoided it so completely.

He spoke of his money, and she nodded. She knew he’d always had some squirreled away; they’d never struggled, in that lifetime where he’d raised her from the egg to the end. She’d learned a thing or two from him and learned how to transfer her funds from one life to the next in a way that didn’t raise too many eyebrows. “That’s good. The flower shop suits you.” It seemed like a natural step for Oliver. She shifted her weight, feeling bone tired for no reason at all. “Yeah,” she confirmed, “I rent. The place is… fine. It used to be a dry cleaner’s shop. I always liked living in places like that.” She liked to make her home in places that didn’t seem like a home. It felt safer, somehow. Maybe, on some level, it was because it allowed her to pretend it meant less when she lost it. A former dry cleaner’s wasn’t a house, wasn’t an apartment or a cabin. If it went away, you could laugh it off. You could pretend it didn’t matter. Kit spent so much time pretending things didn’t matter. She was doing it now, too.

—

“Ok” Oliver gave a small nod; choosing to not push that topic any further. He didn’t want to make her think that he didn’t think she needed the money. The atmosphere that surrounded them was already thick enough and he would rather not spark a match on a topic that wasn’t that important. It was reminiscent of the last big fight they had. Except this time, rather than the two of them feeling like they were right; this time it felt like the two of them were dancing around the subject. Like neither wanted to mess up the tenuous balance that they had between them currently. It was as if they both knew that the moment they brought up the past, it allowed for questions to be asked that maybe they didn’t want the answers to. “Oh, uh, yeah, turns out it’s actually a pretty nice app.” Oliver joked with a small smile.

“I know enough to get by.” Oliver didn’t love having strangers come into his home; and so he often tried to fix whatever he could himself before having to call in actual professionals. Over time, he had basically gotten to the point where he could figure out most things on his own; even if occasionally there were hiccups along the way. He still had a collection of how-to books that he had used when Katie was around to try and fix things tucked into his bookshelves, but the internet had also been helpful along the way. “YouTube has a lot of great videos that helped along the way too.” He added with a shrug. Their conversation felt constricted, the type you had with an acquaintance in the store when the two of you stood waiting for check-out; something with a promised ending in site. Oliver and Katie had already had their ending though, and now had to deal with the fact that another chapter lay in front of them.

He felt his heat up at the compliment “Ah, Thanks.” Oliver cleared his throat “It’s nice, I like it”. Oliver gave a small nod as she explained her living situation. “That certainly seems like an interesting space to live in, I’m glad you found somewhere like that.” He ran his hand over his shoulder.

Oliver’s eyes dropped to the ground, and he sighed before glancing back up at her. “I-” He stops himself, biting his lip for a moment before trying again. It was now or never right? They couldn’t just keep dancing around the subject, not if they wanted to have a productive conversation. “What happened? That night; when the hunters attacked? I got dragged away and…well it’s not important what happened but by the time I got back you were gone and there was…so much blood. I couldn’t find you.” There had been hunter’s bodies around but he had looked for her body, for an egg, for anything; but he hadn’t been able to do more than a cursory look with how he could hear the hunters coming back before he had to flee as well. “You never came back to the house, and I wasn’t sure if it was because you were d-gone or if you had just left.” Oliver had tracked down both unclaimed bodies and babies in the weeks that followed, trying to find answers.

—

There was a kind of awkwardness that you could never have with a stranger. Things that made conversations with people you didn’t know very well awkward were easy to brush by. You could make do with small talk until you were comfortable, you could walk away without consequence. The stakes were low, and the air between you felt less heavy because you both knew it. The kind of awkwardness that existed between strangers wasn’t comfortable, but it was easily survivable. It was simple to navigate. You could sail through it without any kind of issue, and it was fine. It was all fine.

It was nothing like the awkwardness that existed between two people who knew each other so well once, but didn’t anymore. Oliver was standing in front of her, and Kit hadn’t seen him in this lifetime or the last. She had no idea what he did with his time these days, she didn’t know who his friends were or what shows he watched, but she knew what his face looked like when he was making pancakes. She knew how it felt to be a tiny thing wrapped in his arms after a nightmare, knew the serious look that came over his face when she childishly asked him to check under her bed for monsters despite knowing that monsters rarely felt the need to hide. Oliver wasn’t a stranger; it would have been so much easier if he were. If she didn’t have her memories of the lifetimes where she’d known him, of the one where he’d been there in the beginning and the middle and the end, things would have been simpler. And Kit, coward that she was, longed for that simplicity.

“YouTube is helpful,” she agreed, hating the way she had to scramble for something to say. It never used to be like this. Even when they were at their worst, fighting in the way only a parent and child could, there had been no hesitation like the one present now. She’d always known exactly what to say to him then, even when it was a barb to be thrown in his direction. Now, she felt like she was struggling to tread water, like she was desperately kicking her feet and trying to maintain some semblance of control in a situation where it was so clear she had none to speak of at all.

“Yeah. No problem.” Every word hung heavy; nothing felt quite right. He was saying her living situation was ‘interesting’ and she wondered what he might have said about it those lifetimes ago. If Kate had moved into a retired dry cleaning store and made it a home, would Oliver have protested? Would he have told her it was a bad idea, would he have pointed out the ridiculousness of it? Maybe a part of her wanted him to, even now. Maybe a part of her wanted them to be like they were before, even if she knew they never would be, never could be.

But they could stop beating around the bush.

She was glad he was the one to bring it up. It felt like a relief in the same way a rush of blood bursting through a picked scab did. It hurt, it wasn’t a good thing, but the flash of red was familiar and expected in a way that made your shoulders relax all the same. “I died,” she replied, quick and to the point. “Just not right away. I fought them off as best I could, but…” She trailed off, shrugging a shoulder. “They figured out what I was. Got curious, I think. There aren’t many phoenixes around. They took me back with them, to… wherever. Held me, for a while. But it was always going to end the way it ended. I managed to charm one of them enough to convince him to get the tears on my ashes and get the egg away after. I would have told him to take it to you, but…” She let it hang. She didn’t know how the sentence was meant to end. I didn’t want to put you in danger, maybe. Or, more painfully, I wasn’t sure you’d take it. “I wound up a few states away. I don’t really know where he left me, but I was in the system. New name and everything.”

I didn’t look for you. It was unspoken, but wasn’t it obvious? Oliver hadn’t known where to find her, but Kit could have gone back to where she’d last seen him, when she was old enough. She could have searched for him, maybe could have found him. But… she’d wanted him to find her instead. She’d wanted him to prove that he was looking, and he hadn’t. It wasn’t fair, she knew. It wasn’t right to expect it of him, but she had. She’d wanted him to find her, and he hadn’t. That stung, even now. “How long did you look?” The question was small, and she sounded more like a child than she had in lifetimes.

—

The words ‘I died’ made Oliver’s chest hurt more than he was expecting. Another crack in his heart, but it is hardly the first. A long life comes with a lot of heartache. He knew that it was a possibility that she hadn’t made it out of the encounter alive; but a small part of him had always hoped that she had, that she had gotten away and gone on to live a long and healthy life. The life that he always hoped to give her. Instead, to hear that she was taken captive, presumably tortured before dying and being dropped off in an unfamiliar state; back in the system that Oliver had strived to keep her away from. He had heard the stories of what happened, and he hated the thought of Katie going through any of that. Did her other, god he hated thinking about her having anyone else raising her, parents keep her safe? Did they treat her right? Did cook her eggs the way that she liked it? It made him feel sick, and he desperately wished that their situations had been reversed. Sure, he would have died and he didn’t have the magical power to come back, but Katie would have survived.

“I-” Oliver clears his throat; emotion threatening to spill out. Now isn’t the time to cry over his past mistakes. “I left town after about a year.” Oliver says softly. It had been a rough year. The neighbors had asked about her every once in a while, and Oliver had simply said that she had moved away. She was old enough that nobody questioned it, but Oliver felt almost dirty, creating a false life for Katie. Sleep had been hard to come by, and the sleep that Oliver got was filled with nightmares. Ones that he had long thought he was done with.

“Sgt. Vader definitely grew to hate me” Oliver jokes, but it comes out more tight and tense than it should. “I grabbed one of those police scanners, and if there was a mention of a random body being found I was on the scene before they were.” At first, he had only gone to ones that would make sense. Ones where they said that their body looked fresh and female. However, by the end, as his desperation grew and he tossed logic to the side, he went to anything that so much as mentioned a body. It didn’t matter that he knew that Katie’s body turned to ash soon after death; if they found skeletal remains he was at least going to at least take a look. He bought newspapers and scoured them for any information. After all, maybe she had amnesia and had been picked up and taken to the hospital. He was desperate for any possible answer that didn’t involve her being dead.

He knew that random eggs being found would be newsworthy; but he was also aware that it was unlikely that the existence of it would ever make it to mainstream media. Oliver kept his ear to the ground, listening to the rumors and gossip of the town; going to more sketchy areas to get information that maybe didn’t make its way out otherwise. “I looked for abandoned babies too, but…” Those were easier to rule out, and he started to feel bad physically going and leaving without a child who desperately needed a home.

“After a year, I just-I had to leave.” It had become clear that he had become a shell of himself, essentially killing himself searching for Katie and staying in the home they had made was doing nothing but making the pain worse. He had told himself that Katie wouldn’t want to see him like this, that she would want to see him continuing to live. So Oliver had packed up, sold the home, and moved to New York City. Out of suburbia, back to a city. A new name, a new identity, new friends who didn’t know him as a father.

“How…how many lives have you lived since then?” Oliver isn’t sure he wants to know the answer, but the question is out before he can pull it back.

—

It was harder, somehow, knowing that he had looked for her. Before, she could tell herself that he’d given up easily, and it was simpler. It gave her a better excuse for not looking for him, either, let her remain the hero of her story no matter how many villainous things she did. If she were the one abandoned, Kit couldn’t be blamed for not reaching out sooner. If she were the one slighted, who could possibly claim she was in the wrong? But Oliver was here, was standing grief-stricken in his living room and sending a hurricane after the house of cards she’d so carefully constructed for herself. He’d looked for her, even knowing that she was likely dead. He’d grieved her, even knowing she’d likely been born again.

It was such a stark contrast to her biological parents, so many lifetimes ago. Had they ever cared for her as much as Oliver seemed to? As far as she knew, they’d never searched for her when she’d left home. If anything, they’d found relief in her departure. She’d existed as a living monument to her own shortcomings, and neither her mother nor her father had been able to stand looking at her for long. She doubted either of them had ever even known of her death, and she was certain they’d never been made aware of her rebirth. It left her with an ache that Oliver had soothed until he didn’t, until he was gone, too.

She’d imagined him much in the same way she’d imagined her parents, after that — maybe a little sad to lose her, but relieved that the whirlwind of problems that Kit brought along with her joined her in her departure. It was easier not to ache for someone you knew wasn’t aching for you. It was easy not to let yourself mourn when you knew the person you missed didn’t feel the same way. She’d held onto that feeling for so long, been so sure that it helped.

And all along, she’d been wrong. All along, he’d been looking for her, been grieving her. Kit wished she hadn’t come here.

“Not like hunters leave bodies around for the cops to find, even when there are bodies leftover.” She shrugged, waving a hand in a way that was nonchalant and casual and nothing at all like the storm of emotion raging in her chest. Why had he wasted his time like that? Why was he telling her about it? Didn’t he know it was simpler if neither of them cared at all? Didn’t he know it hurt less? Kit had dedicated the entirety of this new life to not caring, had made sure that she was someone who let everything roll off her back because she’d seen what happened when she let things affect her. She’d felt it. She’d spent lifetimes loving someone who would leave her the moment she wasn’t what he remembered her to be. Didn’t Oliver understand that? Didn’t he know what he was opening himself up to here? She looked down at her hands, absently picking at her cuticles as if she felt nothing instead of everything.

“I’m surprised you didn’t end up taking half those babies home anyway.” There was a practiced lightness to her tone. She was good at pretending to be something she wasn’t. Even if she was no longer a standard siren, with their ability to conform themselves into whatever people desired them to be, she still remembered the drill. “Where’d you go, after?” She wondered how close they’d been to one another, after that life. When she’d been a writhing newborn, or a clumsy toddler, or an angry teenager, how far away had Oliver been? Could she have bumped into him on the street one day, if things had been just a little different? He was the only one left who’d recognize her at every stage. What would he have done?

He asked about her lives after, and she clicked her tongue. “Two,” she replied, “including this one. So I guess you didn’t miss much.”

—

“I know, I supposed I was hoping that they would have messed up, or even that maybe you got away but died of your injuries or…something,” Oliver explained. He was aware of how Hunters worked, he knew how ruthless they could be and how they rarely left bodies behind. However, he had needed something to cling onto, there was a desperate, almost animalistic part of himself that had been at the forefront of the search for Katie. Even if they weren’t related by blood; Oliver had raised her from when she hatched. He wondered more than once if this was how his parents had felt as well, raising him after they found him under a tree. How they learned to live with his leshy powers aligned with how Oliver learned to live with Katie’s phoenix abilities. However, he was alone in the grief of losing a child. It wasn’t something that his parents had ever taught him how to deal with. The age that others took him to be made things tricky as well. The emotional turmoil that he had been experiencing made it so his older age glamor (already a finicky thing) was hard to control. Nobody would believe him if he went to a grief group and said his daughter died in her twenties when he appeared to be that same age after all.

His eyes harden, his gaze skirting to the floor again. “I don’t…I think there's a reason that Leshy’s can’t have biological children. I went against that when I raised you. I didn’t want to put any other child in the same danger that I put you in.” Not that he hadn’t thought about it. But the idea of opening his heart again for a child, one that would presumably be mortal, made him fear having to watch another child of his die. He wasn’t sure if he could handle going through that again.

“I went to NYC for a while; and then went abroad to China after that; then came back to the US and bounced around the south a bit before coming back here in 2019.” Oliver could mention the real reason he came back, the issue with his powers; his possible impending death. However, he doesn’t want to add another log of trauma to the fire that is already burning between them. There’s nothing Katie can do after all, and there’s no reason to give her the guilt of that fact with this knowledge.

So two lives in 58 years, with her looking to be in her late 20s now. Oliver didn’t love that math; with it meaning that Katie died relatively young even in the life span that he wasn’t around. “I missed enough.” Oliver whispers, almost more to himself than to her before sighing. “How long do you think you’ll be sticking around town for?”

—

Hope was such a dangerous thing, wasn’t it? For years, Kit had nourished hers. She’d allowed it to drive her to do terrible things, because the hope told her that it’d be worth it in the end. Hope drove her to become something terrible, to carry that terror from one lifetime to the next over and over and over again. Hope found her a necromancer, rose Ezra from the dead. Hope curled around her like a tangible thing and died against her skin the moment he told her he couldn’t excuse what she’d done for him.

Had it done the same for Oliver? Had his hope become a noose just as hers had, strangled him on his want? He’d looked for her long after he likely should have given up, long after anyone else would have. How long had that hope lengthened pain that might have faded without it? How long had he made things worse for himself with foolish optimism? She wanted to hate him. She wanted to judge him, to write him off, to think him foolish, but it was hard to do. Hadn’t Kit fallen for the same trap a hundred times over? Hadn’t she let hope kill her time and time again? Maybe he’d rubbed off on her, or she’d rubbed off on him. Maybe they’d made things worse for one another along the way.

She looked away as he talked about danger, as if he was a bigger threat to her safety than she had been. “Most of the trouble I got into was my own,” she offered, like an olive branch. “I think I would have been worse off without you, for what it’s worth.” The lifetime where he’d raised her had certainly been one of her most stable in terms of childhood. Those that preceded it, and even those that came after it had been harder. Bouncing between foster homes, living with people who didn’t quite care the way they should have. Kit had never thought much of it one way or another — as a phoenix, she viewed childhood as a laughably temporary thing — but it was impossible to deny that the one she’d spent with Oliver was better. Even the end had been far from her worst death.

He went on, giving her a rundown of where he’d been and what he’d been up to since her death. New York, China, the south, here. Did any of it make a difference? Would it make him feel better or worse to admit they’d been close a few times before now? She decided to keep it to herself either way. “Hell of a place to settle,” she commented. “I’d heard rumors about this town, but… don’t think anything can really prepare you for the real thing.” Wicked’s Rest was the kind of place a person had to see to believe, even if the person in question lived multiple lifetimes by burning herself to ash upon each death.

She knew he was doing the math in his head, looking at her and imagining the death between the last one and now. She had no intention of telling him about it. She told herself it was for his sake, but she knew it was for her own. There were few things Kit wanted to relive less than the death that birthed her into her current lifetime. Instead of commenting, she moved on to the next topic with another shrug. “Not sure. I got a job at the hospital here, but… I’m not sure how much I like this town. You know me — I like to stay away from the danger.”

—

Oliver bites down on his tongue, the words ‘I should have been able to stop you from getting into that trouble’ dying before they get the chance to come out. He knows that it’s not true, it’s not as if he would have ever been able to, or even ever wanted to control Katie. Her drive was one thing that Oliver had always appreciated, although he had also grown to fear for her because of it. That drive had taken Katie down a path that Oliver feared, one that he couldn’t go down with her. He remembered the fight that they had been in right before her…death. There were questions that he didn’t think he wanted answered, ones that surrounded him if she went farther down that path after they parted ways. Instead, he gave a non-committal hum.

Her comment that she would have been worse off without him made an unexpected amount of emotion rush through him, filtering through his cracked and scabbed-over heart; maybe melding a piece or two. Oliver’s eyes flickered up to one of the lights that he had turned on. Now wasn’t the time for tears after all; he had a feeling that it would only make Katie uncomfortable. Children never enjoyed watching their parents cry after all. Instead, he took a breath and gave a small nod, swallowing down the emotion before it can reach the surface. “I feel the same.” Raising her had caused a lot of heartache, but it had also brought a lot of joy and experiences that Oliver would not have had otherwise. He had become a better person because of the time that he spent with Katie.

“Ha, yeah, it certainly has its charms.” Oliver laughs weakly. “It’s where I started out though, figured I should probably come home at some point.” Was there another, darker reason that he came back? Yes but now wasn’t the time for that conversation. Better to keep the conversation light and easy-going. “Ah, yeah, probably not the best place to be if you don’t want to be around some… strange things happening.” He shifted his weight from one foot to the other. He wouldn’t blame her if she left, he wanted her to be safe after all and if there was one thing that was clear; it was that Wicked’s Rest was not the place for that. However, the idea of her leaving after he just found her again made him feel almost ill. “Though, if you keep your head down, you can normally stay out of things easily enough” Unfortunately, neither of them were very good at following the words that he was saying.

—

She gave him a dubious look in response to the affirmation that his life, too, had been made easier by her presence, though she didn’t voice the doubt. She had a feeling it was categorically untrue, but saying as much wouldn’t be particularly productive. Oliver would argue, and Kit was incapable of not arguing back when someone disagreed with her, and it would dissolve into bickering that would do neither of them any sort of good. Privately, though, she knew he was lying. Kit hadn’t made Oliver’s life any easier with her presence; if anything, she’d done the opposite. She was stubborn and set in her ways, refused to listen to anyone who didn’t say what she wanted to hear. She’d made his life more difficult. She’d broken his heart, in the end. She knew that.

But maybe that was what children were supposed to do. Kit had never even entertained the idea of having any of her own. She didn’t think she’d be a particularly good mother, and she didn’t know enough about how the phoenix gene was passed down to feel comfortable risking giving birth to something more mortal than she was. She hated loving anything she knew she’d lose, and she was too selfish to entertain the thought of loving something more than herself, anyway. So maybe her behavior was something parents expected of their children. Kit would never quite know for certain.

“Charms. That’s one way of putting it.” But it was clear that Oliver liked this place, and maybe that was enough to make Kit dislike it a little less. Was a place less terrible if someone you loved had come from it? Wicked’s Rest was uncomfortably action-packed, but it had shaped Oliver into the man who raised her once, into someone who, in turn, shaped her. If this place was a part of Oliver, and Oliver was a part of her, was Wicked’s Rest etched into her bones, too? She wasn’t sure how she felt about the idea of it. “You know I’ve never been good at keeping my head down.”

—

Oliver noted Katie’s expression but chose not to question her. He had said his peace; if she had questions or thoughts on it, then she was welcome to bring them up. It didn’t surprise him when she didn’t, though. They had found a semblance of peace between them right now, and Oliver was pretty sure that neither of them wanted to disrupt that. They had always been good at arguing, after all. Oliver felt it was more because of them being essentially family than anything. Their energies were different but had become similar enough over the lifetime they shared; had now returned to being more different than similar in their time apart. It was a bit sad in a way, the puzzle pieces no longer fitting perfectly together.

He grinned at her statement, “No I suppose you aren’t. However, maybe now is your chance to try it out.” Oliver had a feeling that it would never be something that Katie succeeded in. She was a curious creature after all, and Wicked’s Rest had many avenues for exploration. “If it gets to be too much, it’s not like anyone would judge you if you decided to leave. It’s not the place for everyone after all.” He runs a hand through his hair “You could always come back for visits and stuff too, in case you’ve made connections here and all.” Oliver adds quickly, not wanting to come off as telling her what to do or making her think that he wants her to leave. Quite the opposite. He had just found her again after so long, he knew that it would hurt for her to leave again. At least this time, he would know she was alive.

—

She gave him a look that said more than she could manage with her words. Usually, Kit was good at talking. She could spout off whatever she wanted as long as it didn’t mean anything. She could tell a thousand jokes, make light of any situation because none of it mattered, anyway. Most of the people she spoke to would be long gone by the time she started her next life, and this one was as fleeting as the last, so what did it matter? But it was different with Oliver. Everything was different with Oliver. She couldn’t make light of things the way she would have if he were a stranger, couldn’t turn her trauma into a joke the way she might have if he were anyone else, because Oliver would see through that. With everyone else, her mask was impenetrable. With Oliver, it was a windowpane. She was never sure how to feel about that.

So it was a relief, almost, when he was the one to bring up leaving. Kit had already been thinking about it, already been considering the idea of getting out. She wasn’t one to face danger head on; she preferred to run from it, to throw someone else in its path if it meant it was slower to find her. But she’d have felt guilty leaving him without a word, especially after their last separation. (And she hated that. She hated feeling guilty.) She offered him a small smile, a nod. “I’m thinking this might not be the place for me,” she admitted. “But… I wouldn’t cut off contact or anything. 21st century bonus, we’ve got the internet now! Cell phones, the whole nine yards. I could teach you how to FaceTime.” Did he know how to FaceTime? There was no way, right? He was, like, a hundred years old. Kit was sure he probably accidentally put his thumb in front of the camera. She smiled fondly at the thought.

—

Oliver gave a small shrug at her admittance that she didn't think she would be sticking around Wicked’s Rest. It made sense, even if he didn’t like it. Wicked’s Rest wasn’t exactly a place to be if you were an immortal/immortal adjacent; not with the general weirdness of the area and the prying eyes of those who stayed here. There was a reason that he had left in the first place and a reason that he had stayed away as long as he did. He may have found a new home for himself here, but he would never judge anyone for choosing to leave. It would be hard to lose her again soon after finding her, but it was her life. If anything, Oliver would be happy for Katie to go out and follow the path she had forged. He would always worry about her, the choices that she had made, and if she was still going down the darkened path that she had been dancing with in the previous life; but in the end, it wasn’t up to him.

That didn’t stop him from feeling a sense of relief when she said she wouldn’t cut off contact with him. “I’m glad to hear that.” He smiles softly, a bubble of emotion breaking free to make his eyes water ever so slightly. Oliver uses it as an excuse to laugh at her jab about FaceTime. “I know how to FaceTime!” Well, he knows how to click the buttons (thanks to Emily, someone he had met about a decade ago) but it wasn’t a function that he used all that often. He wasn’t the best at making sure the screen was facing the right way, or that he was actually in frame, or he was close enough for the other person to hear him. Katie didn’t need to know all that right this second though.

“I think I have some brownies from one of the local bakeries, what kind of drink do you want?” Oliver asked, already walking towards the kitchen. It struck him how normal of a conversation this one, words that he may have said when Katie had just returned from school, or a night out. The two of them may never have the same kind of relationship they once did; but even from the ashes of their old one; a new one could be formed.

#oliver fox #oliver: reunion music #wickedswriting

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fromnewashes · 10 days ago

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TIMING: recent. LOCATION: ??? we're just not sure. PARTIES: @nicsalazar & @fromnewashes SUMMARY: when nicole and kit both happen to touch the same weird altar, they have to work together to deal with the consequences. CONTENT WARNINGS: none!

Memories of her first life had always been hazy and uncertain. Sometimes, she wasn’t sure which of them were real and which she’d invented for herself. She thought she remembered her mother, at one point in her childhood, issuing a warning about curiosity and cats and the unkind fate it often wrought. Even as a child, Kit had been swift to disregard the warning. Curiosity might have killed the cat, but Kit was a bird and birds could fly away.

(It didn’t matter if flying away had done little to spare her brother his fate, didn’t matter that she herself had burned to death in a blaze set by her own inability to leave well enough alone, didn’t matter that she spent lifetimes satiating her curiosity in a way that now had her on everyone’s shit list. Kit was nothing if not stubborn; she’d never been good at listening.)

So, yeah, when she saw a weird altar near her apartment on her way home from work, she approached it. This town was fucking wild with all the cults and shit, and Kit wanted to know everything there was to know about all of it. She studied the altar carefully, looking at the strange symbols carved into it. And, okay, sure, maybe she should have known better than to touch it, but it was there and it was an altar and she wasn’t, like, queen of self control or whatever.

Still, the regret was pretty instantaneous when she touched the altar and was transported into a dark room that looked something like a movie theater with no screen. Groaning, Kit allowed herself to collapse into one of the plush chairs behind her. “Oh, this spooky altar is so getting a one star Yelp rating!” Her voice echoed through the space. As it stopped, there was a small pop, and… someone else was here. Great! Kit rose back to her feet.

—

Shouldn’t have touched the damn thing. Shouldn’t have— Too fucking late, of course. Nicole only reached for the structure with the intention to move it from where it was blocking her path. Knowing it could’ve been a hindrance for others as well. Little kids, old folks who could trip on it. Why not move it a few inches to the left? The altar would be harmless to those walking down the street if that small change was made. She took it upon herself.

A minute later she was— where the fuck was she?

A dark room. Nicole was immersed in darkness. Her vision didn’t adjust to it. Was it a dream? Was it— what was it? She didn’t comprehend how it was possible to be in one place then transported somewhere else in a matter of seconds. A dream was the most rational explanation, though she’d never had the kind of vivid dream she could smell, or overthink before. A distant scent of smoke slowly wafted to her nostrils, and Nicole ambled around in the dark, searching for the culprit. She was uncertain if she was advancing forward or moving in circles, but staying still was not something she would consider. Dreams ended eventually, no? The more things occurred, the quicker it would be over. She hoped whatever the fuck this situation was, it followed a similar logic.

“Fuck!” She swallowed a scream when her lower leg connected with a hard surface, but the sound of her voice ricocheted against the walls of the room, vaguely revealing the depth of the space she was in. Still couldn’t see for shit, though. Blinking the tears of pain away, the room looked different once she looked up. Part of the jaguar wanted to explore. Feline gaze set sight on a woman to her far right. “What’s— who are you?” She asked through clenched teeth, rubbing her shin. Was she also stuck in this… was she part of the dream? “Is this— real?” Fuck, she almost wished she was in a dream. She wouldn’t want to see the light of day if she ever uttered those words to a person.

—

The new person was disoriented, and Kit found herself glad that she had been the first to arrive. She’d been free of prying eyes for the uncertain, undignified process of being transported, which meant she could offer a far kinder first impression of herself. This new challenger got no such grace. Perhaps it was selfish to be happy about this, but… Well, Kit had never been good at the ‘selfless’ act, anyway. She’d learned a long time ago that sometimes, the only person looking out for you was you. Sucked for this lady, but she wasn’t about to waste time feeling bad for a stranger when there were other things to do.

“Welcome to my crib,” she said flatly, holding her hands out. She held the pose for a second before dropping them with a snort. “I’m just kidding. God, actually, who even remembers that show?” She took a step towards the other woman, inspecting her carefully. Her confusion didn’t seem to be an act, which meant that any hope Kit might have had about wrangling some answers from this stranger went up in smoke pretty quickly. Whatever this was, they were in the same boat — the boat where neither of them had any fucking idea what was going on. Yay!

She glanced around the room again with a shrug. “I mean, it’s real as far as I know. And I’m positive I’m real, so if anyone around here isn’t real, it’d be you. And if you’re a figment of my imagination, you’re not one I’ve seen before, so…” She trailed off with another shrug. “Hi. I’m Kit. I touched a weird altar on the street, and now I’m in what looks like a defunct movie theater with a stranger. Isn’t life funny like that?”

—

“This isn’t a—” Nicole frowned, her words cut off by the other adding a punchline to her initial statement. Right. Didn’t she realize they were trapped in an unknown space with no apparent exit door? Wasn’t that a concern? “Don’t remember… whatever that was,” she grumbled with a headshake. She never watched too much TV. Used to being the kid who spent all her energy running around the farm, climbing trees, swimming in the lake. Didn’t exactly get too much time or opportunities to watch TV when she grew older either, with the jaguar fighting to take over. Regardless, she wouldn’t have enjoyed it either, it was the wrong type of distraction.

The woman in front of her certainly looked like she engaged in all of those distractions, however. Too cheery for someone in their predicament. A predicament they found themselves in after getting their hands on a suspicious —she gathered— figure. Nicole clenched her jaw, letting the small pang of annoyance subside. Whether she liked the other woman’s attitude or not, she hoped she would take escaping their situation far more seriously. “Right. And— I’m… not from your imagination, far as I know.” If she was the figment of someone’s imagination wouldn’t they have come up with something… better? More entertaining? Nicole would’ve hoped so. However if the woman believed she was in a sort of dream scenario, she felt much safer maintaining the shift in her human gaze.

“Not sure I find the humor, no,” she shook her head again, the inflection in her voice flat as she hid her growing grievance with the woman. No point in taking it out on her. She could separate her irritation over being in an unknown situation from the person she was stuck with. There was value in facing adversity with a positive outlook, no? She supposed. If that same outlook got them out of the room, then— she wouldn’t complain. “Nicole,” she supplied with a curt nod, once she learned the other’s name. Not that she felt comfortable using it under any circumstances.

“Should get out of here,” she walked forward, examining what looked like a common living room. Chairs, tables, a chimney. Bookshelves. One of those square black and white boards where people put tiny figurin— chess board. A chess board. To her left— a basketball hoop? “Sure you never saw a door?” How the fuck did the furniture get in here?

—

Her new companion didn’t seem to have much of a sense of humor, which was a total drag. If Kit was going to be trapped in a liminal space for a while, she’d like to at least be trapped with someone who could take a joke. Humor was the best distraction from the faint sense of dread she was currently ignoring, the quiet question of whether or not they’d find some way out of here. The fact that it wasn’t just her came as some relief, at least; misery loved company, and so did Kit. If she was going to suffer, she’d prefer not to do it all on her lonesome. The presence of another person also meant that this likely wasn’t a targeted attack, since her companion was a stranger. Little victories!

“Maybe you should look harder,” she replied, shit-eating grin firmly in place on her face. At least she had a name to go with the grumpy face now — Nicole. She’d known plenty of Nicoles throughout her lifetimes. This one ranked above the one who’d tried to take a bite out of her in 1960, but definitely below the one who’d lent her some crayons in this life’s kindergarten. There was still time to rise, though. Maybe Grumpy Nicole had crayons to share, too.

She snorted at Nicole’s suggestion. “Oh, wow. You think we should get out of here? I hadn’t considered that, Nicole, that’s really smart.” She moved forward, inspecting the decorations as the room stretched on some more. A chess board? A basketball hoop? Were those bowling pins? Kit’s brow furrowed, her mind working to put the pieces together. “Maybe we need to play a game,” she suggested. “What are you in the mood for? I’m a firm no on contact sports. I have a doctor’s note.” Or, at least, she could get one. She was a doctor, she’d write a note. Anything to prevent her annoyingly brittle bones from breaking, thank you very much.

—

Curiosity didn’t kill the cat, but it sure as fuck was pissing her off. Cranky as she was beginning to feel, however, Nicole saw the situation for what it was. A mix of fear of the unknown, being trapped who knew where, and the helplessness building in her chest at the lack of help being offered. The extra person, slightly irritating as she was, didn’t change the outcome. “Look harder… where?” She grumbled at the advice, a few seconds passing before she could decode the grin on the other woman’s face. She was— ah, it was a joke. Clever. Nicole’s face was unflinching, deciding whether she wanted to waste time being fun back. “Maybe you have to point me in the direction,” she replied dryly, uncertain where she landed on the being fun choice.

“At least you’re considering it, I see,” she nodded her approval, opting to ignore the sarcasm dripping in the woman’s tone. How was Nicole supposed to believe Kit was taking their predicament seriously whe all she’d heard so far had been witty quips? But, as both their intentions to get out of the room were stated plainly, she let go of her confusion over Kit’s reaction. They would get out of the room. Didn’t matter many more jokes were thrown her way. Kit took in her surroundings in a similar manner, and Nicole watched as the woman seemed to be piecing what she knew so far. Wasn’t much, unfortunately.

The proposal to play a game stirred an uncomfortable feeling in Nicole’s stomach. Yet again confronted with the idea of fun. If she had to play a game in order to be free, the odds were looking piss fucking poor. She wasn’t in the mood for shit like that. She was in the mood to get back to the— fuck. She let out a huff, understanding she was running into a wall. Fine, if a game was required —as Kit conjectured— she could do it. She wanted to get the fuck out of the room soon. Did it look suddenly smaller? Were the walls closing in? The sensation of being caged sped up her heart.

“There’s no ball to play basketball,” she nudged her head to the hoop, then the ground around it. What was the best alternative? Another item to dunk, possibly. Before the thought finished in her head, she spotted a ball of yarn on the couch. Was that— always there? Nicole picked it up, intent on throwing it. There was no throw, however. She couldn’t— her fingers tangled in the yarn, experiencing a kind of relief she hadn’t felt in a long time. She bounced between in her palms, realizing how unlikely it was for the yarn to replace a basketball. No hoop, then. What— “I’m too— not smart enough for chess,” she explained, defensively, before it was brought up. Her cheeks burned as she glanced at the pins. No bowling balls either. Why were there no balls? Was this room supposed to tempt them with what they couldn’t do? “Fuck it. Chess would do— you know it?” She was still kneading the yarn.

—

She got the distinct feeling that Nicole needed to lighten up. If their presence in this room was somehow connected — something Kit suspected to be true given the fact that they were the only two in here despite the fact that odds pointed to more people touching the altar that had landed them here — she wouldn’t have her ‘performance’ graded based on Nicole’s unwillingness to play ball. (Or play… chess, or whatever they were meant to do here. That part, Kit was still figuring out.) The phoenix had little desire to find herself trapped in a strange liminal space for all eternity, and she certainly refused to be trapped with a killjoy. So… step one was going to be getting Nicole to loosen up. Step two was… TBD. Whatever it took to get out of here or whatever. She was focused on step one.

“You’ve really opened my eyes,” she agreed, shit-eating grin firmly in place. If Nicole wanted to play things that way, Kit would play. Maybe if she pushed hard enough, she could get the other woman to look a little less… panicked. After all, Kit wanted out of this and that would be something far easier to achieve if her apparent partner wasn’t too busy freaking out to pull her weight. There were two of them here. That must have been intentional. Either they were meant to work together, or they were supposed to be on opposing sides. It was more beneficial to assume they were meant to work together at first. If the first assumption was wrong, it would be far easier to betray Nicole than it would be to get her to trust her if things went in the opposite direction.

So far, all evidence pointed towards the pair of them needing to play one (or more) of the games laid out for them in order to be granted their freedom. Kit was good at games. Sure, her foster sister had once accused her of being so competitive that made games less fun for everyone around her, but being good at games meant being competitive. Having no drive to win usually meant losing. And Kit didn’t lose.

“I don’t like basketball, anyway,” she replied, waving dismissively towards the hoop. Nicole preoccupied herself with a ball of yarn, and Kit turned to watch with a curious expression. She understood the chess board. She understood the basketball hoop, even without a ball to toss in it. She didn’t understand the yarn. It didn’t seem to be meant for the hoop, so… “You don’t think we’re supposed to knit something, do you? I’ve never had the patience for knitting.” The only time she’d ever tried it, the hat she’d been trying to make had come out infuriatingly lumpy. That had been two lifetimes ago, but she’d sworn off it anyway. “I know chess,” she confirmed. “I’m good at chess. It’s not really about smarts, more… strategy. It helps to be able to read people, too. If you can trick the other person into making certain moves, you can beat them without even trying.” She paused, realizing this wasn’t really helpful. “But I’m not sure who we’re meant to be playing chess against. Each other? It doesn’t seem right.”

—

“It’s… fine— as far as sports go,” Nicole shrugged, glancing at Kit, “better ones exist,” she clarified, suddenly in the mood for talking. There was never a sport she didn’t wish to try growing up. Though her speed led her to track and field, where she found plenty of joy and accolades, there were other physical activities she filled her time with. Volleyball, when a team was created in high school. She swam too, another instance of her supernatural gifts giving her an advantage. Even from a spectator's point of view, there was soccer. Her family gathered around the TV to watch the leagues on the weekend. The memory tugged the corners of her mouth. She wasn’t gonna talk about it, however. Didn’t think Kit was a person who enjoyed sports. She seemed adamant from the beginning to skip any attempt at basketball. It was a shame, out of all the options presented to them, basketball was by far, the least annoying.

Prompted by Kit’s question, Nicole studied the yarn in her hands. Wondering if there was more to its sudden appearance than a simple quirk in the room’s ongoing mystery. “If that’s— we’d be here for a while, yeah. Never done it either. Would probably be worthless,” shit like that took hours, didn’t it? She had an aunt who used to knit, would come over for the holidays with sweaters, hats and scarves to gift the kids. Nicole paid less attention to the knitting and more to the annoying tarot reading she liked doing so much, though.

Pushing the memories of her aunt away, she searched around for knitting sticks, stupidly hopeful that at least one alternative offered to them would have the entire set of tools needed for them to complete it. No such luck. No balls for the hoop or the pins. No sticks for the yarn. She continued kneading the ball, relieving some of the stress and approached the coffee table where the chess board was. Kit knew chess, should that be the key to freedom. It filled Nicole with faint optimism. “Can’t exactly read each other in a dark room,” she pointed out. Not that she was letting a stranger read her in any sort of way. She barely allowed her friends to do so. Chess made her as apprehensive as poker did, and she never played poker either. “How do you force a person to make a move…” she trailed off, slight disbelief not so hidden in her tone.

Regardless, Kit didn’t believe a match of— a game of chess was the answer to their problem. “If we’re not meant to play each other, then who? Is this— no one else is out there,” that didn’t require any astute deduction to figure out. Only the two of them, alone in a dark space. She set the ball of yarn on one of the seats, moving toward the bookshelf. Why hadn’t they searched for a key? That was likely the easier way to get out. People often hid things in books, didn’t they? And— on a more intellectual level, sometimes books had answers to hard questions.

—

“You seem like the sporty type,” she commented, trying to… she wasn’t sure. Break the ice? They were stuck here together, for the time being; they were probably going to have to work together to get out. They might as well be friendly, right? And Kit could do that, Kit was good at that. As long as it was all surface level, she was great with people. She’d learned how to make most people like her well enough to not want to kill her, learned how to get people on her side enough to feel the need to protect her when someone else did want to see her dead. If she needed Nicole to like her, Nicole would like her. At least for however long it took them both to get out of here; at least until the effort of making Nicole like her was outweighed by the inconvenience of keeping it up. “I was never really into sports. I’m more of a ‘I only run if something’s chasing me’ girlie.” She flashed a grin.

Was the yarn another potential point of connection? Kit hadn’t been lying when she’d said it was never a hobby she’d taken to, and Nicole didn’t seem like someone who’d be familiar with it, either. She was holding the yarn more like a cat, kneading at it in a way that didn’t exactly imply a great familiarity. She confirmed her inability to knit, and Kit nodded. “Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that, then. I wouldn’t even know where to begin. And I’m not sure we can get any YouTube tutorials working down here. Up here? In here? Wherever here is.” She shrugged, waving a hand dismissively. It didn’t matter much, did it? Wherever here was, she had no intention of being here for long.

Smiling faintly, she shrugged again. “It’s not just about seeing somebody. You can feel people, if you try hard enough, right? The shift in the air around them.” And the heat radiating from their skin. People tended to flush a little when they were overwhelmed; it wasn’t typically noticeable, but when you knew heat as well as Kit did, you could pick up on it with enough effort. Chess games weren’t typically worth the effort, but this one could be. “It’s easy to get someone to make a move. You set them up in a way that makes them think it’s their idea. Let them think they’re winning, doing something you don’t want them to do. Lure them into a trap by using their own confidence against them. Then you hit them with the checkmate.” That was what she’d always liked about games of strategy — not the game itself, but the path to victory. The way of manipulating someone into doing exactly what you needed them to do. She was doing it to Nicole right now, kind of; in this case, though, she was only trying to get the other woman to loosen up a little. Hardly the kind of manipulation Nicole could rightly be angry about, right?

“Maybe whoever put us here to begin with,” she suggested thoughtfully, walking over to the looming chessboard. “Maybe we make a move, then they do. I don’t know. I’ve never been trapped in a liminal space by a street altar and forced to play chess before, so I’m kind of winging it here. You got any other ideas?” She followed Nicole’s gaze to the bookshelf. “You think there’s something there?”

—

Nicole stared at Kit with a blank expression on her partially shifted face. What did she mean? Oftentimes, people used that as a compliment. She was active, she was athletic. She cared about maintaining healthy habits. Exercising, shit like that. It wasn’t what unnerved her, however. She was sporty, from where she looked at it, but it wasn’t obvious. What did it mean, when the observation came from someone who met her five seconds ago? Was she so easily read? So quickly perceived? Nicole didn’t like that. If anything, her stomach filled with dread at the concept. She didn’t want to ask why Kit thought so. She only wanted to not be stuck in the room anymore. Didn’t have much of a choice, though. “Not gonna do a good job running from someone if your body’s not used to it, y’know?” On a chase, especially. A cramp in the first minute from lack of acclimatization and Kit was done for. She understood, however, despite her initial inclination to take her words literally, that Kit was joking. Not in a way Nicole found entertaining, no. But a joke all the same. “Hope we don’t have to run out of here…” she trailed off with a dry drawl.

She disregarded her comments about YouTube tutorials as well, though part of her message stayed with her. YouTube. Phones. Signal. She reached for her phone, screen lighting up to reveal no service. GPS didn’t work either. Well, shit. Wherever the fuck they were, she began questioning whether it even existed. “No. Afraid it’s just us here,” she confirmed, shoving the device back into her jacket. It was the most solid confirmation that no one would come help them out.

From her position by the bookshelf, Nicole listened as Kit explained her views on chess. Rather, what made it a strategy game. She was thankful for the distance she’d put between them, because none of the words being said sounded reassuring. She wasn’t interested in feeling anyone’s air around them change, her preference for keeping as much personal space as possible made her skin crawl at the thought. She pulled up the book with the largest spine out of the bookshelf, figuring the more words, the better, no? Why would a book be long if it didn’t have important things to say? She pondered on Kit’s words, still. “That might work on confident people. You got the rest of us to manipulate…” Though manipulating stupid people was likely easy to achieve as well. What about those who were crippled with second-guessing?

An altar put them in the room, Nicole wanted to interject. She doubted it had any ulterior motives. Or it knew how to play chess. But— who put the altar there in the first place? It was a decent point. Bullshit trickery of magic origin? Nicole felt like she could almost grasp the answer to that question, but she was missing something. “Then make a move,” she suggested. “We even have pieces at all?” If they didn’t have balls for sports, or sticks for the yarn— she wasn’t sure the chessboard would offer them a chance. She wanted to be wrong, however. She turned to the bookshelf, hoping she would be pulled away from it by the sound of something exploding or a door opening, something. The book in her hand consisted of mostly blank pages. But there were symbols scribbled on some pages. One on each page. No way of discerning whether they were the result of the previous prisoner being bored out of their fucking mind or real information they needed to decipher. “Sometimes bookshelves lead to secret openings— I think.” She proceeded to drop the book in her hand. Then another one. And another. Waiting for a click. Or even better, a key stuffed somewhere.

—

“Depends on what’s chasing you. Desperation can make people a lot quicker than they might be on their own!” Her tone remained jovial, light in a way that didn’t entirely match the words themselves. Kit had always been good at that, at contradicting herself in a way that allowed her to pretend she was utterly and entirely in control. When she tried hard enough, she could sometimes manage to convince herself of as much, too. It was comforting, in moments like this one. There were few things Kit hated more than feeling as though control was something outside of her grasp, some impossible thing to hold onto. It was the kind of sensation that always took her back to the worst moments; to Ezra’s death, to the spiral that followed it, to countless deaths of her own where she’d been made a victim instead of a perpetrator. It wasn’t the kind of thing she liked to remember; it wasn’t the kind of thing she liked to feel. So she kept her tone light and she pretended it changed her situation. She kept her town light, and she told herself it meant something more than it did. It helped more than she’d admit to. “I’m sure we can make it out of this mess without having to run,” she replied with a wave of her hand. Already, she was trying to figure out how she’d gain the upper hand if a situation arose where she had to outrun Nicole for some reason or another. Perhaps she could throw phoenix fire at the other woman’s feet to slow her down.

Unsurprisingly, Nicole confirmed that cell phone service was spotty, to say the least. Kit glanced down at her own phone and its terrible lack of bars with a sigh. “Could have guessed as much,” she said mournfully. “This thing would be blowing up otherwise. Lots of calls, lots of texts.” All from acquaintances and coworkers, of course; Kit had taken great care not to make any actual friends in Wicked’s Rest. It would serve her better, she knew.

Smiling faintly, Kit walked around the chessboard looking for more clues. “Unconfident people are even easier to manipulate,” she replied. “Make them second guess themselves, and even if they know the right move, they won’t make it.” She’d always been good at getting people to do precisely what she wanted them to do. She’d honed the skill for lifetimes, nurtured it and let it grow into some monstrous thing that served only her. It was like armor, the manipulation tactics she stroked like a dog; it kept anything from touching her. Even telling Nicole the tricks of the trade wouldn’t keep her from manipulating the other woman the moment the benefit of doing so outweighed any risk. Kit was good at doing what was best for her; collateral damage didn’t often factor into the equation.

Still standing in front of the chessboard — which was absent of any pieces — Kit hummed. “Technically, you don’t need pieces to play chess,” she replied. “You just need to be able to picture it. Pawn to e4?” She called the move out to the empty room. It echoed, but there was no response. Nothing changed with the chessboard, either, and Kit sighed in quiet defeat. “All right, chess might not be the game,” she relented. She crossed the room to the bookshelf, curiosity pulling her towards the other woman as she flipped through the pages. Peering over her shoulder at the book in her hands, she clicked her tongue. “Think the symbols mean anything?” They weren’t any language Kit recognized, and her ego insisted that meant they weren’t any human language at all. “A hidden bookshelf passage is a little Scooby Doo, isn’t it?” But she pulled at a few books of her own, just in case.

—

Nicole dragged her eyes back to Kit, looking at her in silent contemplation. What did she know about desperation? Her flippant tone would’ve angered Nicole if not for the fact that it was the most revealing thing she’d said thus far. She lingered, debating whether to comment on Kit’s words or let it pass like every other futile attempt by the woman to lighten the mood. Though, what was there to say about desperation? The words were stuck in her throat, pounding heavily, until they dissolved into emotion. Words got nothing on the faint memory of the blade sinking in her shoulder blade, of her sister’s cries, of the terror in her brother’s eyes. Yeah, words to describe that gutting sensation were yet to be invented. She looked away, swallowing against the knot in her throat before she could speak. “Sure. You got a lot of faith in us.” It didn’t matter if escaping came down to running. It was the least scary option, all she knew how to do. She’d find a way to bring Kit along as well.

Nicole didn’t often get a good read on people, but she believed Kit when she boasted about her popularity. It appeared quite obvious that the other woman had an outspoken personality. The kind that, perhaps in different circumstances, Nicole would’ve found interesting. “Right,” Kit’s friendliness could work in their favor, however. Maybe one of her friends was out there missing her, worrying about her absence on social media, already sending a search party after her. Nicole would have to wait slightly longer for that kind of concern over her to arise. Going missing for four years had a way of removing that sense of urgency in those who knew her.

Kit’s confidence was unnerving, as was her insistence that she knew how people worked. Nicole took a second to recognize what could’ve been jealousy beating in her chest. She fucking wished. Life would be much simpler if she had an inkling of what people thought and felt most of the time. If she understood cues, or read people the way Kit claimed to do. She would’ve lost a chess game to Kit, she reckoned. Not only because of her inability to play the game, but because of her reluctance to follow her gut instincts. Hard to trust those when most of the time they were hijacked by anxiety. She conceded Kit’s argument with a curt nod, following the girl as she moved to the chessboard. As expected, nothing came out of it. Only the echo of Kit’s command, followed by the silent defeat. Nicole glanced down at the book in her hands, and its indecipherable writing.

She jolted when Kit’s voice came from behind her, stiffening at the closeness. Whatever happened to fucking personal space? Though, something about the warmth was comforting, akin to a fireplace. The impulse to lie down with her ball of yarn was foreign and unexplainable. Why the fuck would she feel like doing that when she was trapped in a dark room with no exit was beyond her. She shook her head, hoping it would spark common sense within her. The next book she threw on the ground whistled all the way down. Her brows furrowed. Was that— did the book make the sound, or was it Kit? She turned around frowning at the woman. But no— she looked innocent. Behind her, another book… jumped. Nicole was nowhere near to touch it, yet it launched out of the bookshelf, making a noise that could only be described as ‘wee!’ ’How the fu— “Uh…” looking down at the floor, there were enough books scattered around to trip on them. No secret passage unlocked, though. “Maybe not the bookshelf, no— something’s wrong with the books, no?” she stared at one of the covers, hoping an answer could magically come to her. Was Kit right and the symbols were the clue? Crouching down, she opened one of the books on the page with the scribbles. But before she could set it down and work on it, the fucking thing slipped out of her hands, flying toward the basketball hoop. When it dunked, the thing lay motionless underneath. “Fuck’s sake”.

—

Something shifted on Nicole’s face, and it was interesting. If there was one thing Kit had learned across her many lifetimes, it was that every person was a labyrinth. They were full of twists and turns that you could get lost in if you weren’t careful enough. Nicole was displaying part of her maze now, but it was such a small one. If Kit stepped inside, how many dead ends would she find before she made it to the center? How many times would she get lost before solving the maze? She didn’t have time to find out, even if part of her was curious. You lived longer if you avoided the labyrinth. She’d learned that, too. “Well, I’ve never let me down yet,” she joked, and it wasn’t true but Nicole didn’t know it. “And you seem… responsible. Smart. I think with the two of us together, we can figure this shit out. Girl power or whatever, right?” She waved a hand flippantly. Kit didn’t trust Nicole nearly as much as she was claiming to, but she knew how to use the resources available to her and right now, Nicole was one of those resources. Two heads were better than one, even if one head was plenty smart and capable on its own.

The second head in this equation wasn’t much of a talker. Kit found herself wishing Nicole was chattier, if only because she didn’t do well with long silences. She liked to fill the empty spaces with voices, liked to have sounds echoing to remind her that everything was fine, that she wasn’t in danger. When home alone, she kept the television running to avoid the quiet. If Nicole wouldn’t say much, she’d fill it here by talking twice as much herself. “What about you? Anybody trying to call you that we should know about?” She pressed, trying to initiate more conversation.

Maybe she’d have more success with that than she had with the chess game. It wasn’t entirely surprising that her attempt to start a game had gone unanswered; nothing about the room they were in made her suspect that they were being actively watched, be it by camera or by some supernatural force. Still, part of her had hoped it would be as easy as winning a chess match. If the answer was something she already knew, there’d be less need to throw herself into finding it, less chance of slipping into the same brand of obsession that had ended her last life. The answer wasn’t written on the wall here, though; they were going to have to find it.

But it looked like Nicole had pointed them in… a direction. Kit wasn’t sure yet if it was the right one, but it seemed promising. After all, the book launching itself across the room was different, and different probably meant good in a place where everything else seemed intent on staying the same. “Something’s definitely up with the books,” she agreed with a grin. “Not just that one, I’m betting. We need to find more of those symbols! Maybe it’s a cipher or a code. Are you any good at decryption?” Kit was. She’d gone through a phase back when she was Kate, had written everything in secret languages and invented ciphers for other people to break. It had been a more productive hobby than the whole ‘torturing the undead’ thing, as it turned out! Nobody had ever murdered her for making ciphers. She watched the book dunk itself. “You should catch that,” she commented, busying herself with the shelf. “You’re fast, right?”

—

Nicole had let herself down several times. Hadn’t stopped since she was seventeen. Wasn’t something she wanted to dwell on in the presence of a stranger, though. That sort of negative spiral was reserved for when she was in the confinement of her home. A home she planned on getting back to as soon as possible. It was the only thing that mattered. “Right,” she repeated, out of habit. She doubted ‘girl power’ had much to do with whether the two of them managed to find the way out, though. Weren’t intelligence and collaboration neutral traits? Though she was aware she lacked one of those, at least she could be a good collaborator. Ignore the jokes and the modern day references that went over her head and focus on the situation at hand.

The personal question caught Nicole off guard. She frowned, wondering if she’d given any indication that she was interested in anything but getting out of the room. Was it so hard to focus on that? “Maybe,” she shrugged, “don’t know” she amended. She knew people cared about her, the days of wondering if she had anyone in her corner were a thing of the past. But her instinct to isolate was persistent, a part of her continued to worry she wasn’t enough to be deemed a friend. Self-doubt could be a crippling thing, whether she’d found ways to move forward or not. “People know I’m usually in the woods, where the reception sucks. Wouldn’t think much of my, uh—silence.” In truth, she understood if they didn’t worry just yet. Bothersome as it was to be stuck in a room with a talkative stranger, no lives were at risk. She wouldn’t want anyone putting their day on hold for her.

With the chessboard giving no indication that it wanted to start a game — and fucking hell if that wasn’t a strange thought in itself— logic dictated they had to join efforts in deciphering what the bookshelf had to offer. Kit, though dejected after the chessboard denied her a game, appeared to fully pivot her attention to the mystery behind the books. Unfortunately, the conversation became much harder to follow for Nicole as result. “What’s a cipher?” Though, it was positive for both of them that Kit knew. She allowed herself to feel a small pang of hope. “What’s— and what’s decryption?” weren’t crypts cemetery shit? More importantly, what could that have to do with… books?

Should’ve known hope could only be a fleeting thing. She didn’t fucking learn, did she? Nicole let out a huff in annoyance, eyes fixed on the book that swung itself down the basketball hoop. Further peeved by Kit’s suggestion. “Got it, yeah” she grumbled, taking a few steps toward the book “what’s me being fast got to do with anything?” she wasn’t planning on running to pick a book. She’d never done that in her life. Returning to Kit’s side with the offending book, she noticed it felt lifeless in her hands. A one off situation? She opened it again, skimming through the pages. She feared if she placed it down, however, it would fly out again. When Nicole landed on the page, she had a reckless thought. What if—

She tore the page of the book, wincing as the more strange sounds came in response. Was it— was the book crying out in pain? Was all that shit in her head? She chucked the useless book away, looking at the symbol in her hand. Now fucking what?

—

There had to have been better people to get stuck in a puzzle room with. People who’d talk more, or tell Kit she was right at every turn, or shower her in compliments as she seamlessly uncovered information and found an escape route using only her substantial wits. Any of those things would have been preferable to Nicole’s obvious uncertainty and awkward vibes. Conversation was hard to keep going under these conditions, and Kit did not want to be left alone with her thoughts. That was never a good vibe, but especially not in a situation like this one, where she felt trapped. (Being trapped always made her think a little about her first death — about flames closing in on her, and doors that wouldn’t open. And it was fine, she was fine, it had been a good thing because it made her immortal, but it wasn’t the most fun memory to live inside, and Kit wanted fun. She preferred that.)

There was some disappointment as Nicole admitted that no one was going to come searching for her, because it might have been nice to know that they had assistance from the ‘outside’ or whatever as well as the two of them working in the room. Kit was under no illusions that anyone would search for her if she disappeared off the face of the planet. She’d designed it that way, had made sure everyone was kept at a respectable distance. Dozens of acquaintances, but no friends. No one who could get close enough to make their inevitable departure ache. It was great until there were moments like this one, when she probably could have used a hand. “What do you hang out in the woods all day for, anyway? That is so not a fun place to hang out. There are bugs in the woods, you know.” And monsters that ate people, but that wasn’t the kind of thing Kit could sprout at random without risking a loss in credibility.

“A cipher is a code,” Kit replied, though she didn’t look up from the shelf as she said it. When she focused, she focused. And right now, thanks to Nicole’s discovery, she was focused on the bookshelf with everything she had. “A decryption is a method of breaking that code. It’s… There are different kinds, but the most common are replacing one letter with another. Like, A becomes Z, B becomes Y, C becomes X. Once you break the code, you just swap the letters and read it. Get it?” She flipped through a book, finding another symbol. “Ha! But… I don’t think these are that. Look at the symbol. It’s short. Not exactly—”

She was cut off as the book launched itself from her hands, flying over to the chessboard to play hopscotch across the squares. Cursing, Kit went after it. “Tearing the pages is a good move!” She agreed, grabbing the book quickly. “These fuckers like to move, don’t they? Yikes.”

—

Nicole huffed, in a manner someone who found something amusing would do. Though she wasn’t planning on admitting that. Kit thought the worst thing about the forest was bugs? All while speaking with a woman with jaguar eyes? Had to be playing it safe, surely. “I work there. Park ranger,” she intoned, slightly more animated than before. “Happen to think it’s better than the town. Less— crowded,” rather, not crowded with the kind of living creature Nicole was terrified of. Humans. “But, uh… Good thing we won’t have to deal with bugs to get out of here, if you’re so worried about them. Got some spray, either way,” she concluded, wondering for a split second if she should’ve asked what the other did for a living. No, she didn’t think either of them were having a good time in this exchange.

It was a pleasant surprise to learn Kit had more than one gear. Some jokes lingered, yes, but Nicole would almost consider the hyperfocused version of Kit going over the symbols an entirely different person. She wished she could’ve talked to this version earlier. Would’ve spared her some crankiness. Kit was intelligent in ways Nicole couldn’t keep up. Her brows furrowed as the other woman answered her question, complicating things in her head. Some of the words, she understood separately, but the meaning behind Kit’s full sentences escaped her. She didn’t have time to break things down slowly. “Uh—not sure I do” she mumbled embarrassed, shaking her head. Why would people need to speak in code? For Nicole, it almost felt like they always had, anyway. “Glad you do, though. Means… you’ll get us out of here.”

If only the books would allow them the time to think. “If not a cipher then—” The tome Kit had in her hands went flying as well, instead of dunking down the basket, it bounced across the chessboard. Nicole’s mouth curved unintentionally, watching Kit curse her way to retrieve the book. Now they both knew what it felt like. “They do. Don’t want us using them for— whatever they’re needed for,” torn page in her hand, Nicole followed Kit toward the table, swiping the chessboard to the ground —not like it served any purpose— and slammed the piece of paper on the surface. The thing writhed underneath her palm, trying to escape once more. “If not a cipher—” she picked up where she was before the book interrupted them. “Then, what? A language? A marker? A… picture?” Were they, possibly, meant to be in a particular order? She looked over at the page on Kit’s book, there wasn’t much similarity in the traces, but it looked as though the same type of ink and pen had been used. Thinking of picking up the rest of the books she’d scattered on the floor, she made the mistake of letting the page under her hand go. The paper crumpled into a ball, and— sure enough, another three points in the hoop. Annoyance bubbled in her chest, but instead of going over for the paper ball, she shuffled back to the pile of books.

She returned carrying most of them, and dropped them with a loud thud on the table. “Start ripping pages”.

—

A park ranger. It was a very small snippet of information to learn about someone, but Kit filed it away all the same. If she’d gotten another kind of doctorate, maybe she could have dissected the implications of such a career, could determine more about Nicole based on the type of person who might wish to work as a park ranger in a town like Wicked’s Rest. But Kit wasn’t that kind of doctor, and her dissections were never the psychological sort. (She’d probably be a lot better off now if they had been.) So she only shrugged, only thought of how Nicole might actually be happy in this liminal space away from crowds. “Hell of a job.” And then, because it seemed awkward not to offer Nicole something in exchange for the information, “I work in the hospital. Lots of crowds there, most days.” More, lately. People were trampling each other to get out of town in a pretty literal sense. “Ugh, don’t say that. Now there’s going to be bugs. I know it.” A small smile played at the corners of her lips. She was almost having fun.

She hummed absently. Nicole wasn’t quite following her explanation, but that wasn’t as big a surprise as it might have seemed. Kit had never been a very good teacher; she’d stopped trying to be one a long time ago. “It’s like… secret languages when you’re a kid. The kind you make up with your friends, or your siblings, or whatever. All someone needs to crack it is to figure out one word in the note. But… this looks more like a puzzle, maybe. Are you any good at jigsaw puzzles?” Nicole seemed like she might be the type to sit alone in her living room working a jigsaw puzzle on the kitchen table… but maybe that was just because she was giving off the vibes of an old lady, who Kit assumed partook in such hobbies.

Of course, to solve a puzzle, the pieces needed to sit still. Kit ripped the page from the book the moment she had it in her hands, a little more viciously than might have been necessary. She did not appreciate being made to run around the room. “Do you think they’re sentient?” The question was one of genuine curiosity. Kit had been working under the assumption that the books were merely enchanted to avoid being opened and read, but Nicole seemed to think the books themselves had thoughts and feelings about the hands on them. Both options seemed just as likely, given their situation. Tearing the pages from the books didn’t stop them moving, which was something to consider, too; the one in Kit’s hand writhed, and the one Nicole held launched itself to the basketball hoop again. “Maybe we need a paperweight,” she said, smoothing her page on the table and sitting on it to keep it in place. “Hand me another book. We’ll get started.”

She flipped through the book Nicole provided her with, finding another page with a symbol and tearing it out, adding that paper to the one she was sitting on. Grabbing another book, she did the same thing. The collection of pages grew beneath her, and the number of books she and Nicole were flipping through shrunk until they’d scoured every last one. “Okay,” Kit sighed, shifting to gather the pages without letting any fly away. “We’ve got our pieces. You ready to solve a puzzle?”

—

Kit certainly didn’t match Nicole’s notion of how a healthcare worker was supposed to behave. She was unsure how or why she had a preconceived notion to begin with. There was no time to ponder on it. Wasn’t Kit’s fault that she thought doctors, nurses and— who else worked there? All looked like serious, professional people in her head. Would’ve been nice to be trapped with someone who did meet Nicole’s expectations, though. Similarly to how Kit likely would’ve preferred someone quick witted, who went along with her humor. Neither of them was getting what they wanted out of this— might as well get over it and move toward a solution. “Ah, sounds like a real nightmare” she grumbled, pressing her lips tightly to get back to a more urgent issue.

Using a secret language as an example was a lot simpler to understand. Why didn’t Kit start with that? Nicole rubbed her jaw, frown deepening when Kit moved from her initial line of thinking to consider the possibility of a puzzle. Fuck, she hated those. Who wanted to spend time sitting doing the same thing for hours? “Not—really my thing” she offered, picking up another book, scanning the pages for drawings. “Not sure I’ve ever finished— Would probably lose pieces,” she shrugged. Not too different from pages flying, Nicole realized. She hated how it validated Kit’s assumption. Though, the brief moment of annoyance aside, a puzzle was not too bad of a task to get through in exchange for her freedom. A lot fucking better than a cipher, at least.

If only they could find the starting point. Nicole stared down at her page, certain that if it was part of a puzzle, it belonged somewhere in the middle. Couldn’t exactly set it down and go from there. Kit’s question broke her out of her thoughts. “Sentient?” she repeated, falling into quiet contemplation. The books had screamed as they toppled down the bookcase, no? They moved on their own too. What exactly did sentient— This was a headache inducing question. Her mind too limited to entertain it. She shook her head, cracking a spine open to show Kit the page she needed to tear. “Don’t know. Would they need a brain to feel? Not sure they got one.” It was a book, after all. Didn’t stop the shriek like noise coming from the pages as Kit ripped the important page.

As they began tearing pages together, Nicole blinked skeptically at the pile of pages gathering under Kit. Hoping they weren’t wasting precious time for nothing. If the books like playing games with them, who was to say this wasn’t exactly where they wanted Nicole and Kit to be? Doing pointless shit when the answer could be elsewhere. They may not be sentient, but Nicole still believed the books were evil. Grumbling back to Kit after getting back from the bowling lane— where one of the pages had rolled toward— Nicole grabbed half of the stash of paper from Kit’s hand. “Right. Solving,” she blew a tense breath, sorting through every symbol in front of her. She had not a fucking clue where to start. She brushed the scribble on the page with her finger, trying to imagine in her head what trace could follow. She set that particular page down on the ground, grabbing the chessboard and using it to press down the edge of the page. Keeping it in place with the weight. Piece of paper still tried to escape, though.

Staring at the rest of the markings for a long moment, Nicole grew frustrated. She wasn’t any closer to finding the piece to connect the page on the ground. “Sure about that puzzle idea?” She wondered through clenched teeth, not lifting her head to see how Kit was doing. Finally, something clicked, as she lingered on a page with a similar flourish at the top. Nicole crouched, fighting against the paper trying to escape her grasp while she tried lining it up to the other one. The resistance alone meant— they were doing the right thing, no? When the pages lined up, right to the torn edges from their own doing, the incomplete ink lit up in a golden flash. “Shit, you may be right.”

—

It was getting clearer and clearer that they likely weren’t going to walk away from this encounter as friends, and that was fine. Kit didn’t particularly need — or want — friends, anyway. She’d learned a long time ago that she was a lot better off on her own. If you cared less, it meant things hurt less. If you never let yourself grow attached to someone’s presence, their absence couldn’t gut you. You wouldn’t ache with it, wouldn’t feel it digging into you like a tangible thing. Caring had doomed her before, might doom her still. Loving Ezra had left ripples that still hadn’t entirely faded, after all. So… not giving a shit about Nicole was a good thing. Not giving a shit about anyone was a good thing. Kit would take care of Kit. She didn’t need friends. She wouldn’t mind allies, but it didn’t need to go any deeper than that.

“Yeah, well, you can be in charge of holding the pages down, then.” Kit had full confidence in her own ability to solve a puzzle… mostly because Kit tended to have full confidence in her ability to do anything and everything she set out to do. She could handle a puzzle set out by someone who liked trapping people in liminal spaces for undetermined reasons, and she could do it a lot easier if the pieces of that puzzle weren’t flying across the room. Maybe two heads made little difference when one of them was a self-proclaimed ‘bad at puzzles’ individual, but two sets of hands wasn’t a bad thing here.

She was a little curious about the sentience of the books, though it didn’t do anything to stop her from tearing the pages. After all, Kit had done far worse to far more sentient things with little regard and little guilt; the books meant very little to her beyond being a means to an end. “That’s the great philosophical question, isn’t it? Can things feel if they don’t experience that feeling in a way we understand? I don’t know the answer, by the way. Nobody does. That’s what fucking sucks about philosophy — it’s all questions, and none of them are the kind you can find an answer to. That’s why I prefer the hard sciences.”

She’d always liked answers that were concrete. It was why she’d spent lifetimes on her experimentations, why she’d continued long after she probably could have called it and just brought Ezra back as planned. Kit liked to know everything. In a way, the idea of a puzzle like this one was fun for her. She just would have preferred solving it without being locked in a room with a stranger, was all.

“What else would it be?” She grumbled, looking at the pages. Surprisingly, it was Nicole who figured out the pattern; Kit was only a little jealous. “Of course I’m right,” she murmured, grabbing another page excitedly. She lined it up with the pattern on the pages Nicole had put together, earning another golden flash. “Shit. Come on, we’ll have this done in no time, okay? Let’s get the fuck out of here.”

—

Weren’t all sciences hard? Nicole grew up with the certainty that all sciences were studied by a very unique type of person. At least to her, who found more joy outdoors, breeze against her skin, than hunched over books. She was missing something, surely — it was often the case with her— between the discussion of book sentience and ciphers, her brain appeared to have gone into overdrive. “Uh— yeah,” she mumbled non-committal, purely out of politeness. Perhaps she shouldn’t have forced Kit into taking a serious stance. While slightly irritating, at least she was able to understand her initial jokes. It became increasingly obvious that Kit had intellect far beyond what Nicole could keep up with, now that they were on equal ground.

They had both put all their energy into completing the puzzle, and the conversation slowed down to scarce, the only way Nicole would ever be of any help. Yes, she could be in charge of holding the pages down, as Kit referred it to. And she did, once it became evident that there was a puzzle to build, she stepped aside to let Kit handle it. Only intervening when the next piece was an obvious one. The sheet grew larger and more resistant to their actions, though in in turn, it became easier to manipulate for two hands. She made sure always to keep something heavy around the edges, to prevent the paper from floating away.

Kit went on solving the puzzle, working faster to recognize patterns than Nicole ever could have, and the drawing spread along the pages like ivy. She couldn’t decipher what the big picture was yet, but the traces consisted of spirals and straight lines. The closer they got to finding every page, the angrier the room got, protesting their progress. There was again, in the back of her mind: The question of sentience. How did the room know? Regardless, it did, a discarded book shooting up and flying across the air with the intention of hitting either of them. She ducked, grabbing Kit’s wrist to lower her to the ground with her. “Can you finish this here?” The sheet of paper jerked beneath them, trying to fly away again, but it was stuck under the weight of the table, the chessboard, and Nicole and Kit’s knees. She wasn’t sure for how long.

More pages fit on the ground, and Nicole racked her brain for any ideas as to what they were solving or how it was meant to aid their escape. The drawing took on a circular, spiral outline, and the hard lines in the middle made it look— was it? Steps? “A staircase?” A two dimensional staircase, on the ground. Ground that shook like an elevator dropping once they were a piece away from completion. “Fuck,” the bookcases toppled to the ground, missing her back by a few inches. “The fuck are we supposed to do with this?” she pointed at the almost finished puzzle, watching Kit line up another piece. It was a staircase, there was no mistaking it anymore. If she chose to suspend disbelief— what the fuck could she do at this point? Should this staircase… lead to an exit? Fuck if she was going to be the first to try, though. It was ridiculous. She struggled to believe it would work. Kit secured the final drawing, right in the middle, and the stair lit up in a soft gold glow. “Should we— should… Go!”

—

Confusion flickered across Nicole’s face, and Kit racked her mind for a moment trying to determine what it was she’d said that could be misinterpreted. She was good with people, most of the time. It was a necessary trait of being a doctor, the kind of thing you had to learn if you didn’t want a thousand complaints about your bedside manner racking up and giving you the reputation of problem child. Dr. House could only get away with the whole ‘asshole to everyone’ thing because he was a fictional white man; things definitely didn’t work like that for people in Kit’s position. But… it was difficult to use her practiced bedside manner on Nicole. It was difficult to understand Nicole, to interpret what it was she was thinking. Kit wanted to chalk it up to the oddness of their situation, but she wasn’t sure she’d find Nicole any easier to deal with in the hospital or on the street on a normal day.

So she focused on the task at hand instead. She kept her hands busy, because that was all she could do. They’d solve this puzzle — Kit through putting the pieces together, Nicole through holding those pieces in place — and they’d get out of here. And they’d probably never see each other again, and Kit liked that. She preferred it that way. People who were impossible to understand the way Nicole was weren’t particularly fun to be around, and Kit rarely wasted her time with things she didn’t find fun unless it was absolutely necessary to do so.

Luckily, the puzzle was a little fun once she got into it. Kit loved puzzles, yearned for the thrill of satisfaction that came with fitting two pieces together and seeing the final picture take place. She didn’t recognize the symbol being formed by this particular puzzle, but she knew she’d spend hours researching it after the fact. Already, she was working to memorize the lines and curves so she could recreate it for her research. It’d be a lot easier to do in her apartment, where no papers were moving around and shooting off in different directions. “Yeah,” she muttered in response to Nicole’s question. “I got it. Don’t worry. I just need one… more…” There.

Once all together, the symbols twisted to form a more familiar shape. Stairs. For a moment, Kit was confused. But then, the stairs were glowing, and the metaphorical pieces clicked into place with the same certainty as the physical ones had. Grabbing Nicole by the arm, she rushed the flat staircase on the ground. “Oh, if this doesn’t work, we’re going to look so stupid,” she muttered. But, thankfully, the staircase didn’t remain two dimensional. She stepped onto it and descended, little by little, with Nicole in tow. The room around them faded, turning first to a pitch black, dark and empty space, and then slowly lighting up into… an alleyway. The last few steps were skipped as Kit jumped to the concrete, her shoes pounding against solid concrete.

—

Nicole had no fucking clue how a two dimensional drawing was supposed to become a legitimate escape route. She let out a low, irritated grumble, agreeing with Kit’s statement. Yeah, they already looked pretty damn stupid standing over a paper sheet waiting to be transported to another dimension. Kit was brave enough to risk another hit to the ego, motioning her descent down the flight of stairs. Nicole watched, disoriented as her perception of depth was tested. It worked, Kit was going down the stairs. How the fuck— A warm hand grabbed her wrist and stopped her from elucubrating any further. Right. Time to get the fuck out of the magical room.

She followed carefully, each step disappearing behind her as they walked down, engulfed by darkness. So much so, that Nicole wasn’t sure if there were any more steps, or if she was simply marching in the same spot. Inky black surroundings gave way to a dim corridor, and eventually what appeared to be an alleyway. One that looked decidedly mundane, like it could be found in the real world. Dumpsters were lined against a greasy wall, so full with trash it scattered onto the concrete. The scent of reheated oil wafted to her nose. In the distance, cars hummed along the streets, drowned by the sound of human chattering close by. They were home, there was no question about it.

Nicole craned her neck back to where they came from, but any trace of ink or book pages had faded. As if it had all been in their heads the whole time. But it wasn’t, she was certain. She wasn’t the type of person who could create fantastical scenarios in her head. No. Despite her reticence to fully process what transpired, it was real. She glanced at Kit, slowly letting everything sink in. Slowly settling back into her awkward self. No more conversation was needed. They had joined efforts for a goal and that was it. That was it. There was an unspoken sentiment of relief, despite the lingering adrenaline pulsing in her veins. “Guess this is it,” she breathed out, dusting the side of her jacket, despite it being perfectly clean.

She shuffled nervously, expecting Kit to go her way. Nicole wasn’t the type of person someone like Kit would’ve become friendly with, and there was no judgment on her part. Nothing but understanding, truly. Far too different personalities to ever mesh. However, “thanks for solving the puzzle,” she shrugged, her tone laced with some finality. “So I’ll— I’m, uh— going this way,” her thumb jutted toward the only exit in the alley. Where else could she go? Fuck. Ignoring the heat in her cheeks, she nodded at Kit to gesture her goodbye and shifted past her. The sound of her footsteps echoed, her figure disappearing as she took a turn left, toward a busy street.

She didn’t glance back to check whether Kit was following a similar direction or not, she had more pressing issues. Where the fuck did she leave her truck?

#nicsalazar #nicole: labyrinth of pages #wickedswriting

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