#it’s very sketchy please don’t judge me too hard I kinda just went with the flow there
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dollya-robinprotector · 8 months ago
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Admire - Savor - Devour
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A.k.a The Swap girls and what they’re doing with the forbidden fruit 🍎 look at them, they’re all Pink!
I drew this a while ago when we talked about our girls and how they should developed in the Swap AU. Many interesting thoughts bubbled and I think my little Dolly, despite not willing to take any bite for now, is contenting to enjoy her Love like this. For now.
Featured Eri of @hakusins and Aphrodite of @just-dol-headshots
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weareallfallengods · 5 years ago
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Flight from Grace- Chapter 2
(I cant be bothered to switch to my pc to create a read more link so bam, whole thing right here.)
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Flight from Grace - Chapter 2: Where's my coffee?
I was cold.
The thought that being cold was somehow wrong is what woke me. I was cold and I shouldn’t be for some reason. The more aware of that I became, the more I realized how uncomfortable it was. I was laying on something that had hard lumps in the most inconvenient of places and wriggling didn’t really change that, and only served to make my irritation at the discomfort more intrusive on my sleep-muddled thoughts, forcing them to become more focused and conscious, which at the moment, I very much didn’t want to be. I wanted to slide back under the blissful unawareness of sleep, to return to the feeling of the dream I couldn’t quite remember since it was so much more preferable to whatever was scratching my face and poking me in the side. 
I snorted my displeasure at the intrusion of conscious reality and tried to turn over more vigorously, yanking at whatever passed for a blanket covering my head in annoyance. That only made me more annoyed; whatever was covering me smelled...bad. Just all the smells that make you wrinkle your nose and hold your breath til they pass rolled into one rotting sushi roll of stinkiness, which definitely didn't fit with whatever I was previously dreaming. 
It was no use. Sleep had slipped through my grasp like a toddler grabbing a bowl of jello. Both are disgusting- too sticky and jiggly. So much for waking up in a good mood.
Sadly, this awareness of stinky scratchiness and lumpy surface forced my brain to start working. Some days, I hate it when it does that. Why can’t it just be quiet and let me float along like a marshmallow? Ah well. 
Oh shit. 
Shit shit shit. I just remembered why the hell my nose was being violated. My eyes snapped open, looking for the reason I was no longer warm- Grace. Nope. Can you frown with just your nose? My face seemed determined to find out. 
I jumped up, snapping the cover off and shot a quick look around the empty room. Nothing. What the hell? Where’d she go? Great. First I stumble across the first mortal who could look me in the eye without devolving into schizophrenia, and then I lose her just by falling asleep. Of freakin course I do. Goddamn sleep and it's irresistible siren's call. And god damn whatever that smell was and whoever put it there.
As I was sitting there in a lump of twisted up, stained moving blanket, a small sound from behind the crumbling wall opposite me caught my attention, only to reveal Grace softly coming around from behind it, straightening her black t-shirt. She noticed me sitting up, paused for a moment mid shuffle, and started giggling. What now?
“Well darlin’, aren’t you just the most hilarious bird’s nest of a mess in the mornin'!” Grace couldn’t help but giggle at what she saw sitting in a pile on the discarded mattress in the corner. 
My hand went to my hair. Oh. Ok, I had to give her that one. It was pretty bad. 
I snorted a dry laugh too. “Yeah, this hair is pretty shocking, even to me. Probably not quite what you were expecting.”
“Sugar, I don’t know what to expect with you, now or ever. We had a rough night; don’t worry about the hair though, it’s kinda cute.”
Well that was the understatement of the year. I haven’t had a night that rough in a very long time. Not since...well that doesn’t matter right now. 
“But,” Grace started, slowly moving closer, “much as I hate to say it this way, we need to talk about last night.”
I sighed. Gods, why do I keep doing that? Yeah, we did. There was a lot. A lot that I didn’t have answers for to be honest, but still, things that needed to be discussed. I owed her that much at least. Hell, I owed me that much.
“Yeah, we do.”
“So, you wanna start, or should I?”
I finally managed to look her in the eyes again. “You’ve probably got more questions than I do right now, so you start and I’ll see if I can clear things up a little. Well, I hope I can.”
Grace took a slow, deep breath. “Alright, let’s start with the simple stuff- what the hell happened at the bar?”
That's her idea of leading with the simple stuff? What happened to 'sleep good?' or 'where the fuck are we?' or even better, 'do you want some coffee?' So much for simple. To be fair though, that one was easier than what I thought she was going to lead with. I wish there was coffee. Ha, what was I thinking, not like this run down warehouse was the Ramada. Ha, the Ramada Hovel had a nice ring to it. Probably gets rated not in stars but in rats. Deep breath.
“I had to get you out of a very dangerous situation as fast as I possibly could. I should’ve realized what was about to happen sooner than I did, but I was kind of distracted at the time, and the drinks probably weren’t helping at all either.”
“Ya don't say?" Grace's eyebrows curled mockingly.  "So, what was that thing chasin' us? Why was it chasin' us? Was it chasin' me? Or you? Or both of us? How’d it follow us? What was it that freaked you out about me? Are you still freakin' out? Am I freakin' out right now? Ok, yeah, I think I’m freakin' out a little bit right now and I’m starting to babble again, and I don’t know what’s going on and…”
“Grace!”
She stopped long enough to look at me. I got up, took her hand, and turned her slightly. “Please sit for a minute; just breathe. I’ll do my best to explain as much as I know, because I’m kind of freaking out a little myself.”
That seemed to work. Enough anyway. Deep breath again. I’ve only ever talked to one other person about this in all these years, and they had already known enough that I didn’t have to go over the hard stuff I was about to now. Sweet Mikhail I wished I had a whiskey sour right now. This was definitely a job for alcohol; much as I loved the stuff, coffee was a little to weak for this situation. Why was I so nervous? That was a question I didn’t even want to consider the answer to right this second. Focus, genius. 
“Ok, this is going to all sound a little weird, probably unbelievable, but I swear to you, it’s the truth as I know it. 
“The thing chasing us from the bar was a gatekeeper of sorts. It’s job is to hunt down the things that poke holes in the separation between this mortal plane of existence and others.”
She was looking skeptical, but at least she was still listening. 
“As for why it was chasing us, well, it probably thought I was the one poking holes in reality.”
“You? Why?” She looked curiously concerned. 
“Because…” I trailed off, not able to look at her any longer. Neglected as it was, at least the floorboards didn't judge. They constrained themselves to silent accusation like any self-respecting flooring should. Leave the judgement to ceilings. “Because I’m not what you think I am. You think I’m a regular old ordinary person like you. And I kind of am, but not really. I’m not even supposed to be here. I think.”
“Hunh? Whadd’ya mean you’re not like me?”
Deep breath again. Breathing is good for you, right? “Ok, so here goes. You know how people believe in spirits, ghosts, angels, demons, goblins, that sort of thing?” She nodded. “Well, all that stuff is actually real. They’ve always existed in one form or another here in the mortal realm, but we’re not actually from here like you are.”
“We? You said ‘we’, right?”
“Yeah. Here’s where it gets a little sketchy for me, and why I was so surprised at how you were looking at me last night. How you’re looking at me right now.”
“I’m listenin'.” Grace was a little more withdrawn than I was used to seeing her, but she wasn’t jumping up and running away. 
“Yeah. We. Me, specifically. I’m not mortal. Not human. I think. Pretty sure anyway, it’s all kind of fuzzy when I try to remember.”
“Soooo...you’re what, some kind of ghost? How come I can touch you then?”
“No, no, not a ghost. As far as I can tell, I’m some kind of what you would call an angel or a demon, but I’ll be honest, I don’t know which. All I know is that if I’m here in the mortal realm, I’m not where I should be; just this nagging feeling I'm from...somewhere...that's not, here. And I’ve been here for a long time and I’m still not any closer to figuring out where I’m originally from, but I do know that there’s others like me here. I don’t come across them very often, but there’s more than just me.
“You asked me why that thing was chasing us too; I think that somehow, I got noticed, that it knew I  wasn’t supposed to be here, something that was triggered when you looked at me.”
“Hold up, so this giant dog catfish just blew up my bar and chased us half across the city because you’re like an illegal immigrant or somethin'?”
That made me laugh. “Something like that. Guess my green card ran out.”
“But why would me looking at you trigger something like that? Like you’re gorgeous and all, but not like ‘tear a hole in the space-time continuum gorgeous’. No offence.”
“No, I’m right there with you on that!” Did she just call me gorgeous? And were those butterflies in my stomach or was I just hungry? Or did she just insult my looks? I mean, I've never been like, obsessed over it, but I was pretty sure I was better looking than your average bridge troll. Well, maybe not this morning, but still. Shut up brain. You too stomach. Heart, don’t even start. 
“So you said it happened when I saw what I did in your eyes. But I didn’t really see anythin'! Wait, what should I have seen?” 
“So you remember that douchecreep that hit on me?” She nodded again. “Well, he saw what most people see when they look into my eyes- an unfiltered glimpse into the expanse of eternity, which usually makes a mortal’s mind crumble. It's kinda how I figured I wasn't from around here. They’re just not equipped to handle trying to comprehend the depth of infinity, so it usually sends them plummeting off the deep end of crazy. Some survive. A lot don't.
“Survive? Like, seeing 'infinity in your eyes' kills people? What the fuck! So what’s different about me? Why am I not dead, or crazy? Wait, unless I’m already crazy.” She laughed a little as she stood up and slowly started pacing. 
“No, you’re not crazy. Well, at least not crazy caused by me. You sound a lot more coherent than a bowl of jello, so you're good." What was it with me and jello today? Kinda how my brain feels I guess.
“Well that’s a relief! I think.” Grace’s shoulders seemed to relax a little. “It’s a little hard to believe; I mean right now, all I see is what I saw last night- just normal, green eyes. No ‘depths of eternal damnation’ or anythin' like that. I mean if I hadn’t seen what I did, and if I’m honest, I’m starting to wonder if I actually saw what I think I did. You sittin' here in front of me in a place that is very definitely not my appartment is the only thing keepin’ me even slightly convinced that you’re not completely bat-shit and that I’m just hallucinating.”
“Well, the jury’s still out on how sane I am but yeah, you saw what you thought you did.”
“My nana would flip her shit to hear all this talk of angels and spiritual stuff. She lived for this kind of thing.”
“So you believe me?” Maybe this was going to be better than I was first thinking.
“Let’s just say I’m still making up my mind; the fact that you’re hands-down the most interestin' person I’ve met since I left home is holdin' my attention at least.”
“Well, that’s something.”
“But this is all a bit much, if I’m to believe you. I mean, God an' angels an'  the devil are all just things my nana an' her old church friends talk about. And I sure as hell never heard anythin' about them walkin' into bars and riding motorcycles like Evil Knevil!” She was starting to breathe faster, heavier again. Here it comes.
“But some giant catfish starts blowing things up an' tryin’a eat me, an’ you’re sittin’ here as big as life, still smellin’ like korean barbecue- which makes me think that that all wasn’t just a bizarre dream- tellin’ me that it was some kind of demonic golden retreiver chasin’ us all over town, an' that there’s a heaven an' a hell, an' you’re somethin’ like what used to show up in the books they taught me from in Sunday school that accidentally makes people lose their minds if they look you in the eye, but I don’t see that which is somehow a problem, and,” she was breathing kind of heavily now, hand on her side as she walked a few steps back and forth in front of where I was still sitting on the edge of the ratty mattress. 
“Whoa now, I think you might be hyperventilating,” I reached out a little in concern.
“No I’m not hyperventilating, I’m havin’ a existential panic attack! I’m tryin'a understand everythin' you’ve just said, an' at the same time, tryin'a  figure out how I got swept up in all this mess, an' if it even is a mess, and if it is, if it's a mess I even believe in!” Her eyes were looking a little unfocused now. Something was wrong. Like more wrong than how wrong things were already. You know what I mean. Wronger than wrong. Different wrong.
“You don’t look so good.” Apparently it’s a day for understatements. If there was a world record for them, I was probably going to break it by sundown.
“Really? I don’t look so good? This is all just a bit much, y’know, and now I’m the one who isn’t ok? Ya think?” Damn, she really was panicking now. I guess I didn’t have her figured out just yet. 
“Yeah, um, you should probably sit down,” I got up and put my hand on her shoulder to guide her back over to the bed, insisting by touch even though she flinched. Why did that make me sad?
“Sit? I can’t sit right now! I’m tryin’a….whoa.” Grace’s eyes unfocused as she grabbed my arms to keep from falling. “Um, what’s going...on?”
Her eyes rolled back a little as her legs gave out from under her. She was heavier than she looked- good thing I’d gotten her closer to the mattress so she could collapse on to it as she drug me down with her, still holding my arm tightly. 
“Grace? Grace!” She didn’t respond as I shook her, her breathing rapid and short. Fuck.
That’s when I noticed. Her shirt had ridden up when she flopped prone on the bed, revealing her midriff and the finger-long scratch just below her left ribs. Shit. Of course it was glowing. Somehow, during our escape, she must have gotten grazed. Didn’t look like a serious wound, but even though I didn’t know much about the thing that had chased us, I knew even a scratch was bad news. Really bad news. Today was just packaging itself up and express shipping itself straight to hell.
“Fuck, what do I do now!” Saying it out loud didn’t make the answers come any faster than when I was thinking it. 
Light. I needed light. I couln’t see well enough to tell if what looked like a scratch was actually worse than that. I ran across and tore the tarp off the big industrial window, letting the sunlight pour through the loft, dust motes swirling and sparkling like being caught in a snowglobe. Kind of a shitty snowglobe if you ask me. 
The wound’s glow faded in the brightness, and on closer look, it didn’t seem like it was any deeper than just a scratch, but from the look of the blue and red spider-veining spreading out from the small cut, it didn’t need to be. Those veins of virulent red and sickly blue were climbing up under her chest, obscured by her shirt, and thicker ones winding down below the waistband of her black jeans. Dammit. 
Sweet Mikhail, I needed some luck. 
* * * * * * *
Story tag list
@random-with-garlic @a-dinosaurs-left-phgkneecap @flower-in-the-ashes @nixabee @luvnaught @pens-swords-stuff @alice-and-cheshire-cat @humans-are-seriously-weird @flying-f1shsticks @neil-gaiman @glumshoe @lykanyouko @kaylewiswrites @just-a-bit-paranoid @thatsmybluefondue @violet-galaxies @biggest-gaudiest-patronuses @midnight-spectrum-again @slytherinlovespuff @friendofcybermen @hemi528i @mirbisduschoen @khelladon @walkin-in-the-cosmos
As always, if you want to be added to or removed from the tag list, just shoot me a message and your wish is my command. 
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square-enix-headcanons · 5 years ago
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How would Even, Isa, Lea and Laurium react to their s/o or crush finding out about some of the sketchy stuff they did as nobodies?
The Angst potential in this!!
(Cut under Even for length)
Even
He’d asked the other members of the organization not to tell you - Maybe he’d do it himself one day, but if you were to find out, he wanted to be the one to tell you
That was the plan, at least
Most people in Radiant Garden don’t know how exactly everything went down, but there are a few who do
One day, you and Even are taking a stroll through the city when one of those people sees you and flinches away
“You’re him! One of the black coats!”
Confused, you try to ask Even, but he just tries to postpone it. Which usually means he won’t tell you
So you follow the other person to get answers
Even looks after you for quite a while before he anxiously returns to the castle
He can’t even focus on his research right now - He tries a few times, but then accepts it’s not going to happen right now
You come back late at night; there was a lot to unpack, and you still don’t know any details
Even is sitting on his bed in his room, only looking up when he hears you enter
Honestly, he wasn’t expecting you to come back. He did horrible, horrible things as a Nobody.
And, truth be told, even before that. He still had his Heart during some rather bad things
He wants to say something, anything, but what do you say in such a situation?
He finally settles on “I’m sorry”
You sit down next to him. “Tell me everything.”
He’d really love to get around this, but then what? Sure, he could refuse to answer, but he’s scared you’d just leave
He does downgrade things quite a bit, though. You don’t need to know the grisly details; he settles on the facts that he did experiments and that people got hurt
It’s a long, long night for both of you
Once he’s done, he goes silent and waits for your reaction - he’s fairly sure you’ll leave, but a small part of him hopes you’ll forgive him for the things he can’t forgive himself for yet
Isa
Isa hopes you’ll never find out about his past - It’s nice to have someone who doesn’t know about all he’s done, who couldn’t ask or talk about it
(Truth be told, if it were an option, he’d be very tempted to just forget about it all)
He does sometimes feel a bit worried and guilty, though
Would you still be with him if you knew the truth? Does not telling you mean everything is based on a lie? Don’t you deserve the truth?
Sometimes, you catch him looking at you very thoughtfully, but he refuses to say what he’s been thinking about
Then, one day, you find his old journal - less a diary, more a work planner
And since work planners aren’t usually too personal, you give in to your curiosity and look inside
Inside is a list of missions, with descriptions, names, whether they were successful, and a reference for the full report
While some missions don’t sound too bad, others are very worrisome
Even more so once you spot Roxas’s and Xion’s names; they’re still kids, and judging by those descriptions, they should not be doing missions like that!
You leave for a while to clear your head, leaving the journal behind
Which is when Isa comes back
And sees his journal - dammit he thought he’d gotten rid of it all - and that you’re not there
He’s sure you’ve left for good. After all, you just found out that he’s, you know. A murderer, formerly part of an Organization of murderers, and back then saw no problems using two kids in said Organization
If you were there, he might try to find excuses for you - It was because he had no Heart, because he was controlled by Xemnas, that he had a good reason. But while all those things are technically true, he doesn’t even really believe them himself
Isa ends up punching a wall in frustration. He’s not angry at you; more at himself for not getting rid of the journal, at the world, the general state of things, whatever
Once that’s done, he tries to sort his thoughts - which means tidying up (or rather, reorganizing, it’s already pretty tidy) the room, starting with throwing the journal away
If you come back, he’ll be completely stunned for a moment. He did not expect that.
He’s very hesitant and careful around you for a bit, since he doesn’t know yet how you took the news
However, if you forgive him (or even say that you’ll try), he’ll give you a big hug, and probably cry a little
Lea
Lea genuinely plans on telling you, as soon as he figures out how
Several times, he starts to say something, but then quickly finds a new topic to talk about
The first few times, it wasn’t too noticeable, but at some point it does become kind of obvious
“Lea, come on, what were you really going to tell me?”
He stops whatever he was going to say and hesitates
“Well, it’s kind of a long story…”
Inwardly, he’s wondering if maybe he should never have started
He’s changed, right? So maybe there wouldn’t have been any need for you to know at all
Maybe knowing will just make things harder for you
Maybe you’d wish he’d never told you
But, well, now it’s too late to back out again
Okay, admittedly, he does try to shorten it to “I used to be part of a pretty bad group, but now I’m not anymore”
But you only need to raise your eyebrows, and Lea sighs and starts talking about what that “group” was
He doesn’t look at you while he explains
You’d heard about the black coated people before, but you wouldn’t have guessed Lea was one of them!
Near the end, Lea kinda just trails off, shrugs, and looks at you
Everyone else did forgive him so far, so he’s pretty hopeful you’ll do the same
But at the same time, he’s also kinda scared how you might think of him now
After all, not everyone is like Sora and his group
If you say you still want to be with him, you get a b i g hug and probably get twirled around a bit
If you don’t, Lea will mostly be confused at first; it takes a while to really sink in
He won’t go out of his way to avoid you, but if you two cross paths, he won’t do more than maybe wave at you
His heart breaks a little every time you turn around or hurry away
Lauriam
Lauriam decided to put his past where it belongs - in the past
It’s not that he doesn’t care. He does, and feels horrible about some of the things he did
But he can’t change them anymore now, so he tries his best to accept that those things happened and move on
Which is why he never told you anything. That’s the past, while you’re the present
Now, putting his past behind him doesn’t mean completely getting rid of it; Lauriam still has some things from his time in the Organization, including his coat and an old diary
The latter of which you find. And, sure, it’s not nice to read someone else’s diary, but...
Lauriam comes in while you’re reading, and pretty quickly figures out what’s happening
“So, now you know.”
He sounds amazingly calm, grabs a chair and sits down near the door, much farther away from you than he normally would
Inwardly, he’s scared of your reaction. He doesn’t know how much you read, but honestly, none of it is flattering
So he thinks you’d prefer keeping some distance. He didn’t get the title of “Assassin” for nothing, after all
And while he’d never hurt you - and doesn’t plan on hurting anyone else anytime soon - assassins aren’t the type of person most people want to be near
He gives you some time to say or do something - ask a question, accuse him, run out of the room. All very understandable reactions in such a situation
If you don’t react at all, Lauriam asks whether you’d like him to leave - he would if you did
Mainly he wants any reaction at all. He’d prefer you yelling at him over sitting there in absolute silence
“Please, love, say something.”
He answers any question you might have. Sometimes he glosses over the finer details, but he doesn’t lie to you
He knows all this info would be hard to accept
If you decide you can’t, he’ll send you one last flower bouquet, then try to avoid you as much as possible
If you decide you still want to be with him, he’ll thank you - It sounds way less thrilled than he actually is, but trust me, he’s over the moon
The following days or maybe even weeks, Lauriam tries to be more careful around you. No sudden movements, for example, and he won’t initiate stuff like cuddling or hand holding as often, though he 100% reciprocates if you start
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weareallfallengods · 5 years ago
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Repost bcz the original is too far down my blog
Flight from Grace - Chapter 2
I was cold.
The thought that being cold was somehow wrong is what woke me. I was cold and I shouldn’t be for some reason. The more aware of that I became, the more I realized how uncomfortable it was. I was laying on something that had hard lumps in the most inconvenient of places and wriggling didn’t really change that, and only served to make my irritation at the discomfort more intrusive on my sleep-muddled thoughts, forcing them to become more focused and conscious, which at the moment, I very much didn’t want to be. I wanted to slide back under the blissful unawareness of sleep, to return to the feeling of the dream I couldn’t quite remember since it was so much more preferable to whatever was scratching my face and poking me in the side. 
I snorted my displeasure at the intrusion of conscious reality and tried to turn over more vigorously, yanking at whatever passed for a blanket covering my head in annoyance. That only made me more annoyed; whatever was covering me smelled...bad. Just all the smells that make you wrinkle your nose and hold your breath til they pass rolled into one rotting sushi roll of stinkiness, which definitely didn't fit with whatever I was previously dreaming. 
It was no use. Sleep had slipped through my grasp like a toddler grabbing a bowl of jello. Both are disgusting- too sticky and jiggly. So much for waking up in a good mood.
Sadly, this awareness of stinky scratchiness and lumpy surface forced my brain to start working. Some days, I hate it when it does that. Why can’t it just be quiet and let me float along like a marshmallow? Ah well. 
Oh shit. 
Shit shit shit. I just remembered why the hell my nose was being violated. My eyes snapped open, looking for the reason I was no longer warm- Grace. Nope. Can you frown with just your nose? My face seemed determined to find out. 
I jumped up, snapping the cover off and shot a quick look around the empty room. Nothing. What the hell? Where’d she go? Great. First I stumble across the first mortal who could look me in the eye without devolving into schizophrenia, and then I lose her just by falling asleep. Of freakin course I do. Goddamn sleep and it's irresistible siren's call. And god damn whatever that smell was and whoever put it there.
As I was sitting there in a lump of twisted up, stained moving blanket, a small sound from behind the crumbling wall opposite me caught my attention, only to reveal Grace softly coming around from behind it, straightening her black t-shirt. She noticed me sitting up, paused for a moment mid shuffle, and started giggling. What now?
“Well darlin’, aren’t you just the most hilarious bird’s nest of a mess in the mornin'!” Grace couldn’t help but giggle at what she saw sitting in a pile on the discarded mattress in the corner. 
My hand went to my hair. Oh. Ok, I had to give her that one. It was pretty bad. 
I snorted a dry laugh too. “Yeah, this hair is pretty shocking, even to me. Probably not quite what you were expecting.”
“Sugar, I don’t know what to expect with you, now or ever. We had a rough night; don’t worry about the hair though, it’s kinda cute.”
Well that was the understatement of the year. I haven’t had a night that rough in a very long time. Not since...well that doesn’t matter right now. 
“But,” Grace started, slowly moving closer, “much as I hate to say it this way, we need to talk about last night.”
I sighed. Gods, why do I keep doing that? Yeah, we did. There was a lot. A lot that I didn’t have answers for to be honest, but still, things that needed to be discussed. I owed her that much at least. Hell, I owed me that much.
“Yeah, we do.”
“So, you wanna start, or should I?”
I finally managed to look her in the eyes again. “You’ve probably got more questions than I do right now, so you start and I’ll see if I can clear things up a little. Well, I hope I can.”
Grace took a slow, deep breath. “Alright, let’s start with the simple stuff- what the hell happened at the bar?”
That's her idea of leading with the simple stuff? What happened to 'sleep good?' or 'where the fuck are we?' or even better, 'do you want some coffee?' So much for simple. To be fair though, that one was easier than what I thought she was going to lead with. I wish there was coffee. Ha, what was I thinking, not like this run down warehouse was the Ramada. Ha, the Ramada Hovel had a nice ring to it. Probably gets rated not in stars but in rats. Deep breath.
“I had to get you out of a very dangerous situation as fast as I possibly could. I should’ve realized what was about to happen sooner than I did, but I was kind of distracted at the time, and the drinks probably weren’t helping at all either.”
“Ya don't say?" Grace's eyebrows curled mockingly.  "So, what was that thing chasin' us? Why was it chasin' us? Was it chasin' me? Or you? Or both of us? How’d it follow us? What was it that freaked you out about me? Are you still freakin' out? Am I freakin' out right now? Ok, yeah, I think I’m freakin' out a little bit right now and I’m starting to babble again, and I don’t know what’s going on and…”
“Grace!”
She stopped long enough to look at me. I got up, took her hand, and turned her slightly. “Please sit for a minute; just breathe. I’ll do my best to explain as much as I know, because I’m kind of freaking out a little myself.”
That seemed to work. Enough anyway. Deep breath again. I’ve only ever talked to one other person about this in all these years, and they had already known enough that I didn’t have to go over the hard stuff I was about to now. Sweet Mikhail I wished I had a whiskey sour right now. This was definitely a job for alcohol; much as I loved the stuff, coffee was a little to weak for this situation. Why was I so nervous? That was a question I didn’t even want to consider the answer to right this second. Focus, genius. 
“Ok, this is going to all sound a little weird, probably unbelievable, but I swear to you, it’s the truth as I know it. 
“The thing chasing us from the bar was a gatekeeper of sorts. It’s job is to hunt down the things that poke holes in the separation between this mortal plane of existence and others.”
She was looking skeptical, but at least she was still listening. 
“As for why it was chasing us, well, it probably thought I was the one poking holes in reality.”
“You? Why?” She looked curiously concerned. 
“Because…” I trailed off, not able to look at her any longer. Neglected as it was, at least the floorboards didn't judge. They constrained themselves to silent accusation like any self-respecting flooring should. Leave the judgement to ceilings. “Because I’m not what you think I am. You think I’m a regular old ordinary person like you. And I kind of am, but not really. I’m not even supposed to be here. I think.”
“Hunh? Whadd’ya mean you’re not like me?”
Deep breath again. Breathing is good for you, right? “Ok, so here goes. You know how people believe in spirits, ghosts, angels, demons, goblins, that sort of thing?” She nodded. “Well, all that stuff is actually real. They’ve always existed in one form or another here in the mortal realm, but we’re not actually from here like you are.”
“We? You said ‘we’, right?”
“Yeah. Here’s where it gets a little sketchy for me, and why I was so surprised at how you were looking at me last night. How you’re looking at me right now.”
“I’m listenin'.” Grace was a little more withdrawn than I was used to seeing her, but she wasn’t jumping up and running away. 
“Yeah. We. Me, specifically. I’m not mortal. Not human. I think. Pretty sure anyway, it’s all kind of fuzzy when I try to remember.”
“Soooo...you’re what, some kind of ghost? How come I can touch you then?”
“No, no, not a ghost. As far as I can tell, I’m some kind of what you would call an angel or a demon, but I’ll be honest, I don’t know which. All I know is that if I’m here in the mortal realm, I’m not where I should be; just this nagging feeling I'm from...somewhere...that's not, here. And I’ve been here for a long time and I’m still not any closer to figuring out where I’m originally from, but I do know that there’s others like me here. I don’t come across them very often, but there’s more than just me.
“You asked me why that thing was chasing us too; I think that somehow, I got noticed, that it knew I  wasn’t supposed to be here, something that was triggered when you looked at me.”
“Hold up, so this giant dog catfish just blew up my bar and chased us half across the city because you’re like an illegal immigrant or somethin'?”
That made me laugh. “Something like that. Guess my green card ran out.”
“But why would me looking at you trigger something like that? Like you’re gorgeous and all, but not like ‘tear a hole in the space-time continuum gorgeous’. No offence.”
“No, I’m right there with you on that!” Did she just call me gorgeous? And were those butterflies in my stomach or was I just hungry? Or did she just insult my looks? I mean, I've never been like, obsessed over it, but I was pretty sure I was better looking than your average bridge troll. Well, maybe not this morning, but still. Shut up brain. You too stomach. Heart, don’t even start. 
“So you said it happened when I saw what I did in your eyes. But I didn’t really see anythin'! Wait, what should I have seen?” 
“So you remember that douchecreep that hit on me?” She nodded again. “Well, he saw what most people see when they look into my eyes- an unfiltered glimpse into the expanse of eternity, which usually makes a mortal’s mind crumble. It's kinda how I figured I wasn't from around here. They’re just not equipped to handle trying to comprehend the depth of infinity, so it usually sends them plummeting off the deep end of crazy. Some survive. A lot don't.
“Survive? Like, seeing 'infinity in your eyes' kills people? What the fuck! So what’s different about me? Why am I not dead, or crazy? Wait, unless I’m already crazy.” She laughed a little as she stood up and slowly started pacing. 
“No, you’re not crazy. Well, at least not crazy caused by me. You sound a lot more coherent than a bowl of jello, so you're good." What was it with me and jello today? Kinda how my brain feels I guess.
“Well that’s a relief! I think.” Grace’s shoulders seemed to relax a little. “It’s a little hard to believe; I mean right now, all I see is what I saw last night- just normal, green eyes. No ‘depths of eternal damnation’ or anythin' like that. I mean if I hadn’t seen what I did, and if I’m honest, I’m starting to wonder if I actually saw what I think I did. You sittin' here in front of me in a place that is very definitely not my appartment is the only thing keepin’ me even slightly convinced that you’re not completely bat-shit and that I’m just hallucinating.”
“Well, the jury’s still out on how sane I am but yeah, you saw what you thought you did.”
“My nana would flip her shit to hear all this talk of angels and spiritual stuff. She lived for this kind of thing.”
“So you believe me?” Maybe this was going to be better than I was first thinking.
“Let’s just say I’m still making up my mind; the fact that you’re hands-down the most interestin' person I’ve met since I left home is holdin' my attention at least.”
“Well, that’s something.”
“But this is all a bit much, if I’m to believe you. I mean, God an' angels an'  the devil are all just things my nana an' her old church friends talk about. And I sure as hell never heard anythin' about them walkin' into bars and riding motorcycles like Evil Knevil!” She was starting to breathe faster, heavier again. Here it comes.
“But some giant catfish starts blowing things up an' tryin’a eat me, an’ you’re sittin’ here as big as life, still smellin’ like korean barbecue- which makes me think that that all wasn’t just a bizarre dream- tellin’ me that it was some kind of demonic golden retreiver chasin’ us all over town, an' that there’s a heaven an' a hell, an' you’re somethin’ like what used to show up in the books they taught me from in Sunday school that accidentally makes people lose their minds if they look you in the eye, but I don’t see that which is somehow a problem, and,” she was breathing kind of heavily now, hand on her side as she walked a few steps back and forth in front of where I was still sitting on the edge of the ratty mattress. 
“Whoa now, I think you might be hyperventilating,” I reached out a little in concern.
“No I’m not hyperventilating, I’m havin’ a existential panic attack! I’m tryin'a understand everythin' you’ve just said, an' at the same time, tryin'a  figure out how I got swept up in all this mess, an' if it even is a mess, and if it is, if it's a mess I even believe in!” Her eyes were looking a little unfocused now. Something was wrong. Like more wrong than how wrong things were already. You know what I mean. Wronger than wrong. Different wrong.
“You don’t look so good.” Apparently it’s a day for understatements. If there was a world record for them, I was probably going to break it by sundown.
“Really? I don’t look so good? This is all just a bit much, y’know, and now I’m the one who isn’t ok? Ya think?” Damn, she really was panicking now. I guess I didn’t have her figured out just yet. 
“Yeah, um, you should probably sit down,” I got up and put my hand on her shoulder to guide her back over to the bed, insisting by touch even though she flinched. Why did that make me sad?
“Sit? I can’t sit right now! I’m tryin’a….whoa.” Grace’s eyes unfocused as she grabbed my arms to keep from falling. “Um, what’s going...on?”
Her eyes rolled back a little as her legs gave out from under her. She was heavier than she looked- good thing I’d gotten her closer to the mattress so she could collapse on to it as she drug me down with her, still holding my arm tightly. 
“Grace? Grace!” She didn’t respond as I shook her, her breathing rapid and short. Fuck.
That’s when I noticed. Her shirt had ridden up when she flopped prone on the bed, revealing her midriff and the finger-long scratch just below her left ribs. Shit. Of course it was glowing. Somehow, during our escape, she must have gotten grazed. Didn’t look like a serious wound, but even though I didn’t know much about the thing that had chased us, I knew even a scratch was bad news. Really bad news. Today was just packaging itself up and express shipping itself straight to hell.
“Fuck, what do I do now!” Saying it out loud didn’t make the answers come any faster than when I was thinking it. 
Light. I needed light. I couln’t see well enough to tell if what looked like a scratch was actually worse than that. I ran across and tore the tarp off the big industrial window, letting the sunlight pour through the loft, dust motes swirling and sparkling like being caught in a snowglobe. Kind of a shitty snowglobe if you ask me. 
The wound’s glow faded in the brightness, and on closer look, it didn’t seem like it was any deeper than just a scratch, but from the look of the blue and red spider-veining spreading out from the small cut, it didn’t need to be. Those veins of virulent red and sickly blue were climbing up under her chest, obscured by her shirt, and thicker ones winding down below the waistband of her black jeans. Dammit. 
Sweet Mikhail, I needed some luck. 
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