loftylockjaw

[loftylockjaw]

TIMING: Current LOCATION: 12 Mudpuppy Pt. SUMMARY: Wyatt reaches out to his mother for the first time in seventeen years.

—

It was another cold, dark day out. They’d all been cold and dark, but today felt especially dismal. The rain was coming down and a sinking temperature threatened to turn it into hail. Thunder rolled across the sky, loud and punishing and powerful enough to rattle the windows in their frames. Wyatt sat in front of his fireplace, staring down at a piece of paper in his hand. In the other, his phone, with an unknown number dialed into it. All he needed to do was press the call button, but uncertainty stopped him. The paper trembled in his hand, blue eyes trailing over the image printed on it. Beside the photo were a few paragraphs of text, and a small section of very succinct data. A name, address, phone number, and workplace information. Wyatt huffed out a breath and navigated away from the keypad, instead bringing up his web browser to type in the address of the workplace.

It had its own website, and with some hesitation, he opened it up. Le Chant des Cyprière seemed to be a successful restaurant in the heart of the French Quarter in New Orleans. It was impressive at just a glance, and when he went to read their about page, his heartbeat quickened. It spoke of a young couple’s arduous journey to get their restaurant up on stable footing, and how they struggled for years to be able to afford a permanent space, sometimes cooking out of their own kitchen and setting up a small outdoor eating space for their loyal regulars. 

He could remember those days. He’d been young, only five or six and still learning how to be human when they moved out of the swamp and into the city. He could recall the smell of the food his folks would be constantly cooking, and of course never questioned the coming and going of strangers who sat on their patio and ate, filling the space with warmth and laughter. They were always kind, and many of them came to be like family over the years. He would sometimes play music for them, or sing, or even act out little plays he liked to write. Dinner and a show, they’d say, and they’d clap and cheer, and the young lamia thrived on the attention. His mother promised he could perform at their real restaurant if he wanted, once they had one. 

He flipped back to the phone number he’d punched in and hovered his thumb over the call button, slowly exhaled, then tapped it. It rang three times before being picked up, a familiar voice saying something to someone else in rapid Cajun French before being better directed into the receiver. 

“Bonjour?” Her clipped voice belonged to a person distracted, and Wyatt imagined her in the kitchen of her restaurant, phone pressed between her ear and her shoulder as she bustled about. For a moment, he couldn’t speak around the lump in his throat. 

“... maman?” The other line went quiet for a moment, and he heard something clatter noisily in the background. “Maman? C’est moi, c’est—”

“Wyatt?” The tone of her voice was… harsh. Wyatt floundered, nodding before remembering that she couldn’t see him. 

“Yes,” he breathed. “Are you… how are you?” His mother was silent. His heart kicked like a jackrabbit in death throes behind his ribcage and he realized he was clutching the phone so hard his fingers ached, doubled over on himself on the couch. She still hadn’t said anything. His hands began to shake. “... maman?” 

Her sharp inhale before answering startled him and he flinched, squeezing the phone harder. 

“I remember now. I have no son by this name.” 

His vision darkened and his head swam, an agonizing confusion bowling him over. “Maman, it’s me—”

“I said that I have no son by this name. He is dead. He died the day he left this family broken in pieces.” 

The room tilted beneath him and he felt sort of like he was falling. His eyes screwed shut and when he spoke next, it was something between a whisper and a breathless groan. “Please,” he begged, horrified by the strain of his own voice, “don’t do this. Please don’t do this to me. I need—”

“Do this to you? To you?! Do you know what you put our family through?!”

“I… I had to—”

“You killed him! Your own blood, you—” His mother cut herself short, huffing out a breath and going silent for a moment. 

Wyatt hadn’t known he’d killed Marcel. He knew there was a chance, but he’d tried to never give it much thought. He’d loved his cousin, he’d looked up to him, wanted to be just like him when he grew up, and then… and then he’d learned of Marcel’s betrayal, and he’d lost it. Beat him, apparently to death. Fled the state. Moved north. Never spoke to anyone in his family again, just sent along most of his paycheck each month to his mother in the mail with no return address.

“No. Whatever it is that you need, I cannot give it.” She probably didn’t even know about all the money Marcel had been stealing from them. How could she? Wyatt hadn’t been around to tell her. To her, this act of violence had no justification. 

The line went dead, beeping at him aggressively. He’d given up everything. Some things willingly, others not, but he’d left himself destitute and with nowhere else to turn. It was weakness that drove him to contact her, he knew, but he just needed someone to understand. Needed to return to whoever he’d been before leaving the south, needed to reclaim some scrap of his sense of self — he’d hoped his mother would have been able to provide that. He’d hoped she would be happy to hear from him, maybe even overjoyed, remembering the way she used to hold him and tell him that he was her world. But he’d burned that bridge too, without even really realizing it.

Stupid.

The phone screen cracked beneath his desperate grip, and hearing that only encouraged him to hurl it across the room and watch it shatter fully against the opposite wall. 

This was what he’d wanted, wasn’t it? To be isolated, to spare everyone that he could from watching him take a long walk off an ever-shortening pier. He never should have reached out. He should have been stronger, should have burned those papers the moment he got home. He was a disappointment, even to himself. But what else was new? 

[loftylockjaw]

TIMING: Current LOCATION: Near the 3 Daggers PARTIES: Wyatt (@loftylockjaw) & Emilio (@mortemoppetere) SUMMARY: Emilio overhears something concerning at the hunter bar, and heads out to warn Wyatt. He isn’t happy with what he finds. CONTENT WARNINGS: Suicidal ideation

—

He didn’t spend a lot of time in the 3 Daggers anymore. It hadn’t felt like a place he belonged in a long time now, since Rhett’s van or the shit with Andy and the hunter. Any time since, trying to fit in among the hunters in the bar served only as a reminder that he didn’t anymore. Overhearing conversations the other hunters had made him nervous, made him wonder if he needed to send a warning to someone he cared about who wasn’t quite human enough for their liking, and he hated that. He hated the way it made his palms sweat, hated the fact that it made him question if he still belonged among the people who were meant to be like him. 

But he went anyway.

He wasn’t sure why. Maybe it was some kind of punishment he felt he deserved, or maybe some part of him was still trying to shove himself back into place like a puzzle piece forced in a spot it didn’t go. Maybe he needed to hear those hunters talk so he could know to warn anyone who needed warning if their name came up. Or maybe there was no answer. Maybe some things were little more than a force of habit. Emilio didn’t know for sure. It was one of those things he probably never really would. 

The drinks were cheap enough, at least. He was only on his second — a slow night, by his standards. In an hour or so, he’d be deeper in, be swaying in his seat in a state of the closest thing to relaxed he knew how to find these days. But he was painfully sober now; it was the only reason he was able to make out the conversation happening beside him.

“Took a bounty off the board. Some kind of alligator shifter. Some rich bitch is footing the bill.”

“Should be easy enough. Chop off its head, it’ll make quick work. You gonna buy me that drink you owe me after?”

“Fuck you, since when do I owe you a drink? You’re such a fuckin’...” 

He tuned them out. The rest of the conversation mattered less than the beginning of it. There were other shifters in town, other lamia. Logically, Emilio knew this. But… he also knew that few people had the same ability to find trouble as Wyatt. And he still owed the guy. Twice now, maybe.

(That was the only reason he got up. Nothing deeper than a debt that needed paying. He repeated it in his head as if it might make it true, as if there was no quiet tension in his shoulders, no clenching in his chest. Wyatt saved his ass twice now, and Emilio owed him for that. Maybe part of him wanted to make sure he was all right for Xóchitl’s sake, too, but that was it. That was all.)

Sliding off the barstool, he threw down a few bills to pay his tab (this was the only bar in town where he couldn’t get away with skipping out on it) and hurried out the door, making his way back towards town. He’d text Wyatt, he’d…

He trailed off. There were footprints in the snow not far from the bar. Not human, but… reptile. Heavy ones, with a shock of red coloring some parts of snow. Emilio cursed quietly under his breath and moved to follow him. Either there was some kind of monster stalking the bar… or Wyatt was stupider than he looked. Emilio wasn’t sure which option was the preferable one. 

—

He really didn’t like eating big meals in the winter. If it were summertime, Wyatt could just wander into the woods, find a nice sunny spot in the ferns, and take a long nap. But things as they were, with snow on the ground and no sign of the storm ever letting up, he had to eat and run. Or, well… walk quickly, sort of. It was hard to eat and walk at the same time, the gator tromping along and tossing his head back every few minutes to swallow down a bit more of the meal. It wasn’t very chewed up, unfortunately, seeing as how he hadn’t wanted to wait around to see if anyone would turn up, especially not being that close to a bar full of hunters. He’d grabbed the girl and the folder and booked it, silencing her screams as quick as he could, which of course was leaving a trail. 

Said folder was currently tucked under one arm, blood smeared across its cover. Wyatt paused, dropping down onto all four to give himself better leverage to snap the body father back into his throat, crunching down and pulverizing bone. Her clothes didn’t taste great, he could have done without that, but there hadn’t been time to disrobe her. With an inward sigh, he realized he was proving Anita’s point of him being full of shit and glass — he could hear her stupid phone ringing, apparently having avoided the brunt of his chewing. Whatever. 

Her feet disappeared down his throat as he gave one last, hefty gulp, standing stock still and waiting for it to pass a little father before he could really move again. 

He heard something in between the trills of the phone, muffled by his own guts and thick skin — the gator glanced back the way he’d come, letting out a long, threatening hiss. If someone was following him… he wasn’t fucked. This was fine. He could still tear a bitch in half, yeah?

A painful belch ripped its way out of his throat, and the lamia groaned. Maybe not.

—

As he got closer, he could almost hear it. It was muffled, still, his bad ear making it fainter than it might have been if both still worked the way they used to, but if he concentrated around it, focused on his good side instead, there was the faintest sounds of bones crunching. If he were more naive, he might be able to convince himself that it was footsteps crushing the crisp snow, but Emilio knew better. He knew the sound of bones grinding far better than most, knew what it sounded like when pieces of a body were crushed between something powerful. He might not have been able to follow the sound — it was too faint for that — but he could certainly trail the footprints in the snow. They seemed to shuffle, seemed to sway, but not in the way they might have if the thing making them was hurt. It looked different, though he couldn’t put his finger on the cause. At least… not until he came round the corner and found the gator there, gouged on whatever meal he’d found for himself. Judging by the bloodied folder in his hand, the meal wasn’t that of the animal variety. Emilio tensed immediately.

He recognized Wyatt, even if he’d only seen the lamia in this form a handful of times. He looked the same here as he had the first time Emilio met him, when he’d just swallowed a hunter and had seemed tempted to make it two. Was that what had happened, then? Had Wyatt found another hunter outside the 3 Daggers, decided to make a meal of them? It was a far cry from how he’d been with Owen, the way he’d been willing to plant himself between the slayer and Eve’s gun. Emilio’s hand went to his pocket on instinct, touching a knife that he wasn’t sure he wanted to use. 

“The fuck do you think you’re doing?” He snapped, uncertainty bleeding through with the anger in his tone. He’d called Wyatt to that barn. He’d enlisted his help outside the bar, when they’d sat together in his car and discussed their shared issues with Owen. He was beginning to consider Wyatt an ally, maybe even something halfway resembling a friend. But if there was a hunter in his gut now, where did that leave Emilio? He’d written off the first one, when he and Wyatt met in that clearing in the woods, because Wyatt had saved his ass immediately after. What would it say if he wrote off a second?

(What kind of hunter was he now? He didn’t know anymore. He’d asked Wyatt for help against Owen. He took advice from Metzli, he loved Nora so much he ached with it. He’d saved Ariadne from Rhett’s van, he protected Alex, he cared about Zane. What kind of hunter did all that? If his mother could see him not, she’d be ashamed. Emilio thought he ought to be ashamed, too. He wasn’t sure if he was or not.)

He continued to eye Wyatt, gripped the knife even if he didn’t take it from his pocket. “What did you do? Who are you…” He trailed off. Did he want to know the answer? He wasn’t sure, but he knew he wouldn’t do much resting until he did.

—

The relief that he might have felt upon seeing a familiar (quasi-friendly) face instead of an unknown was dampened by two things: firstly, Emilio seemed to have made quick work of deducing that what he’d just finished swallowing wasn’t a wild animal, if his tone was anything to go by. Secondly… Emilio knew her. Winter. Perhaps not well – Wyatt had no idea if they’d kept in touch at all after Emilio had ‘rescued’ her from the shifter – but almost certainly well enough to be pissed that his effort earlier in the year had been undone. 

He didn’t immediately answer the questions, instead staring silently at Emilio as the phone rang a final time in his stomach, then went quiet. He swallowed again, trying to find the room to speak around the legs in his throat, but he still needed a minute or two. Flipping open the folder in his claws, Wyatt selectively chose the top piece of paper: the bounty that had been hung in the hunter bar, that only had vague details on Wyatt himself and the person who was willing to pay for his head. Everything else in the folder remained tucked away, set on the forest floor beneath his foot as he crumpled the first sheet and tossed it Emilio’s way.

Sinking into a squat and tilting his head back as far as he could, Wyatt hoped that gravity would help speed this digestion along. After a large meal like this, he much preferred to lay somewhere quiet and give it a few hours. And wouldn’t you know it, the last time he’d met Emilio in the woods, he’d had a stomach full of human as well. Better shredded, though, which had allowed him some more mobility than he had now. Plus, he couldn’t remember if he’d even eaten the whole hunter then, or if he’d gotten distracted by the man standing in front of him, thinking him a threat at the time.

He still could be.

—

Wyatt didn’t say anything. Emilio wondered if he could or not. There was a phone ringing, muffled not by the way his ear had never recovered from that banshee’s scream but from how it was ringing through the gator’s thick hide from somewhere down his throat. He kept throwing his head back, throat moving as he tried to swallow. Emilio didn’t know much about reptiles, or even lamia; this wasn’t exactly his territory, and even Juliana hadn’t been focused on them much. He didn’t know how a meal like this worked, didn’t know if it made it harder to speak the way it seemed to make it harder to move. Wyatt didn’t seem to be choking on it, in any case. He was just… swallowing. 

Emilio watched as Wyatt removed a paper from the folder, tense as he slid it over. He didn’t think the lamia was much of a threat like this. He was moving slow, still focused on swallowing his meal. It wasn’t much like the first time they’d met under these circumstances, when Wyatt had been both willing and capable of taking a damn bite out of him. But the discomfort outweighed the logic, and his grip on that hidden knife tightened. Wyatt had probably met him enough times now to know what the hand in his pocket was holding, but Emilio doubted he felt threatened by it, even in this state. A knife wasn’t the most effective weapon against an alligator. The best shot for both of them would be the one where Emilio didn’t use his weapon at all.

Keeping a wary eye on Wyatt, Emilio leaned down and picked up the paper with his free hand, gripping it tightly. He looked it over, unsurprised by the writing there. He’d come out here because he’d heard the hunters in the bar talking about an incoming bounty, after all. “Yeah,” he said, “I know. That’s not what I asked.” Was there an answer Wyatt could give him that would untangle the knot in his stomach? Was there a response that would make him feel better instead of worse? 

He wanted to like Wyatt. He did. After what they’d been through with Owen, after their journey through those thorns and the tunnels underground, he wanted to feel some sense of camaraderie with the guy. But there was a muffled phone ringing in his throat, and there was a person digesting in his stomach. And it was hypocritical for Emilio to feel uneasy by that, he knew. He had enough blood on his hands to fill an ocean with red, and he was the last person who ought to judge someone for something like this. But his hand gripped that knife so tightly his fingers were beginning to ache, and his throat felt tight, anyway. He wanted to like Wyatt. The guy just didn’t know how to make it easy. 

—

He knew? Then why the interrogation? Somewhat annoyed (how long had he known? Did he frequent whatever place Winter had been heading? Had he seen this bounty before and just never said anything? Why was he here now? Lots of questions he wanted to ask, but couldn’t yet. Holding up one claw in a gesture of ‘give us a minute’, Wyatt stood to his full height and stretched his maw toward the treetops, making one final effort to gulp the girl down. 

It worked, and he felt her limbs sliding beyond his airway, finally freeing him up to speak. First, though… a shoe had become dislodged as she was squeezed by powerful throat muscles, and the lamia gave a rather gnarly-sounding hack, hunching over and spitting the shoe out into the snow. It was on the smaller side and clearly feminine in design, if that made a difference. Still, he gently pushed it away as he turned to face Emilio, picking up the folder again and holding it to his chest. 

“Ate the one tryna get me killed, boss,” he grunted. “What you doin’ out here? N’ why you followin’ me?” Had he found something of Winter’s left behind? Her car, maybe… he couldn’t be sure, it was dark and he’d been trying to get out of there as fast as possible. But if Emilio had suspected it was Wyatt he was tailing… “Fellas not allowed to defend himself these days?”

—

Wyatt stood, and Emilio wondered absently if it was meant as an act of intimidation. The full height of the lamia was certainly large enough to terrify most, and the fact that he was still working on swallowing whoever he’d just eaten certainly added to it. But all Emilio could think of was the way Wyatt had looked crouched in front of Owen. The gator’s throat worked to push a corpse down to his gut, and all Emilio could hear were the quiet pleas he’d murmured to a man he’d threatened to kill just a few days prior. 

Of course, Emilio knew he wasn’t Owen. Of course he knew Wyatt held none of the same affection towards him. (Was he worth less, then? The thought that Owen was worth more than he was sat heavy like a stone in his gut, churned uncomfortably behind the still-healing wound left by the other slayer’s knife.) But it was a little hard to feel intimidated by someone you’d seen in such a state so recently. It was a little difficult to see someone pleading for the life of a monster one day and worry that they might swallow you whole the next, even if they were spitting bloody shoes from between their teeth. Emilio’s eyes drifted to the shoe just before Wyatt kicked it away, memorizing it. It clearly belonged to a woman, which meant nothing if the woman in question was a hunter. Especially not to Emilio, whose family had been so matriarchal. The women in his family had been far more dangerous than the men, after all.

Except… Wyatt said he ate the one trying to get him killed rather than the one trying to kill him. That was significant. “And who was that?” Not a hunter, maybe, if she wasn’t trying to kill him directly. Whoever posted the bounty? The guy back at the 3 Daggers had said it was someone wealthy, which tracked with something like this. You had to have money to throw at a bounty if you wanted to pique most people’s interest. His mind was spinning, placing pieces together but still not possessing quite enough to solve the whole puzzle. “Heard some ranger back in the bar talking about a bounty for a lagarto. Figured you were the only one stupid enough to end up with something like that. I was coming to warn your sorry ass.” He glanced off in the direction of the shoe Wyatt had kicked away, though he didn’t keep his eyes off the lamia for long. “Never said that, did I? Just asked a question. Still haven’t gotten much of an answer.” Sure, Wyatt had answered in vague terms… but why keep it vague? Why act defensive? Emilio had met him eating a hunter and had been willing to walk away from it. He had no reason to think it would be different now… unless there was more to the story he wasn’t sharing. 

Unless the shoe belonged to someone familiar.

—

And who was that? Wyatt didn’t know how to answer without lying, so a lie it would have to be. Except Emilio kept talking, rattling off a word that Wyatt didn’t know. “Lagarto? And what — with a bounty? Just means I’m… effective.” Or careless. Perhaps both. But Emilio had been coming to warn him? That was surprising. Maybe more surprising than it ought to have been, but… Wyatt didn’t know how to broach the subject of Owen. Of the fact that he and Emilio had been ready to kill each other, at least from where he stood. Had tried to, but had failed. He had no love in his heart left for Owen (yes he did), but he still didn’t appreciate the fact that Emilio had been so ready to murder him. Which was… hypocritical, again, because Wyatt had felt the very same way, once. For a few minutes at least. And Owen had been ready to kill Emilio, which was a whole other can of worms the shifter wasn’t prepared to open. Suffice it to say, he hadn’t foreseen a world where Emilio would stick his neck out for him. Unless he felt like he still owed him. 

Whatever the reason for it, Wyatt wished he hadn’t come. He was asking too many questions, pressing too hard when all Wyatt wanted to do was sleep. “Ahh, leave it,” he growled. “Don’t matter who it was, she had it out fer me n’ I saw fit to end it. Had… little snoops snoopin’ around, diggin’ shit up that ain’t none of their business. Was gonna take this,” he shook the folder in his claws for emphasis, “to some no account hunter n’ sic ‘em on me. What was I supposed to do? N’ why you care so damn much? Shit.” The final word was huffed out in exasperation, the lamia waving a dismissive hand in Emilio’s direction before he started to walk away from him and deeper into the woods toward home. 

—

“That’s what you are, dumbass,” he snapped, frustration growing deeper with each passing moment. The more Wyatt evaded the question, the more certain Emilio became that someone familiar was digesting in his gut. But who? Probably not a hunter, which meant Daiyu and Jade were off the list. (There was a surge of relief at that, too, so stifling he nearly choked on it.) Wyatt didn’t know Emilio well enough to be aware of most of the people he would care about unless he’d done some digging, though Emilio wouldn’t put such a thing past him. (Perhaps that notion was due more to his own paranoia than it was to anything he knew about Wyatt personally.) There seemed too many options. He couldn’t discount that Wyatt might assume he cared more than he did about someone, or made other assumptions that might not necessarily be true. The only way to know the answer for certain was for Wyatt to tell him, and he wasn’t sure that was going to come easily.

He couldn’t argue with the idea that Wyatt had been defending himself. He knew how hunters could be when they caught wind of something, understood just how tightly some of them would grip a target. He was the same way himself sometimes, though never for a bounty. Still, part of him couldn’t help but judge the lamia for swallowing someone who’d evidently been no physical threat to him. Eating a hunter who’d been trying to slice him open was one thing, but someone whose crime had been siccing other people on the gator? That seemed a slippier slope. Stubbornly, he followed behind the lamia, glad that his full stomach was slowing his pace. If he were moving at his normal speed, Emilio doubted his bad leg would have allowed him to keep up. (It was worse in the winter. That was part of why he hated the cold.) “Maybe because I give a shit about Xó, and she likes you. Think she’s had enough bullshit in her life already.” It wasn’t the whole truth, but he wasn’t sure Wyatt knew to call him out on that. For whatever reason, Emilio cared about Wyatt, too. Maybe there it was the kind of bond that came with fucking the same shitty guy, or maybe nearly bleeding out in front of someone twice made you feel a little bit of kinship towards them. If pushed, he’d probably insist it was little more than a need for answers. He’d never been a very good liar. “I’ll follow you home if I have to. Don’t think you’ve got enough room to take a bite out of me, too, so you can either answer me or deal with me knocking on your door until morning. Pretty sure only one of us doesn’t have to sleep.” At least not much. 

—

Well… he sure wasn't wrong about that. Xó deserved, among many other things, someone who was less of a ticking time bomb than Wyatt. He lapsed into an annoyed, upset silence, trying to determine just how mad Emilio was going to be to hear the truth. Could he lie? He could try, but pretending he hadn't known who she was wouldn't really fly, otherwise how would he have known to follow her here? 

Growling to himself, Wyatt kept his attention on the forest floor ahead of him. What did it matter if Emilio was mad? What was he going to do about it? The… kinship there wasn't something worth hanging on to, seeing as how he was planning on cutting ties with most everyone in his life. So… fuck it.

“Winter,” he grumbled. “That little bitch that I pushed outta the tree. She kept comin’ for me. Was goddamn sick of it. Of her. She went too far.”

—

Raising a child — even if you hadn’t done it for particularly long — gave a person a few additional skills they might not have had otherwise. When Flora knew she’d done something she wasn’t meant to do, when she was trying to decide whether to spin up a lie or face the consequences that came with owning up to the truth, she always got a particular look in her eye. It was the same look Wyatt had now as the gears spun in his head, the same thing lit up behind his eyes. And Emilio had to say, it had looked a lot cuter on his four-year-old. On Flora, it had been charming, endearing. On Wyatt, it only really served to piss him off.

In any case, his familiarity with that look meant that he could tell when Wyatt settled on telling the truth instead of making up a lie that Emilio wouldn’t have pretended to believe. So he grit his teeth, he clenched his fists, and he waited for the truth. 

And the truth came, of course. Emilio pressed his tongue against his teeth, dug his nails into his palms. Winter. He’d saved her twice — once from Wyatt, once from the damn shark in the sand. He’d saved her twice, and she was dead anyway. And there was something about that that made his stomach lurch a little, something about it that burned. “She went too far,” he repeated flatly. “You don’t think fucking eating her was going too far? Jesus fucking Christ. Could’ve run her out of town. Could’ve taken a lot of fucking steps before this one.”

—

Emilio’s anger was expected, but still unwelcome. Wyatt felt himself bristle defensively, gritting his teeth as he gripped the folder in his claws even tighter. “No, actually, I think eatin’ her was a perfectly fine fuckin’ reaction,” he snapped. “What makes you think I was gonna be able to convince her of shit? Obviously I didn’t put enough fear in ‘er the first time, and she was bleedin’ in my damn mouth. Nothin’ short of death was gonna deter that girl, and she—” His voice became strangled in his throat, grating against his vocal chords before petering out into nothing. 

In the folder he still clutched was information on his family. His mother and father, his aunts and uncles, cousins… all of them that could be found, had been. And that information was about to be given to a ranger, who no doubt had ties with people in or around Louisiana who’d jump at the chance to wipe out a whole family of lamias. 

Sucking in a breath, Wyatt kept on moving through the snow, his gait slow but steady. “She was gonna send ‘em after mon maman et papere. My family. I couldn’t… let that happen. N’ I knew she weren’t gonna stop. So I took care of it.”

—

Wyatt’s anger rose up to match his own, and it was exactly the reaction Emilio had been looking for. He didn’t know what to do with the feeling in his gut, with the confirmation that his efforts to save someone had proven pointless in the end. (How often was that the case, he wondered? How many of the people he’d saved had turned around and gotten themselves killed anyway, just a few months after the fact?) The anger felt more useful, felt familiar. Grief was useless, but anger could be sharpened, could be weaponized. (Did he want to use it against Wyatt? It wasn’t a question that had ever really mattered. Emilio’s rage, sharpened to a point, was thrown like a spear by his own hands whether he wanted it to be or not. It didn’t matter if he intended for it to hurt anyone; it would anyway. And he’d tell himself he felt better after, even if he didn’t.)

But then, Wyatt’s voice tapered off. The anger faded, as anger always tended to do. Emilio had never met anyone who could hold onto it as well as he could, no matter how he tried. For him, it was a constant state of being. He woke up angry, went to bed furious, raged for every moment in between. For the rest of the world, though, it was a fire that burned out quickly. It wasn’t enough for Emilio. He wanted more. 

But when Wyatt spoke again, he faltered. He’d done it to protect his family, he said, and Emilio saw a flash of a living room in Mexico, blood staining the carpet. His stomach churned. Whatever Wyatt had done, whatever Winter had thought made him worthy of her ire… his family wasn’t a part of it. Emilio swallowed, taking a few steps after Wyatt. He didn’t have to keep in constant motion to keep pace with the slow-moving gator, which was a good thing. His leg ached from the cold, and his chest ached from something he couldn’t quite put a finger on. 

“Probably shouldn’t have eaten her so close to the fucking bar,” he said flatly. “You know you’re leaving a pretty obvious trail in the snow, don’t you? Somebody comes out of there who knows more about what you are than I do, they can put the pieces together well enough to know to follow.” He paused a moment. Then, looking at Wyatt carefully, he swept his feet through the snow. A portion of the trail left by the gator was swept away, leaving a gap between one part of the trail and the next. “You don’t cover this shit up, and somebody is going to follow you home. And I don’t — I don’t give a shit, you know, what happens. But Xó does. And if you get yourself killed because you’re too stupid to cover your fucking tracks…” He trailed off, hand coming up idly to where his necklace sat beneath his shirt. Juliana’s ring hung there, alongside his own wedding band now that he’d replaced it on his finger with the ring Teddy gave him. “Just… don’t let any of those assholes follow you home.” He was protecting his family. Emilio, of all people, wouldn’t fault him now that he knew that, even if part of him still ached with the pointlessness of it all.

—

He wasn’t arguing anymore, wasn’t telling Wyatt he shouldn’t have eaten her, that he should have left well enough alone. At the mention of Wyatt’s family, Emilio was backing off. The shifter stored that knowledge away for later, in case he ever needed it again. Hoped he wouldn’t, but… you could never be too sure. He watched Emilio swipe at the trail he was leaving — of course he’d thought about it to an extent, but he hadn’t known what to do about it. “Didn’t know there was a whole ass bar out here just for hunters until I was already tailin’ her. There weren’t time to do it right.” Whatever ‘right’ was. Nothing about this felt very right. 

“Anyway… she’s gonna have to deal with losin’ me some day. Figure it don’t much matter if it’s today or a year from now.” He gave a groan, dropping onto all fours again. This girl wasn’t agreeing with him. 

“But I’ll… call Eve.” There was a car left behind, one with Winter’s personal belongings in it. That and the trail into the woods ought to go. “Unless you wanna do it, Captain Wow. Gonna have to wait until I get to the house; didn’t bring my effects with me.”

—

“Should keep up with shit like that.” It wasn’t really something he could fault Wyatt for not knowing, of course; the 3 Daggers tended to keep itself on the down low, didn’t exactly go announcing its location to shifters. But Emilio was angry and frustrated and his stomach was still churning, and he needed somewhere to point all that. He needed someplace to put his anger, needed a container to hold the grief, and Wyatt was the only one here. If he couldn’t be angry at Wyatt for protecting his family, he’d be angry at him for not protecting himself. Even if Emilio knew he was the last person who could call someone out on that.

His jaw tightened, the wedding ring hanging around his neck feeling a little less like a necklace and more like a noose. “She won’t, you know.” It was flat, his tone not betraying much. “She won’t deal with it. Not something anybody deals with. She’ll carry it with her the rest of her life. Wake up every goddamn morning drowning in it. And it’ll matter to her, when it happens. You lose someone like that, you’d end the fucking world just to have had them around for another fucking second. So it matters. You can go and get yourself killed, but you remember that it fucking matters while you’re doing it.” 

Eve. Not a bad idea. “I’ll call her,” he said, because it was something to do with his hands. Because Wyatt waiting until he got home to do it would mean too much time in between, because Emilio couldn’t be sure he’d actually call when he was acting like a man on his way to the gallows, because he needed to feel useful somehow, to someone, even if it wasn’t who he might have wanted. “Just get the fuck out of here, and leave someone else to clean up your fucking mess. Guess that’s the big plan, anyway.” 

—

The gator just scoffed, otherwise ignoring the remark about the hunter bar. How was he supposed to have known that? None of the hunters in his life had ever taken it upon themselves to tell him, after all. 

His annoyance faded with Emilio’s deliverance of wisdom regarding his own demise: he supposed the guy had to know a thing or two about loss, given his occupation and his general demeanor. The way he was talking about how Xochitl would (or in this case, wouldn’t) handle Wyatt’s death easily sounded like it came from experience. Wyatt wondered idly who it was that he mourned before settling into the guilty feeling, trying to convince himself that it was a warm blanket instead of a layer of frost over his heart. It would be for her own good. He’d do his best to make sure she hated him before he kicked the bucket: it would hurt less that way, right? (He thought of Owen in that barn, and he worried that it wasn’t true.) Whatever the case, there wasn’t much more for him to say on the subject. It didn’t matter what Emilio thought because it was happening regardless. Most of his nights were spent at the Pit these days, because he figured none of the people that might come looking for him would know to check there. She’ll get over me. She has Mateo.

Grunting in acknowledgement when Emilio said he’d call Eve, Wyatt heaved an inward sigh. He’d had no real intention of doing that, but at least this didn’t require any effort on his part. He didn’t care if someone followed him home, but if Emilio cared enough to do something about it, then let him. “Yep,” he answered in a clipped voice. “That’s the plan.” He didn’t look back again as he continued in the direction of the cabin, knowing Emilio wasn’t going to follow him all the way there. The folder in his hands felt exceptionally heavy, and with each labored step toward home, he felt more and more afraid of looking inside of it. Winter had mentioned his mother, and he’d be shocked if there wasn’t more information about her in there. A phone number, maybe. 

Maybe a phone call was in order, if he could muster the courage. If anyone could help him find his way again, it would be his maman. 

[loftylockjaw]

TIMING: Current LOCATION: Near the 3 Daggers PARTIES: Wyatt (@loftylockjaw) & Winter (@longislandcharm) SUMMARY: Winter's revenge isn't complete, but Wyatt cuts her off at the pass. CONTENT WARNINGS: none. :---)

—

The folder with precious information was tucked under her arm as Winter made her way from her car towards the bar she’d heard about, the dirt road beneath her feet making her stop to try and wipe some of it off of her expensive boots. Hunters really needed to think about the more… hygienic of the human race when scouting a new location for their next meet up. This was such a drag. She finished wiping the dirt from the black suede the best that she could before she stood to start her journey again. 

In hindsight, she should have tried to park beyond the gate. She should have tried to find a way inside of it to get closer to the bar instead of choosing the difficult path of the road but she’d gotten frustrated at needing to climb out to push open the doors just to climb back in again. Parking off to the side right in front of it had seemed like the better option. It seemed that decision was going to bite her in the ass though as the bar was still far enough back that she couldn’t yell for help once she saw the person blocking her way. 

Before Winter could even start walking again and gain more dirt on her shoes, she stopped in her tracks when she spotted the very man she was here to complain about. Her hand went to clutch the folder of information as tightly as possible, heart rate climbing just slightly at the sight of him. “What? Are you following me again? Want to throw me out of another tree?” Wyatt Barlow continued to be the bane of her existence but she had a plan. If she could make it past him he would no longer be her problem. She could get rid of him, make sure he didn’t terrify another person, make sure he wasn’t such a pain in the ass to the others in this town. If only a hunter would ride up to the gates for a nice jug of piss beer and she could do this the easy way. 

But it looked like the hard way was her destined path. 

“I’ve left you alone. That’s what you wanted so I don’t understand why you’re stalking me.” Okay, so that wasn’t the whole truth but did he know that? Maybe he did since he was here. Playing dumb didn’t usually work with him and yet she couldn’t help it. “It was the apple I threw at you, wasn’t it? I wrote ‘die asshole’ as a joke, not a prediction.” But if it came true she wouldn’t cry about it. In fact, she might have been trying to help that prediction along just a little bit.

—

“Left me alone?” the lamia scoffed. “Is that why you got some good fer nothin’ creeps snoopin’ on me? Didn’t think I’d notice, eh? Well I fuckin’ did.” He jutted his chin out toward her, gesturing with his head and eyes at the folder she was holding onto for dear life. “Why? What you got in there, hm?” He didn’t actually know that this was the road to a hunter bar where Winter would have her pick of the litter from rangers who’d be more than happy to take him out, but it definitely wasn’t her scene, and the whole thing had been suspicious enough for him to step in before she got wherever she was going. He had been stalking her for a few days, trying to figure out what she was up to before it became too large a problem to handle. She was a stupid girl who seemed to just like bullying people on their worst days, so he hadn’t ever really thought it was anything serious… until now. This place she was headed for was suspicious as fuck, and Wyatt wasn’t having it.

He stepped toward her, holding his hand out expectantly. “Give it ‘ere, and maybe I won’t throw you out of another tree.”

—

“No, I didn’t, actually. You don’t seem like an observant person.” She sneered at him, looking him up and down as if he were less than the dirt she had been trying to wipe off her shoe. She really hadn’t thought he would notice anything. From what Winter could tell he wasn’t exactly the brightest person in the world so she was inclined to believe her hired help had been just as idiotic for him to catch on to what was going on. That would teach her not to outsource to someone she trusted in the city next time. “I have enough to keep me safe from those jaws of yours.” The bravado coming out of her did not match the fear climbing its way up her spine. Really, what was to stop him? “There’s copies of all of this with the stupid goons who don’t know how to stay out of sight for shit. They’re to send it to a contact if something happens to me.”

Paying no mind to the way she’d most likely condemned the PI she’d hired to death if Wyatt deemed it necessary, she took a step back as he stepped forward. ‘Turn around and get in your car, Winter.’ But she ignored her inner thoughts, not wanting him to know how terrified she truly was. He got that from her once already, he wasn’t getting it from her again. “Yea? Why don’t you go fuck yourself instead?” Her eyes narrowed at the alligator, her own fury radiating between them. She was so sick of this brute, sick enough that she was determined to make it past him to that bar. 

—

He hadn’t been lying when he told Emilio that he didn’t want to kill this girl. He still wasn’t when he told himself he’d rather avoid it now, but his patience was running terribly thin. “You got a big mouth for someone who don’t stand any kind of chance against me,” Wyatt growled, jerking his hand toward her again. “Give it here, I said. Your goons got copies, then you don’t need this one, right?” He wanted to know what was in it, wanted to know how much she’d been able to find out about him. “Where you takin’ it?” He glanced over his shoulder. “What’s that place, down the road, hm? Talk, girl. Quickly, ‘fore I get any more impatient. I like this shirt, n’ I don’t really wanna have to shred it just to put you in the ground ‘cuz you’re too fuckin’ stubborn to see when you’re outta your league.”

—

“I was raised to keep fighting no matter how big my opponent is.” It had been ingrained in her over and over as a child. Her parents, mostly her mother’s, voices echoed in her mind whenever situations like this arose pushing her into fights that she couldn’t handle. But mother always knew best and she would want Winter to use what she knew against the prick to get her out of this. Lifting the folder up, she waved it tauntingly in the air but still made sure to keep it out of his reach. He wasn’t close enough to grab it and run. “I know so much more than you’d think. You have a history of violence, don’t you Wyatt? Not shocking knowing how riled up you can get with a little teasing.” Or harassment. She wasn’t innocent but she wouldn’t admit that to him.

The folder was tucked back into her arm before stupidity started to take hold. Her pride mixed with her over confidence was enough to have her moving forward as if there wasn’t an alligator bitch boy blocking her way. “I think your mom is going to love the copy I sent her, by the way. Is she an alligator too? Do you guys bond with your violent natures?” 

—

He was a few seconds away from simply decking her in the face and taking the folder when she mentioned his mother. Immediately, he felt lightheaded. “What?” he snapped breathily, squinting his eyes closed for a moment. “You — you did what?” When he opened them again, his vision was swimming. Adrenaline was dumping into his system, thoughts turning to all the horrible people that might love to know about a large family of lamias living in Louisiana, and what they might do to that family. 

Wyatt’s voice trembled when he spoke  again, but not from fear. He was angrier than he’d ever been — angrier than when he’d found out his cousin had been lying to him and stealing from their family for years, angrier than that night he’d confronted Owen in that bar, far angrier than he ever got during any paid fight. “Oh, girl,” he growled, kicking off his boots into the snow and shrugging off his jacket. “That weren’t very smart.” 

He was lunging at her even before the shift began, the ridge of scales that ran along his spine ripping through his clothing, hands reaching for her as they shifted and grew dangerous claws in the blink of an eye. When he landed on her, he was himself, pinning her in the snow with one hand as he leaned over the top of her, snarling in her face. He ripped the folder out of her hand, throwing it to the side. There was no enjoyment to be had here, rage still fueling him as he bit down on her midsection and snapped his head up again, dragging her along. 

It wouldn’t do to have her screaming and drawing attention, so this time, he didn’t play any cat and mouse. He simply bit down as hard as he could, feeling her warm blood coat his tongue. Another couple jerks of his head and he’d turned her enough in his jaws to gulp her down head first, stooping to gather up the folder she’d been holding and his clothing, the latter of which he chucked up into a tree to come back for later. From there, the shifter stomped off into the woods, pausing every few yards to swallow Winter down a little more, not thrilled about having to eat and run but not having much other choice. 

She’d gotten what was fucking coming to her.

—

The moment the words had registered with him Winter knew it had been a mistake. “Wait…” The word was barely a whisper as she started to back away from him. “Wait, just listen.” But he wasn’t listening. He was infuriated and she should have known that any mention of a mom would have caused such a visceral reaction. Even if she wasn’t speaking to her own mother at the moment she still would have been blinded by rage too. She’d just been trying to get him to back off, maybe panic a little and give her a chance to run off, but this was backfiring tremendously.

She didn’t even have a chance to tell him it wasn’t true.

Winter had no idea where his mother was but she wished she could see her son now on the off chance that she would be ashamed. For all she knew, the woman was just as violent as he was though, a thought that shouldn’t have been plaguing her as he pinned her to the ground. Maybe they would hear her screams up at the bar but even as she thought it she knew it was hopeless. It was still so far away and bars had loud music. Nobody was coming for her. 

For the first time in so long hot tears slid down her cheeks while the inevitable sank in; she wasn’t getting out of the trouble her big mouth had caused this time. Here she thought that she could get out of anything either with sheer confidence or her family’s power alone but the moment before her death only proved how naive she had been. She’d been naive her whole life, hadn’t she? Why had she fought so hard to be like the woman who killed her spirit over and over? Why hadn’t she given her father more gratitude for everything he had done to keep her safe? Why did she push people away so often, refusing to get too close to anyone? They say clarity comes with death. They say that everything flashes before your eyes, that peace comes in your last moments…and now, Winter knew how right that was. 

It was fear. Everything boiled down to that one emotion that she had sworn over and over to never let rule her life and yet it had ruled it so gracefully that she’d never even known it was there. Now, flashes of her parents' faces, of Mack, Henry, Charlie, Finn, and even Thea came through in her last second before Wyatt’s teeth sank into her flesh causing that peaceful bubble that had formed to shatter. Her scream cut through the air and as he dragged her along she did what she could to fight him even though it was no use. She would go down, but she would go down kicking and screaming.

Until his teeth cut deeper through her flesh, ripping through muscle and tendon and her spinal cord. The pain slowly faded away as life was drained from her. She wanted to laugh, a realization sweeping like a wave through her broken body. It took a monster to take her down, proving that she’d always been a monster herself.

[loftylockjaw]

Aaron Taylor-Johnson as Sergei Kravinoff ⤷ Kraven the Hunter | dir. J. C. Chandor

[loftylockjaw]

[ Left on Felix’s bed in the boiler room, along with a stuffed jaguar and a note: ]

Wyatt,

The first time we hung out outside of work, you made me dinner. Do you remember that? You probably made dinner for a lot of people. You’re a really good cook, and I know you enjoy it! So it’s okay if you don’t remember, but I do. It really meant a lot to me, you know? I was never very good at making friends. And most of the other people at the Pit already didn’t like me very much, so I’d kind of given up on it, I guess. But you made me dinner, and that meant a lot to me. I hope you keep making people dinner. I hope the salt and pepper shakers make it more fun, too. I know the jaguar is a little lame, but… I wanted you to have something that would make you think of me while I’m gone. That’s probably selfish, but I do. I’m definitely going to be thinking of you. You’re still my best friend. That’s never going to change.

None of it was your fault, okay? I’m the one who got myself into all this. I know you like blaming yourself for things, but please don’t blame yourself for this. You didn’t do anything wrong. You made me dinner! You’re one of the only people who’s ever made me dinner. You’ve only ever made my life better. Knowing you makes me better. I don’t think I would have made it in the Pit this long if I didn’t have you. I know you won’t agree, but you saved me. You’re always saving me. Please remember that. Please. I want you to remember that. 

Keep an eye on Anita, okay? Don’t let her get into trouble. And definitely don’t tell her that I was worried she’d get into trouble. And if you see Teagan, tell her I’m sorry? I never got the chance to tell her myself. 

I had to release Squonkella. She couldn’t come with me, and I don’t think I would have wanted her to. She’d be stressed out on the road. But she’s a wild animal, anyway, and she should get to be free. She deserves to be free. So do you. I hope you get to be, someday. If you see Squonkella in the woods, tell her I miss her. I’ll come back for her someday. And for you, too.

I love you. I’m sorry I had to go. Please stay safe.

- Felix

---

He’d known this was coming. When Felix had told him about Leo’s plan to take them away from here, to turn them into a traveling recruitment act for the Pit, of course his first reaction had been to apologize. He’d failed, he’d made things worse. Instead of getting Felix free from Leo, his best friend was now going to be more under his control than ever, and Wyatt wouldn’t even be around to try and make the quiet moments a little brighter. What little Felix still had in this town was being ripped away from them, and there was nothing anyone could do about it. 

Of course Felix had told him no, it wasn’t his fault. He shouldn’t blame himself. They’d said it several times over the course of the next week when Wyatt refused to leave their side. If he wasn’t working a fight, he was with Felix. He kept them away from the Pit as often as possible, usually insisting that Felix come to his cabin, but at night the pair would venture back as Felix’s fae bind commanded. It felt like a walk of shame going back to that boiler room, but there was no way Wyatt was going to leave Felix on their own in there. At least the bed was a bit more comfortable now, offering a decent enough spot to lay with them, holding them to his chest and praying to a god that had never listened for a miracle to stop this from happening. 

He couldn’t lose Felix. God, he’d lost so much already, he couldn’t lose Felix—

But he had. He sat on the edge of that bed now, Felix’s letter beside his thigh, the stuffed jaguar suffocated by his arms as he clutched it against his front. Even if it was lame (it wasn’t), he was glad Felix had left it for him. Seeing as how it felt like a lifeline right now, he didn’t know how he’d have handled not having something to hold that reminded him of them. “I’m sorry,” he whispered again, carefully setting the salt and pepper shakers down on the floor before laying back on the bed. 

Staring up at the ceiling, a knot formed in his throat. He felt his lip quiver and he sniffed loudly, turning onto his side and pulling his knees up to his chest. His fingers dug into the soft, pliable fabric of the stuffed jaguar, thinking about what Felix had said in the letter. 

I hope you keep making people dinner.

He didn’t know if he had it in him. Letting people in had only gotten him hurt since he’d moved here, and he didn’t think he could take it any more. He loved too hard to ever really let go, but he was going to have to try. 

[loftylockjaw]

TIMING: Right after the bird demon is taken out LOCATION: Caleb's house PARTIES: Faleb (@dirtwatchman) and Wyatt (@loftylockjaw) SUMMARY: Faleb lets Wyatt come over after the shifter has had a rough week. It doesn't go the way either of them planned. CONTENT WARNINGS: None...except trauma for the characters...well, character, really.

Pretending to be somebody else wasn’t as hard as people would think. A thorough look into the life of Caleb Ellsworth and the fact that the man was so…simple made it very easy to convince everyone that he wasn’t currently locked away in a void state. It probably helped that he didn’t have too many close ties in life, at least none that knew him enough to discern the differences and clock that something was very off with him. The demon in his place had to wonder how the hell that Aesil thing had ruined it so spectacularly the first time around with people like the boyfriend around, someone who was also not very bright. 

But at least he was pretty to look at. The demon could appreciate Wyatt for what he was and there was no sense in letting go of having some fun before this town was turned on its axis, before his real work began. There was a hungry glint in his eyes as they raked over the other man, impatience tearing away at the facade he needed to keep up, but instead of giving in he found himself pushing lust aside so he could keep up appearances. There was no way that man would walk in here and not have Caleb fussing over the dark circles under his eyes or how hopeless he seemed to be. 

“You sure you don’t want to talk about it?” His voice was soft as he moved forward, hand coming up to rest against Wyatt’s cheek. “I can be a distraction if you really need it but I’m a little worried about you.” 

Of course this reminded him of the night he’d made one of his bigger mistakes that year — when he’d gone to Caleb in a time of distress, and when the other (who had turned out to not be Caleb at all) had suggested he sleep, which was the last thing he’d wanted to do, Wyatt had walked away from him. He’d made it seem like he was only there for sex (which hadn’t been the case, he’d just been so afraid to sleep), and Caleb had told him in no uncertain terms that he shouldn’t come back. Which was weird, considering it’d been a fucking demon at the time, but they’d both guessed that it had just been trying to get rid of Wyatt in case he started asking too many questions and threatening to ruin whatever plan the bastard had had.

Here he was again, standing in front of Caleb with a lot weighing on his mind and not knowing how to express it. He wanted to share everything with him, just like he’d promised he would, but it was… hard. So much harder now that he knew what his future held in store for him and felt certain there would be no changing it. 

The soft touch had him sighing, and it was a strangled sort of thing, like he was barely holding on to the mask he’d carefully crafted for himself tonight. Skin that felt cold against his cheek still sparking that warmth in his core that usually spread like wildfire, muted thanks to his own inner turmoil, crackling like a dying fire instead of the inferno it should have been. “I’m sorry, I know,” he breathed, leaning into the touch and begging the fire to eat him alive while also doing his best to kick dirt over it. God, it was exhausting being this conflicted. 

Even though it hadn’t been at the reins, Caleb had still watched him walk away that night. He couldn’t do that to him again. “I just… I got myself into a hard spot.” There was a beat of silence, the shifter letting his gaze drop to Caleb’s chest where he rested a hand. The stillness there could be eerie, sometimes, if he forgot and was expecting a heartbeat like Xochitl’s. “Kieran… or, well, what he can do to me, what he can make me feel with that magic he’s got, it’s… it’s good, but it’s bad. And I been goin’ to him for it a lot.” There was no mention of the faun that were strangers to him, paid for their meal and nothing else — how could he admit just how far he’d fallen? “Was startin’ to feel pretty numb otherwise. Felt like my only option. I… I ain’t proud of it, but…” He sniffed, forcing himself to meet Caleb’s gaze. “Just found out not that long ago that it could kill me. Maybe not, but… don’t think I’m ever gonna be the way I was before.” Sucking in a sharp breath, he tried to push past the heavy weight that sat on his chest like it wanted to crush him. “So I just… I wanna enjoy whatever time I got left, but I don’t… wanna put you through nothin’ that’s too painful for you.”

Whatever he was expecting, it hadn’t been that. The demon had seen the messages between Wyatt and Caleb about this faun, he knew that the two of them had a good time with him a while back, but wouldn’t Caleb know if the shifter was addicted to that feeling? Secrets were a damning thing in any relationship on the earthly plane, romantic or not, and it always irritated him how quickly they could destroy. In his world, secrets were necessary. That’s how it should have been here. But past messages seared into his brain told him that Caleb wouldn’t enjoy knowing that something was being kept from him. Still, the man was always such a doormat, so eager to let others find their comfort instead of finding his own, that he was sure he would have hidden the hurt that came from it and focused on Wyatt. Maybe that's what love was? A willingness to let go of the hurt in favor of the other’s needs.

Taking the hand pressed against Caleb’s chest into his own, he laced their fingers together. “You know I went into this knowing I was going to lose you at some point, right? I think it’s too late to worry about the pain of it all.” What did someone who never experienced devotion the way that Caleb experienced it say in a moment like this? This was a time when he wished he could have access to those limited thoughts the zombie carried around but this was the disadvantage of being a replica and not taking him over completely the way Aesil had. Taking a stab at it would have to do. “But I’d like you here with me as long as I can have you, Wyatt. You don’t want to stop, do you?” 

Which was…irrelevant. The town would soon be destroyed with Wyatt inside of it so it didn’t matter but he couldn’t come out and say that. As much as he knew Caleb would fight against this he was tempted to tell the man to call Kieran right then and there to take in whatever joy he could get in their limited time. Something was already shifting, he could feel it. Leaning in, the demon pressed a soft kiss to Wyatt’s lips in an attempt to push that urge away. That wasn’t who Caleb was. He wouldn’t compromise this with so little time left to go. “I want to help you…but I don’t want to push you away either. Will you let me or is it going to drive us apart?”

And there it was: the truth of the matter. Wyatt was going to die before Caleb, that was a guarantee as long as no slayers became involved.

Fuck. Owen. It wasn’t fear that the man he’d once called a friend would go back on his word, but the fear of sharing that entire part of this story. That fear of telling Caleb that he’d saved the life of someone who had, at one point, threatened to kill him. Who would have, if he hadn’t felt so damn indebted to the shifter. 

“No,” he muttered in a small voice, “I don’t.” He was going to die before Caleb one way or another, so what did it matter? He’d taken it… surprisingly well, too. He wasn’t angry, or hurt in a way that was immediately obvious. Wyatt couldn’t tell if that was a bad thing or not. But the kiss was like a balm on his frayed nerves, and he leaned into it with a slight release of tension in his shoulders.

“I… I’ll let you help.” For whatever good it would do him. “I don’t wanna push you away.” Again. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to let it… get like this. I didn’t know it was… I thought I had it under control. I thought…” I thought I was just having some harmless fun as a pick-me-up. I thought I was just depressed about all the shit with Owen. About all the shit at the Pit, all the shit with me and my shifting. About Felix. Samir. 

His thoughts were interrupted by a far off boom, a sound like nothing he’d ever heard before. He gave a start, glancing at one of the windows for a moment before shaking his head – must have been a car backfiring. He looked back at Caleb, who was now wearing a strange expression. 

“... what’s wrong?”

“You didn’t know, Wyatt. Faun magic is tricky like that, you don’t have to apologize.” His fingers slid up Wyatt’s face to push some of his hair out of his eyes, not realizing that Caleb wouldn’t know how tricky faun magic could actually get. “I just…want to get you better.” The demon wasn’t thinking straight, wasn’t functioning correctly as he felt little jabs of pain start up all over his body. He could take pain, he wasn’t bothered by the physical elements of it but the fact that it was happening was not a good sign. Fuck, were the symbols being messed with? 

All of his focus was slipping away. Every last bit of his plagiarized persona was gone in an instant when it happened. His head turned at the same time Wyatt’s did, eyes widening at the sound that had cracked through the air. “No…” He could immediately feel himself slipping. His body was already weakening which only meant one thing; the greater demon was gone. How in the hell did this town keep surviving? How the fuck did they keep thwarting all the plans made by these higher beings? 

There wasn’t much time to dwell on it and Wyatt’s voice brought his attention back to the other man. No, he was not okay. Wyatt wasn’t about to be okay either.  A wicked smile pulled at his lips, head shaking softly with the thought of how this would affect the other as his body started to dissolve in Wyatt’s arms. One last malicious act for the road. At least he could go out knowing he caused a little grief in the end. “You’re such an idiot.” Famous last words.

All the quiet hopefulness he’d been clinging onto disappeared in an instant at Caleb’s final words, confusion and hurt taking its place. “Why—I don’t—” He didn’t have time to ask what the other meant, if that had been a playful name calling, or if he’d judged that look on his face correctly and it was malicious. Which felt unlikely until he considered just how upset Caleb might be with him for lying, and he hadn’t even told him the worst part, yet! He didn’t have time, because Caleb was shifting all of his weight onto Wyatt and slowly sinking to the floor. Wyatt went down with him, panicking as he tried to hold onto him tighter, only to find that he was… dissolving. Like black, wet sand, parts of him were falling away in clumps and the harder Wyatt squeezed, the faster it happened. 

“What’s happening?! How do I—” It didn’t make sense. None of this made sense. Was this a zombie thing? He didn’t fucking know, and seeing as how he’d not been of a right mind in several months, it felt just as plausible as anything else. 

He couldn’t even apologize one last time as the body in his arms disintegrated fully, coating his lap and the floor in a lumpy layer of… whatever that was. He was holding his breath, staring down at it with wide, terrified eyes as his hands grasped at the air like he was still trying to call Caleb’s body back to him. A soft, garbled wail started in his throat and he finally unfroze, scrambling to remove himself from the substance on the floor and get back to his feet. It got louder and stronger as he used the couch to help himself up, his eyes fixed on the middle of the floor. His chest heaved and he cut the scream short, ripping himself away from the sight of it and making a clumsy dash for the front door, bursting through it and right for his car as fast as his feet would take him. 

He didn’t know where he was going, only that it needed to be the fuck away from here.

[loftylockjaw]

[pm] Sure, that makes sense. Oh, I knew a guy who did IT, I think. He was a computer nerd, anyway. And he sucked. Like you better.

Right. [ user feels ill ] No one said he was smart, I guess.

[pm] [...] No questions. Well, except for just enough that I know what I'm walking into! I expect people not to send me into an active death trap, the dust has to have settled. I don't get paid for it, don't worry about that. My day job is way more boring, just IT support, but it covers my expenses.

Sure, but so are vampires and zombies famously. Far more than Owen is. Even cockroaches need to eat and rest. Most hunters are smart enough to realise that there's only one way picking fight after fight goes.

[loftylockjaw]

[pm] [ user leaves this on read for a long time trying to decide how to respond. ultimately, most of it gets ignored ] Think you oughtta hunker down with Mateo, if you can. Shit out there, it's... dangerous. Don't want nothin' bad to happen to either of you.

[pm] You don't need to be sorry. It's good to hang out with friends. We just missed you. Well, I missed you, and I'll just speak for Mateo too since I know he did.

Do you want to get together soon?

I love you.

[loftylockjaw]

[pm] I do, and it can be a kick in the ass havin' to cook it myself if I got a cravin', but it could be worse. [ it couldn't. user wants to go home so bad ] Oh sure, mad respect. I couldn't hate everythin' that much if I tried. Maybe Owen's got a little French in him--

He looks like a discount Sam Claflin. Mm, well... sure you'll beat me to it, so you'll have to report back. She don't know about the gay subtext in Power Rangers? Where she been all this time? Oh yeah, treatin' strangers the same way she treats dogs.

[pm] Oooooh, wait that's totally cool. Aw, you don't miss the food, being here of all places? Well, I guess you're a chef. We have cajun food at home and all that. LOL. What don't the French hate? But, I gotta respect the commitment to having the most wretched vibes always.

Like the snowman, but human. Cause we need a live action of everything, obvi. Oh noooo :( Room temp frosty? That's nowhere near as fun. Unfort, I have yet to see what the fuss is about. I'm getting my girlfriend (you've met her! big fan of peanut crackers) to watch The Power Rangers movie for the 8th time. She will get the gay subtext.

[loftylockjaw]

I think if I was coldblooded, that'd mean I'd only wanna fuck people that were feverish. But I ain't a scientist.

Fair enough. Just a hobby, then. Hmmm, I see. Can't say I get it. So you're like coldblooded then, yeah?

[loftylockjaw]

[pm] No questions? Huh. I'll be keepin' that in mind, then. [...] How you get into that kind of business? Don't seem very lucrative, unless you're only offerin' to charge n' arm and a leg.

[......] Yeah. He's a dick like that.

He doesn't-- Where is he-- Oh. Well sure, that was a given. Is he gonna-- Do you think he'd really-- Kinda figured he'd be the type that'd wanna be a passive party to it. Like lettin' a friend shoot 'im between the eyes-- Hard to kill, though. Like a cockroach.

[pm] Right! I was meaning to talk to you about that anyway, offer my services in case they ever might come in handy. I cover up the supernatural. A lot of it is online, so, like, if someone were to accidentally shift in public and someone else caught it on camera, I make those videos disappear. Or sometimes there's a physical mess that needs dealing with, like a magical spell gone wrong, or someone's died in suspicious way. If someone gave me a call, I can often make that disappear, no questions asked.

Wasn't getting it twisted, no need to worry there. I didn't think he had the ability to give a shit about anyone in any sort of way, nevermind like that.

That would be the dream. He doesn't exactly have an apartment anymore, so he wouldn't be lingering anyway, but... that isn't what I meant. I meant that Owen has a death wish.

[loftylockjaw]

[pm] Fuck, Felix. I'm so sorry. I know it's hard. I know nothin' I say is gonna magically make you forgive yourself. Just... if you wanna talk about it, we can talk about it.

I just... I worry. About the future. However much of one we got left. Don't think I'm gonna-- It was fun, n' I was happy to spend it with you. You're my best friend, too. I love you.

[pm] [...] I killed my friends. A few months ago, at a party. Some people came in and I shifted, and I killed my friends. Nobody made me shift. Nobody forced me to do it. I just [...] did it. I don't know what's worse than that.

You're not bad at showing it. You're a good friend, too. Thanks for hanging out with me the other night. I know it probably wasn't much fun, but it meant a lot to me. [...] You're my best friend, you know?

[loftylockjaw]

[pm] You work [....] on the internet? [.......] What d'you do, exactly? I had... other shit on my mind at the time, forgot to ask, but why were you luggin' around a dead hellhound?

Sure... we go back a ways. Don't get it twisted, though. Weren't like that. He wouldn't let it be--

Why's that? He wrappin' it up, then? He gonna get the fuck outta town after? Wouldn't we all be so lucky.

[pm] So low. If I got offended by every little thing said to me, my place of work wouldn't be the internet! "Phantom" was honestly refreshingly neutral.

It would if he was me! But he's not. There are other methods he

I don't know. He was going to let me kill him. The only thing that changed was you coming in. But what do I know?

Even less so than usual. I don't... think you'll need to worry about it much longer, either way.

[loftylockjaw]

[pm] Low bar, huh?

No? Wouldn't make 'em easier to find, or whatever? I wouldn't know, I ain't the expert. [...] Don't say-- It wasn't-- Think he just saw the light, really. He ain't ever cared about what I wanted, don't know why he'd start now. Wishful thinkin', I s'pose. Eh, do they ever? Guess I'll have to hope you're right. Don't think me threatenin' to kill him would do much, after that [......] display.

[pm] Don't even worry about it! That's like, the least bad thing I've been called while working.

Yeah, I don't think rest and relaxation have been at the top of his agenda! Huh. He did? Well, I don't think he'd benefit from having their names if he was trying to hunt them. He's not the sort to dig deep on his hunts. He didn't lie to me the last time we met, but he also knows I'd find out if he had, so that doesn't count for much. I don't know, Wyatt. Most of the things I thought I knew about him and his motives were wrong. All I know is he made an exception for only you in the barn. It stands to reason he might make another. It's just that 'Owen' and 'reason' don't exactly belong in the same paragraph at the moment.

[loftylockjaw]

@technowarden:

[pm] Good! It got so damn cold out there later that night, I didn't want to find out you'd turned into a [del: crocsicle] popsicle.

[pm] Yeah... appreciate the assist. Sorry I said you weren't real, it's been a rough year.

[...] Have you talked to him-- He-- So I take it our mutual shitass slayer has been on an undead killing spree for a bit, huh? He asked me for names, supposedly so he could make sure to leave 'mine' alone. Dunno if I trust him, though. Do you? You know, since you were also apparently on the list--

[loftylockjaw]

[pm] Did you get home safe?

[........]

[pm] Took a couple hours, but yeah. Thanks for

[loftylockjaw]

[ user wants to call him a bitch but can't muster the energy to be cranky right now ]

[pm] I'm s- If you- You should have let them- Ple- [message read]