#like it's not bothering me directly but i kNOW that's the bird skittering around

[caoimhe-from-hoenn]

[A dark, grainy image of some avian Pokemon staring through a window at night, silhouetted dimly against a barely moonlit sky. Its reflective eyes gleam yellow.]

fucking,,. murkrow

[shortythescreen]

come over chapter 2: the invitation.

Warning(s): NSFT/18+, fem reader, dysfunctional family dynamics, semi public sex. 

Relationship(s): Octane/Female Reader.

Summary: Octavio’s family is having an event for their donors. He’d really rather not go but you’d make it a lot more bearable. 

Author’s Notes: I LLIIIIIVEEEEEEE. It took forever to get here y’all but here it is! Part 2 of Come Over! It was originally like, 10k words so I split it into two. Which means Part 3 is already written and I’ll just wait to see how this does before I put it out. 

Chapter 1 - Chapter 2 - Chapter 3.

Octavio doesn’t avoid his family.

He doesn’t! He really doesn’t. Seven chances out of ten, he picks up the phone when his mama calls, and if he doesn’t it’s probably because he’s in the arena. Or out. Whatever.

He’s sent his papa text messages during every major holiday he isn’t there for. Not that he isn’t there for a lot of them! He’s hasn’t missed El Dia de los Reyes in. Ever. Even if he didn’t show up for his parents’ New Year’s Eve party days prior. Not that he hadn’t wanted to, he’s just a busy guy. Busy guys don’t have time to go to every social event their billionaire parents host.

That’s what he’s trying to tell his mama.

“Mami, I’m busy with the games-” he tries, pressing his fingers to his temples, for once grateful that his mama doesn’t know how to operate the video camera function on her tablet. Otherwise, she’d see the twist of his lip as he speaks. He kinda thinks she might still be able to hear it, considering Elliot is skirting him as he walks through the common room, trying to distance himself from the hostility in his voice.

“Octavio, ya.” She bites and the tone of her voice seals his lips shut. Fuck. How’s that even fair? “The next game isn’t until Monday. You can be back on planet by Sunday night if you leave tomorrow.”

“Ma, I can’t,” Octavio tries, but his mama cuts him off.

“Yes, you can! Octavio Jose, you use Silva Pharmaceuticals for the games. This party is to celebrate all the donors that give us the resources to create the stim you use. You will come to this party, shake hands, jump hoops and do whatever these people want, or we will revoke your supply. Do you understand me?”

Octavio’s nostrils flare, his leg jiggling as he pushes his teeth against his tongue piercing. The stretch of metal against his muscle is half painful, but he ignores the ache in favor of clenching and unclenching his fists.

“Do you hear me-”

“Yes, ma, I’ll be there, bye.” And with that, Octavio taps the pad in front of him, effectively ending the call. He’ll get some messages later about hanging up on her, but he doesn’t care. All he wants to do right now is put his head through the fucking table next to the tablet.

“That, uh, sounded pretty heated,” Elliot says and Octavio snorts, turning pinched green eyes up to his fellow legend. He’s holding out a water bottle, clutching another in his opposite hand, and Octavio snatches it from his hand, not even bothering to grumble a thank you as he guzzles half of it. “Whoa! Easy!”

“I have to go to a party this weekend,” Octavio bites, ignoring the way that Elliot’s lips stitch shut, like his did when mama told him ya. Elliot hums, sipping more cautiously at his own water.

“Wow, what a predac- p-perdim- that kinda sounds like a dumb reason to be upset,” Elliot drops the sarcasm as he fumbles over the word and Octavio barks a laugh.

“Compadre, I wish it was,” he grits, pressing the flat of his palm against his still jiggling knee. It keeps moving. “My parents are hosting some stupid thank you donor thing.”

“That doesn’t sound that bad,” Elliot says, hopping over the edge of the couch to settle beside Octavio. He throws his boots up, resting them on the coffee table in front of him, the slide of the front door accompanied by some more footfalls. “You’ve thanked Silva Pharm on camera before.”

“It’s not the same,” Octavio grunts. Donors lived for Octane. They lived for his thrill seeking and heart stopping shows. They loved his tattoo and his catch phrases and wanted him to keep it up.

His parents didn’t want Octane. They wanted Octavio. And not even the real Octavio – the one they’d always wanted him to be. The one who was content being a dutiful son. The one who didn’t blow off his own legs with a grenade. The one who didn’t renounce his position as the heir to Silva Pharm.

“My mom said she’ll revoke my supply of stim if I don’t go,” he tells Elliot, who sucks in air through his teeth.

“Ooh, yikes. Guess you don’t have a choice, huh?” Elliot says. Octavio grimaces, now sipping at his water, hand still trying to placate his jittering leg.

“No he don’t. He knew that when his mama called,” a voice says and Octavio glances over, catching Ajay at the fridge on the edge of the common room. She’s pulled out a flavorless yogurt and busies herself scraping it into a bowl.

Ajay has been talking to him little by little, but they haven’t talked about the- incident. Of him lying. He lied to her. He regrets it most days. Right now, he really does, because he could really use her advice.

“Maybe it won’t be that bad!” Elliot says and Octavio sniffs, looking down at the coffee table to avoid Ajay’s eyes as she flops onto the couch across from them. She, too, kick her feet up onto the coffee table, slouching into the cushions.

“Maybe,” Octavio says, not moping into his water.

Silence passes between the three long enough for it to begin to feel stiff. Ajay breaks it with a loud sigh, and his eyes turn up, finding her staring at him.

“What?” He asks.

“Do ya parents still need a photographer?” She asks instead of answering him. Octavio blanches, sitting upright, and his leg stops in its insistent shaking, the click of his metal foot ceasing abruptly.

“What?” He asks again and Ajay blusters her lips, stuffing a spoonful of yogurt between her cheeks.

“Ya parents never let you bring a plus one ‘cause you always bring some so’n’so,” Ajay says and before Octavio protests, she continues, “shut up, yes ya do. If they still need a photographer, bring ours. She’s ya friend, right? She’ll make it more bearable, and she’s official, so ya parents won’t say nutin’.”

Octavio swallows, holding Ajay’s stare. She always seems so critical – like she knows what he’s thinking even when he doesn’t think he’s thinking at all. He wonders if she can tell how he’s been around you recently – if she’s noticed how you show up at his house late at night.

“Plus, she’s totally hot,” Elliot remarks and Octavio bristles and, oh yeah, Ajay notices. Her face remains neutral, but she thumps her foot against Elliot, who whines as the coffee table rattles beneath them.

“I’ll think about it,” he mutters, turning back to his water.

-----

It’s probably a bad idea for Octavio to invite you to his parents’ party.

After his… realization, he’s sort of been avoiding you. Not directly because Octavio doesn’t directly avoid- anything, really. He doesn’t avoid things. He’s not avoiding you. You guys just haven’t had sex since he said te amo into your throat. That’s all.

He’s not totally avoiding you, though. He still sends you shitty memes and you still tell him to let you work. He even brought you lunch the other day because your dumbass forgets to eat. Which is why he’s carrying over some empanadas to your studio.

Apex spared no expense for someone who was going to be key to their marketing. Your studio has vaulted ceilings and the pristine, white walls and tarps are constantly lit by either the natural light of the sun or the way too tall studio lights.

You seem concerned with neither, hunched in front of the triple monitors posed in front of your shooting area. He’s pretty sure that’s a picture of Bloodhound you’re editing.

“Hey,” he says, and you jump, your rolling chair skittering back as you dazedly blink up. Your eyes pinch as you squint, clearly perturbed from looking away from the screen after however long you’d been staring.

“Jesus! Fucking say something next time, Oc, you scared me!” You say and Octavio snickers, lips curling into a devious grin against his will.

“C’mon, amiga, you should’ve heard me coming,” he says, tapping his metal foot on the black tile. You huff, turning back to your computer.

“Shut up. What do you want?” You ask, leaning a little closer to the screen, despite having already zoomed in pretty damn far on Artur. Octavio grabs the chair at your left that you usually reserve for when your bosses come to visit, then flops down. The wheels careen him a little away, but he grabs the edge of your desk and pulls himself up.

“You need to eat, muchacha,” he says, holding up the brown paper bag. You purse your lips, glancing at him from the corner of your eye. Wordlessly, you take the bag from him, then move away from your computer.

You lean back in your seat, kicking your legs up onto his lap. Instinctively, Octavio reaches down, grabbing the edges of your feet to keep them in place on his thighs. He thumbs at the edge of your shoe and his nostrils flare. Damn it.

“Thanks,” you say, the crinkle of the bag the only sound for a little. Octavio rests an elbow on the edge of your desk, turning to look at what you’d been doing to Artur. He can see your notes at the top of the screen, scrawled with some digital pen: no alterations to the bird – it would be disrespectful to Houn-

“What’s the matter with you?” You ask, startling Octavio out of his reading. He turns his head to face you, your cheek bulged as you chew.

“What do you mean what’s the matter with me?” He asks back and you roll your eyes, swallowing hard.

“You’re never this quiet,” you say and Octavio huffs, turning to face the screen once again, his leg beginning to bounce in anticipation.

“Fuck off.”

“Fuck you, stop moving.”

“I’m not a fucking—a fucking—joda, what’s that word?”

“What word?”

“You know, for the- for the thing. When you put your feet up. Reposapíes.”

“What, like an ottoman?”

“No, fuck. I mean, yes, but that’s not the word I was thinking of.”

“A footrest?”

“Eso! Yes! Fuck you, I’m not a footrest.”

You press your lips together and silence passes between you for a moment. Then you snort, shoulders folding in. You raise your brows at him, and he sighs, chuckling through a groan, leaning back in his own seat to drag his hand down his face.

“Kinda lost steam there,” you say, and he squeezes the tips of your toes, half in warning, and you giggle. Your expression softens and you nudge his stomach with the toe of your shoe, tickling at the edge of where a sensor exists in his abdomen. “C’mon, Oc, what’s going on? You can talk to me…”

He knows he can. Octavio has vented to you about lots of things before. He’s vented to you about Anita, back before she started to cut him a little bit of slack. He’s vented to you about his phantom pains, on the days that he wakes up and forgets that he doesn’t really have legs anymore. He’s even vented to you about his parents before – about how his father has never quite accepted the man he’s become and how his mom is like an ice sculpture. Beautiful from a distance, but cold, and quick to melt under heat.

Still, with the… incident, he’s hesitant. He feels like he’s digging himself a deeper hole than he should. But he’s here. On Ajay’s advice. Ajay’s always known what’s best, in a way. At least, it seems that way.

“I have to go to some stupid donor function for Silva Pharmaceuticals or my parents are gonna revoke my stim,” Octavio blurts and he sees your expression soften a little, the edges of your brows drooping, your lips half pursing, and he hates, hates the loud LUBB-DUPP in his ears.

“That fucking sucks,” you tell him and he half snorts.

“Si, I know… But you would make it less sucky,” he says, “you… wanna come? I always have a plus one but my ma doesn’t like when I bring just anybody.”

“And your fuck buddy isn’t just anybody?” You deadpan, raising a brow, and Octavio hums, tugging at the toe of your shoe on his lap.

“You’re a professional photographer,” he reminds you. “It would only be for a night. Less than twelve hours. Fourteen if you include ride time to Psamathe.”

“Oh, Oc…”

“Mami, please? Please. My parents would pay you for the shots. There’s gonna be tons of booze.” He tries.

“Octavio-”

“You don’t even have to talk to anyone but me!” He insists.

“Oc-”

“I hate these things. We can get a hotel right after and you can ride my face right up until I have to be back for the game-”

“Yes! Yes, Octavio!” You cry, reaching over and grabbing his shoulders, your body bending awkwardly, tummy crinkling the empanada bag in your lap. You shake him a little. “Yes, I will come with you, Jesus Christ. I was gonna say yes to begin with!”

“Why didn’t you just come out and say that then?” He huffs, though the tension drains out of his shoulders and he smiles at you, lips pulling up further at one corner. His chest expands with breath, like a weight has been lifted.

“I was trying but you don’t shut the fuck up.” You mutter, shoving his shoulders and he throws his head back, laughing into the vaulted ceiling of your studio.

-----

The week comes and goes within the blink of an eye and Octavio is… Definitely not ready to go to this stupid event. He’s texted you a little more throughout the week, telling you the kind of attire that’s expected at these dumb functions and reminding you that you don’t have to bring any crazy equipment with you.

He calls mama at the last minute, of course, telling her that he’s bringing on a photographer who expects to be paid in full for her services. She’s huffy about it but mostly seems glad someone will be capturing the event from the perspective of the Silva family – though why she kept his pa’s name after the divorce, he’ll never know. Anyway, it’s not like they can’t afford to pay you.

Octavio wears the black tie he knows his mama will hound him not for wearing but he refuses to put the blazer on. Instead, he’ll just carry it, black fabric hanging off his forearm. The sleeves of his white button up are rolled up to his elbows and even though mama could make a big stink, he’d remind her he could have showed up in what he wore in the games – including the Jade Tiger outfit.

It might have been a little too intimate to pick you up. The thought of knocking on your door at an appropriate hour, of being in his monkey suit and offering you his arm, made this feel more like it was a date and not just a favor. Instead, Octavio ordered you a cab and now, he’s waiting for you just outside the entrance of Ship’s Landing.

He’s tapping away on his phone, playing a racing game that he’s definitely going to beat Makoa’s score in. His tongue pokes out and he leans a little closer, glancing up only when he hears the whistle of vehicles going by, hoping to catch sight of your cab.

It’s in the middle of a jump that requires all his attention, a taxi stops right in front of him and the door opens. Octavio glances up, looking back down at his game, only to stop and look back up again, this time lowering his phone to get a better look.

His heart must be running a relay, must be trying to get a lead with a grenade, because the second he sees you, all he can hear is that loud noise again. Like an explosion of movement through his arteries and veins, his heart desperately trying to pick up with the adrenaline in his system. For once, it isn’t a fight, or an explosion, or a race that causes it, though. It’s you.

It’s you, struggling to get some huge camera tote out of the taxi while in high heels (he told you that you just had to bring a camera, damn it). It’s you, wearing a shade of vermillion that matches the fabric of your dress that hugs your figure. It’s you, with the off the shoulder, sweetheart neckline, and Octavio is surprised he can still recall anything about fashion. He’s kind of kicking himself for it too, because he can’t stop thinking of how much of a sweetheart that cut is, how easy it would be to slide it down your chest.

Octavio’s chest constricts, pupils blown wide as he imagines those heels digging into his ass as he fucks you, the sharp pinch of them spurring him faster, harder. It would be so easy to push you back into the cab, pay the driver a little extra to keep quiet while he shucks the dress up to your hips and sucks on your clit until you’re crying.

You guys should skip this. As a matter of fact, he should pay the cab driver to take you guys home so he can rip that dress off you. So, he doesn’t have to see you glide around in it, taking pictures, laughing and holding glasses of chardonnay at some stupid promotional party he doesn’t give a flying fuck about it.

“Oc?” Your voice snaps him from his reverie and Octavio realizes you’re staring at him, lips pursed, half waving to get his attention. “Can you shut the door?”

“Oh, yeah,” he breathes, moving forward to shut the cab door. “You… look really good.”

“Gee, thanks,” you say, smirking his way, and the rare little dance of mischief that glitters in your eyes makes his heart constrict. Fuck, he’s in so much trouble. This was a bad idea. Why did Ajay tell him to do this?

“We should skip this thing,” he tells you, waggling his brows, and you purse your lips at him.

“And get your stim revoked?” Right. He’d forgotten. Which is saying something, a voice in his head that sounds very much like Che says. He bats her away.

“Shut up, I know,” he mumbles and you two walk towards the ship his mama had ordered to take you to Psamathe. It has the Silva Pharmaceuticals logo on the side and he waves away the driver who stands with his arms folded at the passenger doors.

Octavio opens the trunk, taking your camera tote and laying it down in the backseat. You fuss at him, telling him that you can hold it in your lap and that this extravagant looking ship definitely has the space for you to hold your camera. He waves you off, telling you that you’re going to be in the ship for two hours, and you don’t need to be holding the bag in your lap the whole time.

After that, you two set off, towards his home planet. The ship his ma ordered is, of course, top of the line. The interior is plush, and over cushioned, with a tiny little bar on the opposite side of the long seats. You gaze around in wonder, squinting at the compartment at the top of the ship that he knows contains a disco ball.

“Jeez, your family pulled out all the stops, huh?” You ask and he snorts, scooting towards the edge of the seat and grabbing a bottle of Aguardiente his knows his pa keeps stashed for when he has to ride with ma to events.

“Gotta show up in style,” he mumbles, grabbing one of the little cups stacked on top of a fancy looking cupholder. “Would look bad if I came in just a cab.”

He feels your gaze burning on the side of his face and he holds out the first glass of liquor to you. When he looks in your direction, you shake your head, and Octavio shrugs, taking the first shot with a loud ‘aa’ sound afterwards and a little clench of his teeth. Coño, that shit’s strong.

“You’re really stressed about this,” you conclude, and Octavio turns to look at you again. Your hands rest idly in your lap and your eyes seem to look right through him, finding all the little weak spots, the little internal ticks that made him say that stupid thing into your neck.

“I am,” he says, “you can help me de-stress, if you want, chica.”

He waggles his eyebrows at you, masking his discomfort at how easily you read him with a little laugh. To Octavio’s surprise, you reach over, placing a hand on his thigh, and his eyes meet yours with dark intent.

“Yeah,” you say, then lean in, and kiss him. His heart constricts in his chest and he hate, hate, hates Ajay right now.

At the same time, he loves her. Thinks that he should thank her, should apologize and thank her, because you’re kissing him slowly, lips warming him with every gentle slide. Your chin tucks a little closer to your chest as you bow your head, just enough to catch his lower lip between his teeth. He sighs, squirming at the gentle scrape, the distracting buzz of your hand creeping closer to the space between his thighs.

“If we fuck, can you manage not to get cum on this dress?” You ask him as you pull away and his dick throbs at the thought of fucking you.

“Absolutamente, mami,” he mutters, hands creeping out to grab at your hips. He wants to pull you on top of him, pull whatever panties you’re wearing to the side. Watch his dick disappear inside you. Watch you throw your head back while he pulls down that sweetheart neckline-

“I don’t believe that,” you grumble but you’re pushing him down onto the long seat. Octavio lands with a thump and he’s kind of thankful he doesn’t have much hair. He pushes himself up onto his elbows, watching you make your way down his body. You don’t stop to place gentle kisses on his stomach, or any of that other fluffy bullshit that makes his stomach flutter, and he’s grateful and disappointed all at the same time.

You wrangle his belt open, the button of his pants and his fly following. You only scoot his waistband down enough to reveal his boxer briefs and the choked off sound that leaves him as you fenagle his dick out of the small gap in them is embarrassing.

“Shit, mami, you don’t have to, we can wait,” he says, even though his fingers are already tangling in your hair. Impatient. You smirk up at him.

“I don’t think you can,” you reply, before you drag your tongue up the underside of him. He gasps, like the air has been punched from his lungs, hypersensitive from weeks of having not been touched. You let saliva pool in your mouth, then stick your tongue out, watching it drip down. It makes his dick glisten, slippery with your saliva, and a dark spot forms at the base where he’s poking out of his boxer-briefs.

“Baby,” he whines and now his hand has tightened, trying desperately to push you where he wants you. Your licks and kisses are good, but not enough, not for how hard he is, for how he wants to fuck into your throat.

You only smirk, dragging the flat of your tongue up, the tip of it flicking just beneath the head. His hips jerk at the sensation and he rolls his neck back with a little groan. Octavio is always so vocal, so willing to tell you what he wants and what he doesn’t. Right now, what he wants is for you to take it, suck his dick until his eyes cross and he cums down your throat.

“I’m working on it,” you reply, and he definitely hadn’t realized he said that out loud. Oh well. You finally, finally, gracias a Dios, take the tip of him into your mouth. You place your puckered lips over the very tip, tongue poking the salty slit, and Octavio’s mouth falls open. Yours does a moment later and your cheeks hollow as you make your down the length of him.

“Puuuutamadre! Baby! Fuck!” Octavio gasps and he’s thankful to be riding in such a large ship because he’s certain if he kept it up, the driver would definitely know what was going on. He also kind of doesn’t give a fuck, hips trembling with the effort to not fuck your throat. You bob your head up and down, tongue glued to the hard length of him, and fuck, your eyes are closed, like you’re enjoying this.

You have the audacity, in all of this, to drag the tip of your finger around the base of him. He’s so close to being fully buried inside you. You push yourself, making wet noises that go straight to his dick as your lips finally touch the opening of his underwear. Then, the tip of your wet finger prods his rosebud, and that’s all it takes for Octavio to cum.

Toe curling, jaw dropping orgasm. That’s all he can think of when you finally get him to cum, the mere tease of your finger inside somewhere so intimate making his thighs clench. He shudders out, fist clenched tightly in your hair, trying to keep you down and still respect if you need to come up for air, but, coño, do you make it hard to keep that split train of thought going. He feels you swallow, throat folding around his cock, and the motion itself makes him whimper, for once overstimmed.

You slowly pull away, lips swollen and wet and red, sitting back on your knees with a shit eating grin. Octavio is catching his breath, trying desperately to slow his racing heart which, for once, isn’t caused by stim stabbed into his thigh. You gently massage his thighs and, Jesus, he really wishes you wouldn’t do shit like that.

“You good?” You murmur and the husky edge of your voice makes his spine tingle. He nods, slowing his breath to normal.

“I forgot how good you are at giving head,” he tells you and you snort as he looks around. When he doesn’t spy a handtowel, or something that isn’t a napkin that won’t stick to his dick, he gives up, tucking it away with your drool still on it. He adjusts his fly, slowly sitting up, muscles more relaxed than they’ve been in the week since he’d gotten that phone call.

“I expect you to return the favor on the flight home,” you say and he grins, for the moment distracted from the impending doom of his parents.

[weakzen]

No Take Backs

Her offer affords him some fun advantages, Mason supposes.

pairing: female detective/mason rating: m series: part 1 of 7

AO3 version

also submitted for @otomefandomevents​ wayhaven week 2020 ♥ day 1 – dawn/dusk

Mason leans over the walkway railing and takes a long drag from his third cigarette.

He closes his eyes and focuses on the familiar and all-too-brief sting that burns down his throat and explodes across his lungs. Smoke chokes him with overpowering and comforting acridness, blanketing his face in soft heat when he finally exhales.

But it's still not enough to cover the sickly sweetness of fresh-cut grass blasting through the air to coat his tongue.

Or to shield him from the scorching light melting his clothes into his skin. Or muffle the unrelenting, jumbled blare of air conditioners, lawnmowers, TVs, radios, and every other goddamned electronic object in the vicinity.

A piercing shriek from one of the kids playing nearby stabs into his ear and he flinches slightly.

Or that too.

Mason groans as a headache begins to rumble at his temples. He sucks down another long, deep drag and steadies himself against it the best he can. The fatigue makes it difficult. Annoyingly more difficult. Exhaustion weighs on him, subtle yet heavy, trapping his mind and his every little movement beneath a sense of sluggishness.

Though—at least it's starting to lessen somewhat, now that the sun is finally fucking setting.

He ashes his cigarette over the balcony with a flick of his thumb.

And at least it's not as boiling hot as it was earlier, he supposes. And summer's almost over, too.

Thank fuck.

But it'd be better if that storm would finally roll in to cool everything off.

He squints up at the cloudless and faintly hazy sky. Far above the town, the wind continues to whip in from the west. And every time it shifts to slice closer to the ground, he catches the scent of rain.

Sure is taking its fucking time getting here, though.

With a final drag, Mason pushes off the railing to crush his cigarette into the ashtray she'd placed on the windowsill by her door. The one she insisted he use if he 'absolutely had to smoke here.' The one that she grinned over, then told him he needed to stop being a butthead, right before she snorted herself into a cackle at her own stupid pun while he stared at her and wondered why exactly he found her so attractive.

Shaking his head at the memory, Mason lights another cigarette and resumes his perch.

As he waits, the sun slinks closer to the trees. The kids scream endlessly. His headache builds and his cigarette burns shorter.

Obnoxious cawing bursts from somewhere behind the apartments too, joining the rest of the noise crushing in around him. Probably those birds she's always feeding.

Mason rolls his eyes and huffs out another cloud of smoke.

His eyes scan over to the parking lot, to that gleaming silver shitheap of hers, the low sun highlighting every scratch and painting every pockmarked dent in deep shadow.

Where the hell was she, anyway?

Frowning slightly, he glances back at her building, to the grassy courtyard below, the cracked sidewalk, the concrete stairs leading up to the second story, the chipped white railings that bend along the exterior walkways in front of a wall of red brick and a row of doors and windows. His gaze slows as it passes one window in particular.

That nosy fucker is watching him again through a slit in the blinds. He glares hard and directly into the eyes widening behind the glass.

The gap immediately snaps shut.

Mason chuckles a little as the fucker's heartbeat spikes.

Then his chuckle breaks into a loud laugh when he hears the panicked sound of a body crashing into a table.

He takes another drag on his cigarette, smirking as he shakes his head.

But… his amusement doesn't last. And when it finally fades, it just leaves him with a scowl and even more irritation than he felt before.

Where the fuck was she?

…And why was he even waiting for her?

If she couldn't be bothered to show up on time, then fuck it. Her loss. He isn't sticking around. Mason grabs his jacket from the railing, whips it over his shoulder, and strides toward the stairs.

He makes it halfway down them before the realization slams into him that something might have happened to her.

That could explain why she's late today.

His hand snaps out to catch the railing, jerking his movement to a sudden halt at the bottom of the steps. Annoyance twists uncomfortably in his chest, drawing his brow into a furrow when it briefly claws up into his throat.

And if something did happen to her, then it would be entirely on him.

Adam would never let him hear the end of it, just stern glares and disappointed frowns forever—and Mason doesn't even want to think about what Agent Black would do.

And… he doesn't want anything to happen to her, either.

She is one of them after all.

Annoyance still coiling inside him, Mason exhales deeply and almost flicks his cigarette away into the grass.

Then he groans even more deeply and runs back up the stairs to smash it into the ashtray before he takes off.

–o–

He traces her usual route home back to the station, but only finds the night shift volunteer at their desk and Officer Bobblehead in front of the copy machine, singing to herself while she dances to the rhythm of spewing paper.

Scoffing in disgust, he tries the Square next, staying only long enough to guarantee she isn't there before he immediately veers away from the nauseating confection, greasy food, and overwhelming wave of people. He lands at her boxing club after, where there's nothing but stale sweat, grunts, and the echoing cracks of fists hitting bags.

And when he sends her a text to ask where the hell she is, he receives no response.

Mason frowns heavily, annoyance clawing at his throat again as he runs his hand through his hair.

Then he pushes out of town, into the woods, up to the trail that she likes to run by the lake.

Branches whip by him in a blur of green. His feet trample ferns and bounce off moss-covered logs. The rich aroma of damp earth and organic decay invades his lungs as he opens his senses fully to the rustle of every leaf, animal, and insect. The forest howls with life, tearing into him with such a vicious, primal resonance that his body trembles beneath the sheer force of it.

But he pushes on. He cuts through the roar with focus sharpened for one thing only.

Until he finally catches it at the very edge of his hearing, soft and quiet beneath the screaming.

A familiar heartbeat that makes his own jolt in recognition.

Immediately, he turns and streaks toward it. It's calmer than its usual tense tempo, but that doesn't necessarily mean anything good.

He spurs on faster.

Blazing through gaps in the timber and sunken banks of mist.

Over tangled deadfall, slick boulders, and the wide creek he clears easily in a single bound.

Light begins to flicker between the trees. And Mason bursts through the edge of the forest, his momentum carrying him forward—but something even stronger slamming him back, forcing him to skid to a halt, one hand scraping a long trail through the dirt behind him.

Sunset bathes the lake in brilliant red as thousands of sparkles glitter across the water. A felled tree rests on the shore, its trunk worn smooth by time. And in the middle of it, she sits with her back to him, her arms spread out to her sides while her hair ignites like a flame in the light.

Something catches in his throat then.

Smoke, maybe. From that fire up north.

He clears it away and pushes himself up, wiping his hand on his pants. Then he folds his arms, a slow smile spreading across his face.

If there's one good thing about summer at-fucking-all, it's the sleeveless shirts and cropped tops.

His eyes draw over the muscled slope of her bare shoulders and arms, down the curve of her side, briefly dipping into the band of exposed skin above her jeans before sliding back out and around the swell of her ass, only to repeat the journey up the other side. Her hat ruins the effect somewhat, a big black circle silhouetted atop her head that blocks part of his view.

But, all in all…

Mason bites his lip. The image is almost enough to make him forget about how goddamn annoyed she's made him.

Almost.

He kicks a branch out of his way and strides towards her.

“Finally,” he barks out as he nears. “Could've let me know you were gonna be late tonight. Or texted me back.”

She gives him a lazy glance from over her shoulder, followed by an even lazier smile. Oversized sunglasses conceal her eyes.

“Turned my phone off,” she replies, then shrugs slightly. “And I didn't realize we were meeting, sunshine.”

Mason scoffs and stalks across the shifting jumble of rocks and splintered wood that pass for a beach. He tosses his jacket down and plops onto the log beside her, facing the other direction.

“Yeah, not like I don't come over every night to tuck you in when it's my turn to babysit,” he says, glaring at her from over his shoulder. “Some of us have a schedule to keep, sweetheart. Try to be a little more considerate.”

She only laughs, her head falling back with the motion while her tits bounce enticingly. Mason presses his lips together as he watches, his irritation crumbling away.

Just a bit.

“Oh, of course. I'm so sorry,” she says a moment later, her voice even huskier than normal with amusement. She rolls her head to the side to glance at him again, her smile broadening as she tugs her sunglasses down slightly, just enough to meet his eye. “I completely forgot all that smoking and brooding aren't gonna take care of themselves. Next time, I'll be sure to send a text.”

He rolls his eyes and scoffs again, turning away as his own smile pulls at the corner of his lips. “Apology accepted.”

She chuckles and bumps her shoulder into his.

As she pulls away, he follows, spreading his arms out behind himself too, until their shoulders press faintly together and his hand nearly touches her thigh. Heat rolls off her body—and excitement too, a skittering little thrill that prickles electrically across his skin to bury itself in his stomach. She gives no outward indication of it though, other than the smallest hitch in her breath and the gentle sigh that escapes her lips.

Mason smirks slowly, temptation urging him to lean even closer and draw his finger up her leg to put a deeper crack in that facade, but…

He finds himself more content to just leave her undisturbed, to let her keep relaxing into the moment.

…And to enjoy it himself.

Cool moisture drifts off the water behind him, but it flows over his back pleasantly, softened by the sunlight and her warmth. A lazy breeze presses through the air, brushing against his cheeks and ruffling his hair. He briefly catches the tang of rain on it again, before it disappears beneath her scent and the pines and the distant smoke of wildfires.

The forest rustles around them, and his gaze passes over it appreciatively before ambling up the mountains that cradle the lake. The craggy, purple behemoths tower into the sky above, their snow-capped peaks bathed molten orange in the sunset.

He closes his eyes to a vision of their afterimage.

Waves lap against the shore. Birdsong slows in the trees. Her heart beats in a steady, soothing rhythm with her breath.

And that's all he hears.

Even at the very edge of his senses, he can't detect any other people.

He sags slightly as tension he hadn't even realized he was carrying uncoils from around him.

For a long moment, there's just… peace.

And the world isn't scraping him raw.

–o–

He doesn't open his eyes again until some time later.

When she shivers against him and the pink glow of twilight surrounds them both, the first smattering of stars visible overhead.

Mason leans over to let his breath tickle hot along her neck. “Need me to warm you up?” he asks, teasing his lips against her ear.

Another shiver ripples across her body, and she turns to smirk at him.

“Eventually.”

She looks at him for a moment longer, her smirk softening into a quiet little smile, but he can't see anything more of it behind the sunglasses.

“Should probably get home before it gets too dark,” she adds, pushing up from the log.

He grunts in reluctant agreement.

As she stands, she raises her arms above her head to stretch, her joints cracking from the effort. His eyes follow her movement, roaming appreciatively once more along the lean lines of her body, slowly tracing around her familiar curves as he bites his lip. She picks up her ratty denim jacket from where she was sitting on it, shakes it out a few times, and slips it on.

Mason almost groans.

Then she slings her backpack over her shoulder and glances down at him. With a sigh, he pushes himself up to put on his own jacket and join her.

They walk alongside each other in silence, rocks crunching beneath their feet as they follow the dusty, packed trail that hugs the curve of the lake. Frogs croak from the water, joined by the chirp of crickets and the sharp chittering of bats overhead. A sliver of moon hangs in the darkening sky with them, while the air rapidly begins to cool below.

She pulls her jacket tighter and folds her arms.

Without looking, he lazily throws his arm over her shoulder and tugs her closer. A moment later, her arm circles around his waist, her hand slipping beneath his jacket to curl hot against his side.

His lips quirk in a faint smile as she shifts into him, her body heat bleeding through his clothes and into his skin. Her touch always pleases him, of course, but right now he's more grateful for the shared warmth.

Already, the cold slices him deeper. Sounds grow louder. His vision stretches further, into even sharper detail, while his limbs glide with powerful fluidity. And within it all, he feels far more alert and awake than he has all day, his body thrumming as nightfall gradually returns his strength and draws his senses to a heightened pitch.

…Which only makes it even worse when they finally reach the fork in the trail that breaks away towards the trees.

The little wooded path that cuts back into town.

A frown catches on Mason's lips. At least her apartment isn't far from there.

They turn to take it, eventually emerging onto an empty, dead end street.

The springy dirt of the forest floor blends into a blanket of windblown pine needles before yielding to crumbling asphalt that makes their footsteps snap echoes against the buildings. Electricity crackles in the power lines above, surging down to spool in the streetlights with a shrill whine, readying them to spill their ugly orange light everywhere. In the distance, dogs bark, children shriek, sprinklers sputter and hiss, and the din of heartbeats pound against each other, rising in volume, tangling around the tinny blare of electronics, fragmented conversations, grating laughter, shouting, arguments, screeching music and more abrasive noise than he can clearly identify until it all becomes a jagged and overwhelming roar that tears into him painfully.

Mason inhales and tenses against it reflexively, his jaw tightening—

But then Alex shifts closer into him, stroking his side with her hand briefly before giving him a soft squeeze, and all of it just… fades away.

Disappears beneath her touch and her quiet presence and her calming heartbeat.

His brow furrows deeply as something swells in his chest. Something strange and light and somewhat uncomfortable, if only because of its sudden appearance and unfamiliarity, but... it's not entirely unpleasant.

It's not unpleasant at all.

Frowning, Mason drags his hand back through his hair and exhales a quiet sigh.

The weird sensation lingers for a while, floating gently inside him as he uneasily enjoys it—until she suddenly turns sharply, and he nearly stumbles to keep in step with her. Annoyance jolts through him, a reprimand snapping hot and immediate to his tongue, but… then he realizes they've only arrived at her building.

And all she's done is lead them up the walkway toward it.

He frowns, his irritation fading as he blows out a breath.

Then his frown pulls even harder as she disentangles from him.

She shifts her backpack around to unzip the front pouch. And as she does, a black shape swoops down from the trees to land on the wire that stretches between the apartment and the utility poles.

The crow caws down at her.

She chuckles and holds her hands up, fingers extended and empty. “Don't have anything for you right now, bud.”

It caws obnoxiously a few more times, seeming to understand. Then it flies away with a piercing screech and an annoyed flap of wings.

Chuckling again, she shakes her head and pulls out her key ring. “Yeah, you're welcome, you little bastard.”

“Why the hell do you feed those things anyway?” he asks, glancing at her from the corner of his eye as they continue up the sidewalk.

She shrugs. “Because they're smart and a little ridiculous? I dunno, they're fun to watch. I like them,” she says, then purses her lips. “Except for when they're cawing right outside my bedroom window at five in the morning, but… well, even that's a little funny too.”

His lip curls. “Ugh, if you say so.”

They head up the stairs to her door. She stops outside of it for a moment, then turns around to face him.

“You know… I do have something for you, though.”

Mason immediately smirks.

“Yeah? I have something for you too, sweetheart.” He slides his hands over her hips, thumbs brushing over her bare skin, before he hooks his fingers into her belt loops and tugs her closer. “You want it in there—” he asks, his voice rumbling low as he skims his lips along the length of her neck to press a few quick kisses to her mouth “—or out here?”

Her heart beats faster as her lips move to keep kissing him, but then she just smiles against his mouth and breathes out a quiet little chuckle. “Probably in there,” she says, resting her hand on his arm, “but… let's take care of my thing first.”

He shrugs and gives her a parting kiss before he leans away, letting his fingers flick free of her belt loops. “If that's what you want.”

She glances at him for a moment longer, then inhales deeply and shifts her bag around to unzip the front pouch again. Her hand slips inside and returns with an unexpected object that she holds up between two fingers.

He raises an eyebrow.

“A key?”

“Yep.”

“To what?”

“My apartment.”

Mason tenses slightly, shifting his weight.

“Why the hell would I want that?”

“So you can let yourself in.”

He scoffs and glances away, running his hand back through his hair. “I don't need a key to do that, sweetheart.”

“Probably not,” she agrees, and he can hear the faint grin in her tone, “but it would help me out if you did. You're scaring the shit out of the neighbors with all of your skulking and your scowling and your glaring and your general… you-ness.”

A laugh bursts from him and he glances back to her. “I don't see how that's a problem.”

“Well, maybe not for you, but some of us still have to live here.” She huffs a stray hair out of her face and leans against the door, resting her foot against it too as she lets her bag slide to the ground. Then she folds her arms. “You know, I still can't believe no one has complained to the landlady about all of the smoking… and the noise.”

He smirks and chuckles again. “Sounds like I should keep scaring them so they don't.”

She cocks her head and fixes him with a look that not even her sunglasses can hide. His smirk widens.

“I like this building. I don't want to move. And I'm tired of you banging on the door every time it's locked until I come and answer.”

Mason angles himself towards her, licking his lips as he brings his arm up to rest on the door above her head. “Yet you still let me in every, single, time,” he drawls, his voice low and teasing as he grins at her.

She stares up at him. “Do it again and I won't.”

The telltale combination of reactions ping loudly and immediately against him—the nearly imperceptible crack in her voice, the subtle shift of tension in her stance, the faint and brief spike of her pulse.

He leans down toward her, his grin sharpening. She inhales slightly as he approaches, but holds her ground and his gaze. Pressing his face in close, he teases his lips up her neck again, to her ear, her head tilting to the side to allow it.

“You should know better than to lie to me of all people, sweetheart,” he whispers against her, his words brushing hot across her skin.

She inhales again, more sharply this time, as a shiver ripples down her body. Heat prickles across her face quickly after, and he lingers for a moment to savor it before pulling away to enjoy the view of her flushed cheeks.

“Yeah, well…” she begins, then huffs in that usual way she does whenever she rolls her eyes. “If I didn't answer, then you'd probably just creep around behind the building and start pounding on my bedroom window instead.”

“Probably,” he agrees. “That does sound like more fun, now that you mention it. Less of a walk for both of us, too.”

She groans a loud noise of exasperation, but the smile playing at the corner of her mouth undercuts it slightly.

Then, with a shake of her head, she pushes away from the door and holds the key up to him by the tip.  

“Well—do you want it or not, sunshine?”

They stare at each other for a moment. But even with his vision, the only thing Mason can see clearly on her face is the faint movement of her eyelashes brushing against the twin reflections of him and the hand she's extending towards him.

He glances down at the key, and back up to her face.

“I don't need it.”

Her breathing stills for a moment and her lips press together slightly. Something rolls quietly through her chest to bump something uncomfortable into his.

But she inhales deeply and it's gone.

Then she simply shrugs.

“Okay,” she says, her voice unusually flat. And she slips the key into the front pocket of her jeans.

Alex turns away from him—

But his hands snap out to spin her back toward him.

Then they're pushing her hat from her head and her sunglasses up into her hair and curling around the back of her neck and her waist as he leans in to kiss her hard.

His mouth muffles the sound of her surprise, but not the way it reverberates against his skin—and not the heated rush of arousal that quickly follows as she kisses him back.

A moment later, her arms loop around his neck and he yanks her tighter against himself in response. He deepens the kiss, sliding his tongue into her mouth while his fingers tangle into the soft hair at the nape of her neck. Her arms circle him tighter, squeezing, as she presses into him fully, standing up on the tips of her toes to reach him better, and he slides his palm across her lower back and down to her ass, where he squeezes too, lifting her slightly in encouragement.

She moans into his mouth—and he can't help but do the same in return as her desire crashes into his electrically and bursts pleasure across his body.

Fuck, he wants her.

Mason pushes her against the door, her tits crushing to his chest, his cock grinding into her hips, and he presses his thigh between hers, dragging it upward to the sound of her gasping moan. He captures her lips again immediately, unrelenting, and kisses her deeply while he glides his hand over her bare stomach, across the hot and silky expanse of her skin, before he teases his fingers down the front of her pants.

He slides them in past her jeans, past the band of her underwear, until his fingertips and knuckles brush into soft, warm hair and press on a little further still. She sucks in a breath, her stomach rolling exquisitely beneath his touch as her hips rock forward to match it, grinding pleasure from his leg. He smiles against her mouth briefly before kissing her again, rolling his hips in time with her movement while his thumb dances circles around the button on her jeans. He lets her anticipation spiral with it, winding it tighter inside of her until she's ready to spring.

And when she is, he clutches the front of her jeans and pulls them up into her instead.

She arches against him, a moan tearing from her lips, her pleasure crackling white-hot between them and surging straight into his cock.

He inhales deeply in excitement, breathing hard against her lips, anticipation making his own limbs tremble faintly—but despite it, despite the alluring scent of her arousal on his tongue and how much he wants to stay, how much he fucking wants to push his fingers down even further and slide them back up inside of her, he forces them out of her pants instead, to leave her even more wanting. He teases them away across her waistband as she shakes with breathy, groaning laughter against him.

And then he clenches them hard around her hip when she catches his lip between her teeth and nips down

Pain and pleasure singe fire across his body, burning free a guttural snarl that rips past his own teeth. He smirks sharply against her.

Then goes for the throat.

To that spot of hers they both enjoy so much.

As he moves his mouth mercilessly against her, as she moans and shudders beneath his teeth, as they grind together, her pleasure arcing into him on waves that amplify his own throbbing need, his fingers play against her stomach, teasing along her waistband once more.

Then he carefully slides two of them into her pocket.

And pulls out the key.

Mason doesn't understand why.

But he knows immediately what to do next.

He glides his hand down from her hair, his palm pressed flat and wide, fingers trailing over the bumps of her spine, past her thrumming heartbeat, dipping in to the curve of her back before finally settling on her ass. Once there, he grabs her again, groaning as he squeezes a firm handful of her, partially for pleasure, but mostly to shift her weight as he urges her hips forward. Chills ripple across her body as he continues kissing her neck, grazing her with his teeth, dragging his tongue across her pounding pulse and the intoxicating taste of her skin, until her nipples harden and dig into his chest wonderfully, and her fingers claw into his shoulders, and her thighs clench around his, and she moans so deeply into his ear that he knows she's focusing on nothing but him and the pleasure he's giving her in the moment.

Then—in one quick motion—he slips the key into the lock, turns it, and throws the door open.

A gasp tears from her lips as she falls backwards.

Her pulse spikes, surprise flashing with it as her hands scramble at his shoulders to keep hold. Her foot kicks up off the ground as she plummets, her body almost parallel to the floor before he snaps forward in a flash and whips his arms around her to catch her.

She stares up into his eyes as she jerks to a halt, gaze wide, cheeks flushed, arms clinging to him desperation while she breathes heavily and her heartbeat thunders against his chest.

He just smiles.

And holds her there for a long, enjoyable moment, taking in the stunning view of her knocked off balance in more than one way.

Then he pulls her back upright and against him.

She takes a deep, steadying breath, her hands sliding downward from around his neck to rest on his chest—right before her eyes suddenly snap to the door. He chuckles slightly, and reaches around her to tug the key from the lock, her gaze following his movement closely as he holds it up in front of her between two fingers.

“I guess it could come in handy for some things,” he says, smirking.

She raises an eyebrow and huffs a loose hair out of her face. “Guess so.”

Mason slips the key into the front pocket of his jeans.

Her eyebrow shoots up even further.

Still smirking, he bends to grab her things from the ground, then flings that hat of hers over the top of her head into the living room like a frisbee. She watches it fly by and immediately gives him a look that only makes him chuckle in response.

When he swings her backpack behind himself like he's about to do the same, she sighs deeply.

Then she grabs him by the front of his pants and yanks him inside.

Mason slams the door shut behind them, grinning widely as he tosses her bag away with a heavy thunk and presses himself against her again. Her jacket quickly follows the bag, and he groans appreciatively as he runs his hands over the soft and bare skin of her arms and sides. He grabs her waist, squeezing her slightly as he leans down to start kissing her again—but she only lets their lips brush together before she weaves her head away to fix him with another look, raising a pointed finger between them.

“One rule,” she says, pushing her fingertip firmly up against the bottom of his chin. “You better not smoke in here.”

He smirks and pulls her finger away.

“Can't make any promises, sweetheart.”

Her eyes narrow with dangerous intent—but a gleam of playfulness flickers in them too.

“Then give it back, asshole.”

“Make me,” he replies, his smirk slowly widening. “If you think you can.”

They stare at each other for a moment, amusement twitching at the corner of her mouth as tension builds between them.

“But I have some doubts about your capability,” he adds.

Her heartbeat spikes as her eyes flash wonderfully.

Then her hand whips toward his pocket, but he catches it and spins her around instead. He pins her wrists together against her stomach with one hand as he hooks his chin over her shoulder and holds her body tightly against his.

“Nope,” he growls into her ear, bending them both forward so he can grind his cock against her ass. “It's mine now.”

A frustrated noise rumbles low from her chest, vibrating into his. He chuckles deeply and starts kissing down her neck.

“Fuck you, sunshine,” she says, hissing her words through a laugh as she tilts her head to encourage him. “Give it back.”

“No,” he replies, smiling briefly against her before continuing his kisses. As he does, he roams his free hand down the front of her body, stopping along the way to grope her tits before moving onward to pry her fingers from around her keys. He tosses them away with a jangling clink. “And don't worry—” he murmurs, his voice dipping into a low and rich tone as he slides his hand down to cup the heat between her legs “—you'll be fucking me soon enough.”

Mason rolls his palm against her firmly, excitement swelling between them both as she sucks in a breath through her teeth.

“I promise,” he adds, then nips down sharply on her neck.

She yelps out a surprised moan and arches into him, her thrill of pleasure crackling hot across his skin to buzz euphorically inside of him. He inhales deeply and groans, her scent filling him too, as anticipation and sheer, overwhelming want for her jolt straight into his cock.

He quickly scrambles his hand downward to tear at the laces tying their boots. Another one of her rules. Shoes off by the door.

The last fucking things keeping them here.

As he rips the knots free, as he reaches to peel his boots off and kick them away, she laughs quietly against him, shaking his body with her own while she squirms beneath him in less of less of a struggle and more of a sly, calculated grind. Her movement stokes pleasure as much as it puts him on guard—but not nearly as much as it pulls a broad smile across his face.

For a brief moment, that strange sensation returns, spreading softly across his chest.

And distracting him just enough for her to twist free from his grasp.

She bolts upright and her hand races toward his pocket again—but he recovers faster, swerving his hips so she lands somewhere much better. In a flash, he grabs her by the ass and crushes her against him, trapping her hand between them both directly on top of his cock.

Mason smirks deeply.

“Find what you're looking for?”

Cheeks flushed, she flashes him an answering smirk before giving him a good, long, and very generous squeeze.

“Maybe.”

He can't help the groan that rumbles low in his throat, or the way his eyes shutter closed and his hips roll forward into the heat of her touch.

He also can't wait until his jeans are finally fucking gone and there's no goddamn awful barrier between them.

She takes in his reaction through half-lidded eyes, a smile growing slowly on her lips. “I'll get it back eventually, you know.”

“I wouldn't count on it, sweetheart.”

And with enough said, he curls his hands under her ass and picks her up.

Her arms and legs wrap around him immediately, her lips finding his just as quickly too. She barely manages to pull her boots off with her feet, kicking them away to clatter down the hallway before they're both at the bed and he's leaning over to drop her onto the edge of the mattress. He takes only the time to rip free of his jacket before he presses himself against her again, kissing her deeply as her arms and legs lock around him once more. He remains halfway on the floor as their mouths move together, her tongue gliding hot against his, and his hands sliding across every part of her body he can reach, completely unwilling to move or break away from her at all, even as she fumbles at the hem of his shirt and tries to pull it off him.

Eventually, she succeeds.

And eventually, he moves away from her lips to kiss down her neck, down her chest, her stomach, groping his way along the entire time, until he guides his fingers to finally unfasten the button on her jeans. When he tugs her zipper down after, an idle question rolls across his mind.

One that asks if he can keep her waiting on the edge for as long as he waited outside her door earlier.

Mason smirks into her skin—and yanks her pants and underwear down in one smooth motion.

Then he skims his mouth up her inner thigh, determined to find out.

–o–

Mason returns to the Warehouse around dawn the next morning, his patrol complete.

Shoulders hunched, he swipes his key card at the hidden door before he jams his hand back into his jeans and stalks inside. His other hand remains curled in his pocket, absently fiddling with the key nestled in his palm, spinning it slowly as his fingertips trace idle laps along the bumpy ridges and smooth metal warmed by his touch.

As he passes by the living room on his way to bed, he makes the mistake of glancing inside.

Felix catches his eye and immediately flips backwards off the sofa from his upside down perch. In a flash, he appears in the doorway, swaying off the frame under his own halted momentum.

“What exactly are you so pleased about?” he asks, grinning.

Mason pauses by the door, then shoots him a smirk.

“It was my turn to babysit. What do you think?”

Felix's eyes narrow as a wide and sly smile unfurls across his face. “I think there's more to it than just that.”

Mason rolls his eyes. “Think whatever you want.”

“Oh, I absolutely will,” he replies, his amber eyes gleaming.

Shaking his head, Mason continues down the hallway toward his room while Felix's gaze drills a hole in his back.

“Night,” he calls over his shoulder without looking, raising a hand to wave.

But not the one holding the key.

[aethersea]

Must Have Caught a Good Look at You

hey folks, please enjoy this Supernatural au of the Kencyrath! 

They were just dreams. He was fine. Tori had midterms, papers, projects, finals – he couldn’t waste time paying attention to dreams. He poured Red Bull into his coffee and pulled enough all-nighters to make his pre-med roommate cry and ignored them, and he was fine, even if his bones did start to feel like they were made of packed straw and his hands were always shaking. He was fine.

If he woke up in lecture halls and study rooms covered in cold sweat, shaking, with a dead girl’s voice echoing in his ears…well, clearly he just needed more coffee.

There were dreams of killing monsters, monsters that burned when he touched them with slender, unscarred hands, and he told himself they were jumbled memories. There were dreams where alien voices whispered in strange tongues, sussurous words that brushed against his skin like feathers of flame, and longing poured into his soul until he felt he would burst from the grief of it. And there were dreams where he was hiding, hunted, fleeing from a ghost who chased him down endless highways, through the grey remnants of a thousand motel rooms, or through the halls of this university that she had never lived to see. The dreams felt more real than waking sometimes, especially as the coffee-induced haze became a permanent fixture in his life. So when he saw the slight figure standing outside the door to his next class, he didn’t stop to think. He just bolted.

Tori made it down three flights of stairs, across the quad, and into the Earth and Marine Sciences building before he blacked out. He woke up to a circle of concerned faces, his lungs burning and his legs as weak as porridge, and realized that it hadn’t been a dream. In his dreams, he ran endlessly.

In life, however, a month of sleep deprivation had done a number on his ability to get the hell out of Dodge. He struggled to push himself to his feet, waving off the worried bystanders, willing his shaking legs to support him. Someone offered him his water bottle, which had gone skittering across the floor with his fall and fetched up against a nearby wall. Someone else was on the phone – “No he’s awake now, yes he’s standing up but he’s swaying a bit—”

“I’m fine,” Tori insisted hoarsely, shaking the starbursts out of his vision and trying to stagger off, through the circle of anxious faces, away from the wide glass doors that faced into the quad. It was no good, though. As he stumbled backward, his eyes landed on a thin, pale face framed in dark hair, and he froze.

They stood there, silver eyes locked on each other, for what seemed like a very long time. The students around and between them seemed to fade away, their cautious questions reduced to white noise. Tori’s heart was pounding rabbit-fast in his chest, and he felt painfully like a rabbit himself, cornered by a snake.

Finally she smiled at him, small and melancholy, and turned away, pushing through the glass doors into the quad and vanishing into the crowd of students outside.

Tori watched her go with whispers rustling at the edge of his hearing, whispers that he still couldn't understand but which crackled with urgency and fear.

=-=-=-=-=-=

It wasn’t a friendly city at night. The asphalt glistened with oil-slick moisture from a brief, unsatisfying burst of rain; the streets echoed with staccato bursts of hoarse swearing and sharp, drunken laughter. Jame ambled down the dirty sidewalks with her hands in her pockets, watching her shadow as it was handed off from one streetlamp to the next. She didn’t bother being afraid for her safety. Anything in this city that had a shot at hurting her would know better than to try.

She’d known that Tori was hiding from her. All this time she’d been pointing herself at him like a bird points itself north, following the undefinable tug in her belly that she knew without knowing how would lead her to Tori, and it had tugged back, uncomfortable and unwilling, as if trying to pull out of her grip. Her dreams, when they weren’t nightmares, were endless aching rounds of hide and seek, calling fruitlessly for her brother down highways and hallways and a thousand half-remembered motels. She’d known. It shouldn’t have felt so much like being gutted when she saw the abject terror in his eyes.

Jame hugged her arms around the misery that bloomed sharp and keening in her chest. She’d thought – hoped – he’d at least be glad she wasn’t dead.

A pack of drunk college students spilled out of a bar in front of her. Jame stopped rather than try to push her way through them, and watched idly as they sorted themselves out. One of them, a woman with a bright red undercut yelling loudly for her phone as she supported what looked like a dozing lumberjack, caught sight of Jame and gave out a little scream.

Jame raised her eyebrows. The woman giggled nervously. “Didn’t see you,” she stammered. “You’re all spooky and quiet in the shadows and stuff.”

Jame was standing directly under a lamppost.

“Hey guys are we going or what?” the woman demanded, turning away from Jame and shifting the lumberjack’s weight on her shoulder. The woman’s friends all started disagreeing about Uber. Jame watched with growing bemusement as the woman complained at her friends to hurry, trying to keep herself between them and Jame the whole time while pretending not to realize Jame was there. It was a poor performance, filled with increasingly high-pitched exclamations and increasingly anxious glances over at Jame and then quickly away, but then, she was very drunk. Jame leaned against the lamppost, mystified, and waited to see what would happen next.

Finally a car pulled up and the college students flagged it down excitedly. The red-haired woman didn’t get into it, instead doing frequent, slightly slurred head counts under her breath as her friends tried to sort themselves into two groups. The second Uber pulled up while they were still arguing about it, and the red-haired woman started pushing her friends bodily toward one car or another, with a sharp tone in her voice as she did it that brooked no argument. If she was some sort of monster who had recognized Jame as a hunter, surely she’d have just run away by now, rather than stay and play chaperone. Jame had never once met a monster who didn’t regard a pack of drunk humans as nothing more than easy pickings.

The woman watched the first car drive off with longing and relief painted across her face. Then with another frightened glance at Jame, she leveraged the faintly snoring lumberjack into the backseat of the second car, fussed over seatbelts a moment, and then paused, one hand braced on the door frame, the other clenched into a shaking fist. Her breathing had gone fast and a little shallow. After a few seconds, she offered her friends inside a rictus grin of a smile and said, “There’s no room for me unless I sit on Dylan’s lap, I’ll just crash at Sam’s place. You guys go on home.”

Her friends protested, but she slammed the car door and rapped on the roof. The driver, presumably eager to get rid of their drunk cargo as soon as possible, pulled away from the curb without hesitation. Only after the last echo of the motor had faded did the red-haired woman turn, unwillingly, to face Jame.

She looked to be somewhere in her mid-twenties, though Jame thought she might look younger without the heavy eyeshadow and smudged crimson lipstick. She wore what Jame, in her ignorance, had to assume were normal clubbing clothes – a sparkly green halter top and an asymmetrical miniskirt over leopard-print leggings, with black combat boots that could probably kick a man’s teeth in with one blow. She had a tiny black purse slung over one shoulder and absolutely no fangs, claws, or aura of general menace that Jame could discern.

But then, neither did Jame, with her hands safely gloved.

The woman fidgeted with her purse’s clasp, worried at her lip, and studiously avoided making eye contact while Jame looked her over. After a few minutes she blurted out, “If you’re going to kill me, could you please make it quick?”

Jame snorted. “Why, do you have an appointment after this?”

The woman flinched. “No, sorry, I don’t, I mean I didn’t mean, I mean—” She gulped, and took a deep breath. “What do you want from me, my lady?”

Jame raised her eyebrows. She hadn’t been pegged as a hunter then, but as…something else. “What’s your name?” she asked, stepping away from the lamppost.

“Rue. My lady,” the woman added on hurriedly, shrinking back like she would very much like to back away but didn’t dare.

“What are you?”

If Rue was surprised by the bluntness of the question, she didn’t show it. “A selkie. From the ocean. Obviously. Sorry. My lady.”

Selkies: aquatic by nature, rarely spent more than a week on land at a time. Traveled in family-packs of ten to fifty people, territorial but usually on good terms with their neighbors, generally preferred to negotiate than to fight. Never found this far inland unless they’d lost their pelt and been bound to servitude. Powerful shape shifters, could perform assorted minor spells to do with water, luck, and fertility; witches sometimes tried to enslave them as familiars, with limited success.

Jame had never encountered a selkie, not in the month and a half since she had stumbled onto the ashes of Winter’s bar and not in the years she’d spent following her father on hunts as a child. The knowledge appeared in her mind anyway, precise as an encyclopedia, with no associated memory to tell her where she’d learned it. Yet another clue to the delightful little mystery of the gaping hole in her past.

“So tell me, Rue from the ocean. Why should I kill you, quickly or otherwise?”

Rue looked over at her suspiciously, finally making eye contact. “Is that a trick question? Like, do I give you a reason and then you say ‘correct!’ and then you murder me?”

Jame pressed her lips together to hold back a smile. “I suppose that would hardly be very fair of me,” she said gravely. Rue made a face like she agreed but wasn’t about to go saying so, then another face like she’d just realized she’d made that face out loud. Jame wished all the monsters she ran into could be this drunk. This was easily the funniest conversation she’d had all…

month-and-a-half.

“You’re awfully far from home,” Jame said rather than think of that. Rue’s breathing hitched. Did she think that was a threat? “Did someone steal your skin?”

Rue shook her head. “I left it with my dad back when I left home. My lady. My parents sent me to college to learn about plastic and oil. I’m majoring in Oceanography with a focus on conservation and a minor in Material Sciences, because we keep finding poison in the fish and last year my baby cousin almost died when no one caught him eating candy wrappers. Technically selkies can survive away from the ocean for years and years, we just don’t like to, but I go home on breaks and sometimes on three-day weekends if I don’t have too much homework, it’s not so bad.”

Jame wondered if it was the fear or the alcohol that made Rue babble. She still had no idea what Rue was so afraid of. “Look,” she interrupted, “I have no intention of killing you tonight. If you really are just here to go to college, I don’t see why I should kill you at all. But I do need to know why you screamed when you saw me. How did you know what I am?”

Not that Jame herself knew what she was, but every time she’d mentioned that lately it had led to someone laughing at her, then trying to stab her in the face. She’d grown rather reticent as a result.

“Oh, well, I can see auras,” Rue explained in a rush. “It’s why I’m the one who came to college – I can see if someone’s, like, a witch or a vampire or something, and then I can deal with them, or at least avoid them. Usually,” she added with a nervous little shrug. Clearly, that hadn’t worked so well with Jame.

This, too, Jame had heard of, though she remembered where. One of the hunters who stopped sometimes at Winter’s bar had had the gift of it, if a gift it was; he could spot monsters by the afterimages they left in the air when they moved, he’d told her once, different for each kind of creature. He saw things in humans sometimes, too, if they’d brushed up against the wrong sort of darkness. He’d seen something in her and Tori, by the way he’d startled whenever either of them walked into the room, but he’d refused to tell either of them what.

“What do you see in my aura?” Jame asked, genuinely curious.

“Fire,” Rue said somberly, meeting Jame’s eyes for only the second time. “Enough to burn down the world.”

Jame recoiled. Suddenly she was standing in front of Winter’s bar, watching the flames consume the mangled bodies of everyone she’d ever tried to love. She hadn’t had time to dig them graves. Instead she’d splashed alcohol in every room, covered each body she found in gasoline and rock salt from the basement, then set the whole thing ablaze. Child of darkness, her father’s voice rasped in her ear, are you so determined to see us all burn?

In the end, she had.

Jame swallowed bile and breathed deeply through her nose. The city stank of engine exhaust, wet asphalt, stale beer, cigarette butts, but not charred flesh, not dried blood. Jame breathed deep and opened her eyes to find Rue watching her with naked curiosity. “You just…flickered,” the selkie said by way of explanation, waving one hand vaguely. “All the fire kind of went fwoom, all over the place” – she mimed an explosion – “and then just went back to normal.”

Jame drew a shaky breath and shoved her hands in her pockets. “Normal world-consuming fire, you mean.”

Rue made another complicated face, but nodded.

“How many auras like mine have you seen?”

Rue shuddered. “None. My lady,” she added again. “I’ve seen fire, I know what it means, but never more than like, some flames around a person’s head and hands. Never…this.”

Jame stepped forward without meaning to and Rue jerked away, stumbling a little and clutching her purse, eyes gone wide. Jame stopped short, and tried to keep the eager desperation out of her voice as she asked, “So what does fire mean, Rue from the ocean?”

“I–I don’t know, my lady, I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have said–”

“Tell me,” Jame ordered.

“Demons,” Rue blurted out, clearly regretting the word even as she said it. “Every time, it’s been a demon.”

Jame felt an icy chill wash through her. Child of darkness, monster, hell-spawn. Well, it wasn’t like it was news, exactly. She thought again of Tori’s face, terrified at the mere sight of her, and had to fight the temptation to curl into a little ball and hide.

Rue was babbling again. Jame struggled to tune back in. “—I’ve only seen three demons anyway, it’s not like I’m any sort of expert, I’m sure you’re not really—”

“Rue.”

Rue cut off sharply, watching Jame with trepidation.

“Thank you for telling me. You can…go,” Jame said awkwardly. “I’m sorry to have kept you.”

Rue blinked. “Um. Thank you, my lady.” She stumbled back a few steps, apparently unwilling to turn her back on Jame.

Jame could hardly blame her. With a sigh, she reached for the thread in her belly that would lead her to Tori and pulled. He didn’t want her – why would he? She was a monster through and through, he was better off without her – but their father had died, and he deserved to hear it from her. She would tell him, and then…

And then, Jame supposed, she’d get back on the road and find monsters to kill, or else wander around until they found her. That had worked admirably so far, anyway – something had tried to kill her in nearly every town she’d spent the night, and at several rest stops. Like calling to like, maybe.

If nothing else, the missing years of her life had apparently left her very good at killing monsters.

With a quick little smile for Rue, Jame turned on her heel and, for the last time, went looking for her brother.

.

part two

[ghostingnovel]

Chapter One

The little girl choked on dry, filthy air, gulping in ash and smoke. It hurt so much as it filled her tiny lungs. But she couldn’t stop - she continued to claw at the door. Her hands were already burned badly from trying to pull open the handle, so she threw the whole seventy pounds of her weight at the frame. It didn’t budge. The flames continued to draw closer, licking her with sharp tongues. She could smell her hair burning. She might have been crying, but the air was so hot that the tears turned to salt before they left her eyes.

“Daddy!”

 She continued to throw herself at the door - five, six, seven times. Her daddy was in there. She had to save him. She kept throwing herself, screaming, burning.

Then it hit her. She didn’t know what “it” was – it might have been fire, it might have been ice, it might have been a truck. But whatever it was, it threw her back from the door, sending her tiny body skittering across the burning carpet onto the tiled kitchen floor.

 She’d wanted to scream. She’d wanted to fight the fire. She’d wanted to save him. But little Samantha could do none of those things – instead, the flames flickered out into sudden, endless black.

Sammi had been afraid of fire ever since her dad died in one. Even now, with just this small bonfire, Sammi could feel her heart pounding a little too fast and her breath coming a little too shallowly.

 She didn’t say anything, of course. It had been almost twelve years since the fire, and the dozen or so therapists she’d had since then had encouraged her to deal with her fear constructively instead of avoid it. But she still averted her gaze from the dancing flames, pulling her blanket more tightly around her shoulders. She could still hear it, though: the crackling and popping as the flames hungrily licked and bit the brittle kindling.

 It was the noise that bothered her most. It reminded her of the crunching of bones.

 “Hey pumpkin, you’re going to miss out on the s’mores.”

 Sammi looked up. Her Uncle Sam – yes, really, and you bet he owned a hat embellished with the American flag for the holidays - waved a stick with two golden-brown marshmallows at the end. In his other hand, he held a box of crackers and a half-eaten bar of chocolate, all of which he offered.

 “Whaddya say? Want one or two?”

 “Two, of course,” Sammi responded quickly, flashing a hungry grin. “And extra chocolate.”

 “Two s’mores with extra chocolate coming right up.”

 Sammi watched as her uncle carefully scraped the marshmallows off the stick and sandwiched them between a slab of cracker and a slab of chocolate. In the flickering firelight, he looked a lot like a scarecrow: His face was mostly obscured by a fishing cap, but his hair stuck out like sticks of straw at odd angles around his face, except in the back where he’d tamed the mane into a stubby ponytail. His beard was equally patchy, and overall he shared a scarecrow’s long, thin frame – except in his stomach, where he’d developed a noticeable beer gut. His long legs sprawled out, reaching towards the fire from the log he sat on. From this angle, she noticed that he wasn’t wearing any socks. The rest of his outfit was similarly shabby or nonexistent: His jeans were patched and too short, his hiking boots were falling apart, and most likely the flannel shirt he was wearing was meant for someone four or five sizes bigger than him. His coat was missing – probably because he’d forgotten to pack one.

 None of this was surprising. On a normal day her uncle usually wore a suit, so he’d probably borrowed most of what he was wearing specifically for this camping trip. Nonetheless, Sammi got the distinct impression that, right now, he’d look right at home strung up on a pole in the middle of a cornfield.

 “What’s taking you so long, old man?” she teased, standing and carefully skirting around the fire to sit at the opposite end of the log her uncle was sitting on, “Come on, I’m hungry.”

 “Give me a hard time and I’ll accidentally drop yours on the ground and make you toast your own damn marshmallows.”

 “Are you threatening me?”

 The scarecrow man grumbled, “I’ll do worse than that if you keep harassing me. Now get over here, your s’mores are ready and they don’t taste as good if you let them get cold.”

 Uncle Sam continued to grumble and mutter well after Sammi had taken her s’mores, but Sammi was still thankful for the grizzled old man. He pretended to be rough, but he was always good to her. From the moment that he’d taken Sammi and her brother in, he’d always done little mindful things - like make her s’mores for her because he knew she was afraid of fire. This camping trip was also one of his little mindful things: Even though he didn’t like camping, and that Sammi didn’t particularly like camping either, he’d dragged them out to the middle of nowhere so that they could get a bit of quiet.

 After all, in places like this there were rarely any ghosts.

 “Hey Sammi, you’ve been staring. Seeing dead people or just pondering the universe?”

 Sammi blinked, then yawned, stretched, and licked her fingers of melted marshmallow goo.

 “Nah, no dead people, just a mild case of existential dread.”

 Uncle Sam grunted. “We better get you back into the city then. The place is so damn noisy that you can’t hear yourself think, so you don’t have to worry about existential dread and things like that.”

 “As long as we get to sleep here first. I’ve been dying to get a solid six hours of sleep for weeks.”

 “That was the original plan, but still, you’re paying for it if a bear or a mountain lion scratches up this RV,” her uncle nodded, scratching his patchy beard before standing up and dusting his jeans of ash and dirt. “Hey, come help me clean up, wouldja? I could use some of your magic mojo on these dishes.”

 Sammi shifted nervously. “Or we could, you know, wash them. With water. And soap.”

 “No can do, little miss. The R.V. has a busted sink. I got over a hundred bucks off that way, this thing turned out to be a real bargain,” Uncle Sam grinned, looking very proud, like he’d pulled off a very clever business transaction.

 Sammi sighed. Of course. Her uncle was a goddamn cheapskate.

 “The real bargain here is you bargaining on my magic to actually prevent you from getting Salmonella.”

 “I believe in you. And if you do poison me I’ll just take the medical expenses out of your work pay.”

 “You don’t pay me.”

 “Fair enough. Better not mess up, then.”

 Soon enough, Sammi plopped down in the middle of a large circle made up of all the pots, pans, utensils, and extra dishes that had gone into making dinner. The ground was surprisingly damp. Unfortunate for her butt, but good for what she was about to do. She waved her uncle away as she focused.

  After a minute of quiet concentration followed by a couple words of bad Latin, water began to seep, then bubble, then pool up from the ground, until there was enough water to envelop the dishes in a thin liquid film. With a little more effort, the dishes lifted gently, maybe two or three inches, off the ground and began to vibrate gently within their individual bubbles. She held the spell until sweat began to bead on her forehead, then let the water fall off the floating dishes and seep back into the earth. Unfortunately her concentration broke when the cold water splashed her legs, and the dishes came crashing back down, too.

 Dammit.

 Her uncle blinked. “Graceful.”

 “You get what you paid for, and you paid me nothing. At least everything’s still in one piece,” Sammi replied, stretching her stiff, wet legs and standing up, “Okay, I’m tapped out. We’re drying them by hand. And by ‘we’ I mean ‘you’.”

 “Like hell I am, you dropped them. Do another spell. Or get a towel, if you can find one.”

 Sammi grumbled something obscene enough to make her uncle smile.

 “See? I knew it was fine to get the R.V. with the broken sink,” Uncle Sam grinned. Despite what he said, he did go and dig up a couple towels and begin drying a dirt-smudged pan. When Sammi didn’t immediately respond, he nudged her purposefully with a plate.

 “You’re sulking,” he said seriously, “Stop it. Hey, even if you dropped it all at the end, you’ve gotten a lot better at that one – you didn’t used to be able to wash and levitate at once. Hell, I remember when levitating more than one thing at a time was a gamble.”

 “Well, it’s easier out here. I’m better at controlling water when I’m just pulling water from the ground and not dealing with a pressurized city water main,” Sammi shrugged, taking the plate and gathering the other dishes into a beach towel. She noticed something odd, though, and added, “Hey, did you put out the fire already?”

 “Oh yeah, I took care of that while you were doing your spell thing. Wasn’t too hard to stomp out.”

 Sammi blanched a little at the image of her uncle sticking his foot directly into the fire – which, when she’d seen it, didn’t quite look small enough to stomp out. “I could have done that one. That spell’s easy.”

 “It’s fine, kiddo. I want to feel at least a little useful while my niece is cleaning dishes with her brain.”

 “It’s a miracle that you didn’t set your pants on fire.”

 “I knew that if I did something stupid that you’d have a spell or two to help me out, so I wasn’t worried about it,” Uncle Sam replied, waving a hand dismissively. Sammi was uncomfortable with how confident he sounded in her. He always was too confident in her magic, and she hated it. But she didn’t say anything – just shot a disquieted glance toward the smoldering remains in the fire pit.

 Some of the embers still glowed.

Several hours later, after everything had been put away and her uncle was snoring loudly in the R.V., Sammi slipped back outside, walking to the empty fire pit and sitting at the edge of a log with a thick blanket wrapped tightly around her shoulders. The embers were dark now, dissolved into a lifeless pit of black dirt and white ash. The sounds of the night bounced around the forest, birds and unseen animals calling back and forth in greeting and warning. Sammi didn’t mind them – compared to the constant noise of the city, where both the living and the dead constantly clamored in her ears, the forest was downright tranquil.

 Sammi sighed, stretching her legs. Dead leaves shifted and crunched under her feet, and dirt found its way into her flip flops and between her toes. The air was cold, with enough of a dry bite to warn that Fall would soon give way to the first days of Winter. The cold settled on her exposed skin and bit at her ears. She pulled her blanket tighter. It wasn’t thick enough armor to protect her from the elements for very long, but for now it kept her warm.

 Sammi’s eyes were drawn to the dark contours of the encampment. Moonlight scattered shadows across the ground; they crouched in the edges of the clearing, staring out from the gaps in the trees’ canopy and from behind rocks and logs. A light breeze stirred the leaves across the campsite in a low, skittering rattle.

 It was almost winter. So, it had already been a year since she’d come home – since she’d dropped out of college and moved back in with her uncle. Thinking about it made her stomach turn, memories of red ink across assignments and email notices blurring her vision. She’d tried to go back to school. She really had. At first, she’d even been an excellent student. At first, she’d loved it there. She’d loved learning, she’d loved her professors, and she’d loved just being good at something. But how was she supposed to listen in class when a dead girl wept in the back row? And how was she supposed to study when, every night, she could hear the ghosts wailing outside her dorm room? How was she supposed to make friends when she could hardly hold a conversation, too distracted by the constant murmuring of the hundreds of extra students that no one else could see?

 She became isolated. Eventually, she began to miss class. Assignments slipped between the cracks. She couldn’t concentrate in the lectures or on the readings, and the material became more and more foreign to her. Soon enough, the weight of it all, the sheer enormity of the fact that “none of it mattered, they were all going to die anyway” crushed her into her bed for hours, then days, then weeks without a single message from the outside world. Well, besides the automated emails telling her that she was failing.

 Then her uncle showed up at her door and pulled her, sick and half starved, from the wreckage she’d made of her normal life. He’d never said a word about what happened. He’d just brought her home, made some phone calls, and told her to take a shower and get some sleep because she was starting work at his bar in the morning. And start work she did. She and her uncle never talked about what happened again.

 Even if her uncle didn’t bring it up, though, Sammi couldn’t stop thinking about it. On nights like this, the guilt filled up her skull until she felt like the bones would burst from inside-out. She kept imagining clawing her way through her skull to relieve the pressure – but the pressure wasn’t real. It was all emotional pain. She still couldn’t stomach that she had failed. Shame wasn’t something that she could swallow; instead, it sat in her throat undigested all these months. She’d wanted to do well. She’d wanted to follow in her father’s footsteps and get a job in the normal world, despite her magic. She’d wanted to be more than just a penniless witch.

 And, worst of all, she’d really loved studying physics.

 Are you really ruminating on this again? You have to think of something else at night, it’s getting exhausting.

 Sammi’s expression immediately shifted from one of melancholy contemplation to the wrinkled disgust of someone smelling sour milk. Not now. She looked around her log, searching the shadows of the clearing for the speaker.

 Wrong direction, Samantha. I’m right here.

 Sammi turned back to the fire pit as the ashes began to swirl, taking on a life of their own as they spiraled into a small tornado of black and white specks. They expanded outward, creating limbs and a head out of black columns of ash and debris until a figure stood, inconcrete and tenuous, in looming judgment.

 Despite the sudden appearance of the towering figure, Sammi regarded him with a mix of annoyance and the bone-deep exhaustion that she’d cultivated from years of being haunted by the… thing in front of her.

 “Aren’t you supposed to be like, dead or something?” she asked dryly, digging dirt out from under her fingernails and flicking it through the specter’s insubstantial body. The thing shifted away from the dirt. It would have grimaced if it had a face.

 If you’re going to insult me, at least invent some fresh insults. Your banter is almost as insufferable as your lamentations.

 “Then don’t listen to my thoughts.”

 Oh, if only that were an option.

 “Pass on. That is an option.”

 The thing shifted angrily, expanding to be taller, the seething ash moving closer to her face as it hissed, You’re well aware that I can’t pass on until my killer is discovered – something that you, by the way, have neglected to pursue for quite some time now.

 “Dad, it’s been twelve years. There’s zero evidence from any investigation, natural or paranormal, that you died in anything more malicious than a house fire. They have checked probably ten times now. I have checked ten times now. Just give it up.”

 Sammi glared angrily at the figure and, when it didn’t retreat back into the fire, she cut her hand through the ash that made up its head. The ash collapsed lifelessly onto her legs and the figure recoiled, reassembling itself from a safer distance.

 This the other reason she hadn’t been able to concentrate in college – or make friends in high school, or middle school, or frankly any time in her life since she’d become an orphan. That whole time – the whole twelve years since the fire, since her father’s death, and since her forced rehoming to the apartment above her uncle’s bar – she’d been haunted by her father’s ghost, who sat idly by to critique her every move and thought until the day she could avenge his death.

It was like a bad version of Hamlet.

 “You know, you haven’t come out and bothered me for a while. I was beginning to think that you’d actually moved on to the next life,” Sammi continued, looking away from the towering figure of ash to brush the ash off her lap. “Were you busy, or were you just waiting for a moment that you could do a dramatic entrance?”

 I was trying to engage in some eternal rest, Samantha, but that’s difficult to do when I’m filled with the sensation of constantly being on fire.

 “Like I said, move on. All the doctors recommend that if a burning sensation lasts for more than twelve years that you should find your closest Reaper and go to the afterlife,” Sammi suggested coldly, “I’ve even got Diana on magical speed dial, ready to go.”

 As I mentioned, your cleverness has long since ceased to be charming.

 “And your presence has long since ceased to be fatherly,” Sammi replied bitterly,” Seriously, you’ve given me Daddy Issues that would make Freud do a double take.”

 The creature, her father, recoiled, his phantom limbs moving as if she were a particularly offensive pile of dung that he’d just stepped in.

 That’s ghastly, Samantha, he reprimanded, You know your brother would never talk to me like this.

 Oh, here we go. Every time – every goddamn time his ghost appeared – her little brother was bound to be dragged into the conversation somewhere as a stark comparison for all the things she wasn’t doing. Samantha loved her brother, of course, but according to her father, her brother would have already solved his murder. Her brother had the heart of a true magician, even if he didn’t have the gift. Her brother wasn’t insisting on sullying the family name with their pernicious apathy.

 A rueful smile split Sammi’s lips. “Good, go haunt him then. Oh, wait – you can’t. I’m the only child who can see ghosts. Guess you’re stuck with the inferior sibling.”

 You’re better than this, Samantha. Can we speak like civilized magicians?

 Sammi paused, glaring into the empty eye sockets of the ashen figure, but eventually, reluctantly, relented. She never won with anger. It wasn’t worth it.

 “Can I help you, dad?”

 The figure deflated in what Sammi took as relief, reducing in height until its head was eye level with hers. Its long arms rested on the ground, supporting it. In this light, the swirling ash that made up its limbs reminded Sammi of swarming locusts.

 I was paying attention when you were using your magic earlier with the dishware. Your ability to use multiple spells at once has improved.

 “Thanks. Like I said though, it’s easier to use nature-based magic when we’re in nature,” Sammi shrugged, finally relaxing a little. She leaned back into her log with both arms propped behind her. “In the city there’s a lot more feedback and unnatural noise. Using magic out here is easy by comparison.”

 True, but you’re selling yourself short. You’re improving.

 “Thanks.”

 You could be an excellent practitioner – you have the raw talent to be one of the best.

 “That’s a little overstated, but thank you.”

 So why aren’t you practicing?

 Sammi stiffened, looking away from the figure as she bit back an angry reply. She should have been wary the moment he started complimenting her. He knew damn well why she wasn’t practicing.

 “I don’t want to be an ectomancer, dad. I don’t want to work with dead people my entire life.”

 You don’t have to be an ectomancer like I was, Samantha, he replied gently, though you have to admit, you have the gift.

 “I can’t. Seeing and hearing dead people I can handle but…” Sammi trailed off, shivering under her blanket as she thought back to times she’d tried more advanced ectomantic magic.

 “It just doesn’t feel right, dad. It’s too close to necromancy. I don’t want to risk breaking the First Law of magic. What if I accidentally go too far?” She asked, shuddering from thoughts that were far colder than the temperature. “What if I wake up one day and there’s a Paragon knocking –“

 Samantha.

 Sammi immediately fell silent. The figure shifted, the columns of ash stirring to rest closer by her side and leaving a trail of debris from the fire pit. The holes forming the figures eyes were hardly expressive, but her father continued in a gentle tone:

 You are blurring the lines between ectomancy and necromancy. There is a distinct difference between communing with spirits and raising them – and, of course, I would never let you do that. As long as I remain here, anyway.

 He paused. Sammi didn’t fill the silence. When her father moved, his figure sounded like a rain stick, or grains of sand falling down a wooden pipe. It was hard to see anything in the ashes that reminded her of what her father used to look like. Sometimes, Sammi wished that her father could appear more human.

 But, of course, he couldn’t. After all, when you die in a fire, there isn’t much human left to work with.

 When her father spoke, his voice was soft and very hesitant, as if he was carefully choosing his words or deciding if he should speak altogether.

 Samantha, I know that having my presence haunt you – that sharing your mind with me – is not easy for you, he began. She didn’t like his tone. It wasn’t one she’d heard before, and at this point in their relationship, she’d been under the impression that she’d heard all his tones.

 “I mean, it’s definitely, uh, not normal, even for people like us,” Sammi shrugged, watching him warily.

 Practitioners, you mean?

 “Yeah, us spooky types.”

 Yes. ‘Us spooky types’. Anyways, Samantha – it is not easy for me either. I can still feel the flames, every moment of every day. I… can still imagine having my limbs and my flesh but I cannot use them. I cannot exist outside your body, so my independence is negligible at best. And… Samantha, you are aware that I’m tired. I’m aware that you are too.

 Sammi nodded slowly.

 Samantha, you already told me to once tonight. I think it would be best, for both of us, if I passed on.

 Sammi knew that these were the words she had always wanted to hear. She knew that she wanted, no, needed this to move on – but she still couldn’t help the stone that slid into her stomach and settled deep, deep into her gut. What was the feeling? Loneliness? Rejection? Fear? Now, after all these years, Sammi couldn’t even remember being alone in her head anymore.

 She needed this. He needed this. The two of them could barely tolerate sharing a mind at this point.

 But what would she do without him?

 The uncertainty stung. Even with all the bitterness that had built between them, even though they couldn’t speak to each other without hurling insults, she still loved her father. She thought the feeling was mutual. And even if their time together hurt, it was a familiar hurt. It was their hurt. It was the only thing that had never changed, and a tiny, selfish, idiotic part of her was afraid of letting it go.

 “Yeah – I mean, probably,” she mumbled, her voice sounding surprisingly noncommittal even to her own ears. She looked away, casting her eyes downward toward her dirty feet. This didn’t do much when her father could read her thoughts, but she wallowed in the illusion of privacy. Instead of stating how she actually felt, she simply teased, “Do you think they’ll still accept you into the afterlife after all these years?”

 Of course, I’ve never heard of an expiration date on the collection of souls, and I studied it extensively in life. Furthermore, many ghosts have existed for decades, even centuries, before passing on.

 “I was joking, dad.”

 I know. I was joking with you, too.

 They lapsed into silence. Sammi thought. She swallowed. Her father’s ghost shifted in the midnight breeze.

 “I thought you couldn’t pass on until you found out who killed you,” Sammi finally said. “What’s with the sudden change of the rules?”

 The rules have hardly changed, her father explained matter-of-factly, the ash that made his body collapsing inward on itself as if sighing or deep in thought. I have simply, after all these years of contemplation, discovered that I may have to settle with another kind of peace. Otherwise I may never pass on, and I also fear that you’ll never have the chance to live a life of your own. I… I’ve accepted that. I cannot be so selfish.

 “Wow. That’s big.”

 Yes, it is. But it’s necessary.

 “So… are we breaking up then?”

 Even if the figure lacked eyes, she could feel her father’s look. Samantha.

 “Sorry. It’s just. Uh. Wow.”

 Your constant eloquence never ceases to amaze me.

 “Okay, nevermind. You said you were passing on, right? You can do your thing now.”

 I will, I will. But first, there are two things I need to be at peace.

 Sammi’s expression immediately lost any sadness that had been clinging to it, replaced with a glacial stare built by over a decade of trying to do the impossible for her father and failing.

 “I can’t solve your murder. It was a house fire.”

 Not that. I just said it wasn’t that, her father snapped before calmly continuing, Just listen. Honestly, this is my last will, I would expect you to show more respect.

 He cleared his nonexistent throat, a gesture that sounded natural but looked bizarre coming from the swirling pillar of ash. Did he still have vocal chords? She wondered idly. Does he need to clear his throat? Or is it just for effect?

 “First, I want you to practice. Strengthen your magic. Promise me you will. You’re an incredibly gifted practitioner – you could perhaps be chosen for the counsel one day, if you move beyond your attitude. You’re my legacy, and that incredibly potent ectomancy of yours is a gift, Samantha. Even if it doesn’t always seem to be.

 Secondly, I know that the case of my murder is many years too cold to rekindle –“ Sammi stifled a comment about kindling and the fiery circumstances surrounding her father’s death “- However, that day I lost something very precious to me, besides my life. Do you remember my old pocket watch?”

 Honestly, Sammi didn’t. She still screwed up her face as if she was trying to remember it though, and concluded that, yeah, her dad had been the kind of person in life that would carry something like a pocket watch around – even in life, he was a stuffy old bastard that belonged in Victorian England and not the twenty-first century. She nodded. It didn’t help since her father could see into her brain if he chose to and would know that she was lying, but luckily her father continued anyway – probably perfectly aware that she had no idea what he was talking about.

 “As you remember, then, it was a wedding gift from my father. Inside was a photo of your mother and I.”

 “Wow. That’s shockingly romantic of you.”

 “Yes, I had my moments, and I loved your mother deeply,” her father replied offhandedly before continuing:

 “I’m certain that this watch was not destroyed, Samantha – I put every ward, protection spell, and fortifying potion that I could think of on that watch so I would never lose it while I was working. So, to pass on, I would like my watch back. Is that a fair request?”

 Compared to solving an unsolvable murder, it was. Sammi still felt some fear about her father moving on – a fear, she assumed, like the fear of a child watching their parent remove the training wheels from their bike before launching them down a hill – but her dad needed eternal rest. She needed mortal rest. So she nodded, trying to think of where the Hell this pocket watch could be.

 “Alright. Then it’s settled, I suppose,” her father said firmly, the ash and smoke figure he embodied straightening once more into a towering pillar.

 “Practice your magic. Utilize me for as long as you have me. Grow stronger. Find the watch. Then I’ll pass on, and leave you to live your life.”

 The figure nodded again, and then – quite literally – vanished in a puff of smoke.

“Whatever you say, dad,” Sammi murmured, her voice drifting alone into the cold night air. She stared down into the fire pit, waiting for the ashes to swirl back to life or the coals to glow. They didn’t. They sat there, just like the air, the ground, and Sammi – cold, and a little bit lifeless.

 “Whatever you say.”

“Hey Pumpkin, and I could charge a baggage fee on your eyes. You sleep okay?”

 Sammi yawned, stretching as much as she could in the passenger seat of the R.V. Her legs kicked up – for once being short was a point in her favor, as it meant she still had some leg room despite sharing floor space with her backpack and several half-full bags of chips.

 “Yeah, I’m just missing my morning coffee is all. I can’t believe I forgot to pack it.”

 “We can stop at another gas station if you promise not to spill anything.”

 “Nah, don’t bother. They don’t usually have creamer that I like.”

 “See, that’s the problem with you. You’re too picky. Me? I like all coffee – black coffee, coffee with sugar, instant coffee. As long as it’s caffeinated, you should learn to appreciate coffee of all types,” Uncle Sam lectured, gesturing grandly enough that Sammi worried that he’d veer into the other lane. Her uncle batted her hand away the moment Sammi instinctively reached for the steering wheel, scowling.

 “That’s the other problem with you, too nervous. If you had any more nerves you’d just be a nervous system and nothing else. Relax, kid – we’re in the middle of nowhere and we haven’t seen another car for miles. Take in all the nature. Enjoy the great outdoors.”

 “Uncle Sam, until this trip you literally hadn’t left the city in over a decade because, and I quote, ‘who needs goddamn mountains when you’ve got a real toilet, a beer, and direct TV’.”

 “Watch your language now – that’s vulgar.”

 They lapsed into comfortable silence, watching the distant mountain peaks shift slowly between the gaps of trees as they made their way to the foothills and back toward the large five-lane freeways of civilization.

 That is, until Sammi screamed, jolting upright. Her uncle slammed on the brakes in response. The tires of the R.V. made an ugly shriek, metal protesting against the screaming brake pads as the massive vehicle bounced on the poorly paved backroad, casting up chunks of asphalt and gravel.

 “Samantha, what the hell was –“

 Her uncle began to swear, but he stopped the moment he saw his niece’s face. Sammi sat, shaking a little. Her face was stark white at first, but she quickly turned red, embarrassment flooding her features. Her uncle’s features softened.

 “Saw a ghost, huh?”

 “Yeah. I’m sorry, that was a really stupid reaction,” Sammi apologized, pulling the hood of her thick sweater over her eyes. “I mean, you’d think that I’d ever seen a ghost before, right? It’s not like I see them all the time or anything.”

 “It’s fine, kid. I get it. You weren’t prepared.”

 “Still. It was dumb. I was dumb.”

 They got back on the road, the R.V. bumping along. Sammi didn’t say anything else. Her uncle put on the radio after the silence stretched the distance from companionable to awkward. For over an hour and over sixty miles, the only sound was the riffing of classic ‘70’s and ‘80’s rock hits, with the occasional groan of the R.V. hitting a pothole, until finally:

 “Hey, Uncle Sam?”

 “Yeah, pumpkin?”

 “Why do you think I can’t turn my magic off like other ectomancers do?”

 Her uncle fell silent for a long moment. He of course didn’t know the answer – he wasn’t even able to use any magic, he just knew people who did. But he knew that his brother, Sammi’s dad, could turn his magic off. Sammi’s dad didn’t have to see ghosts if he didn’t want to. Honestly, Sam had never heard of anyone with any kind of magic that hadn’t been able to not use it. In fact, from what he knew, keeping one’s magic going around the clock was horrifically taxing on a person’s body, and was probably why Sammi was so damn small and sick all the time.

 Oh, Sammi. The poor kid always saw, and heard, and sensed ghosts. It’d been that way since her father died, and no practitioner they’d talked to could explain why.

 “Hey kid, let’s stop and get some food at the next exit,” he said, avoiding answering the question. “Maybe they have an IHOP or something. You can get that coffee you like.”

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