#wickedswriting

[vengeancedemon]

TIMING: a few hours after to the grave. LOCATION: worm row PARTIES: Eve ( @technowarden ) & emilio ( @vengeancedemon ) SUMMARY: eve is called to clean up a dead hunter. it’s not who, nor what, she expects. CONTENT WARNINGS: suicidal ideation tw, mentions of past sibling death

It had been as simple as a phone call waking her up out of a restless dream. Private number, a voice Eve has never heard, a call about a dead body in a dumpster behind a dive bar in the Wormhole. A dead hunter. As much as Eve wanted to ask more, she bit her tongue, and let the line go dead. People would only call if they thought there wouldn’t be consequences, so it didn’t matter who had called and who was dead. It had to not matter. Eve packed her bags and hurried out her front door. There were still a few hours before daylight. She even knew the dumpster in question - this wouldn’t be the first body she’d pulled out of there.

The wormhole was one of her most frequent places of business, and Eve wasn’t short of weapons or latex gloves as she hopped out of her car and walked to her destination, shining her flashlight down the alley. She spotted the pool of blood against a nearby wall first, then the pile of ash. An abandoned stake lay not much further away, also blood and ash stained. Vampires didn’t usually waste this much blood, except when that blood could also burn them. Not just a dead hunter, but a slayer. The knot in Eve’s throat tightened as her flashlight found the bloodstained dumpster, one limp leg hanging out of it. She didn’t know every hunter in town, sure, but she knew just a few that were that tall. She knew a couple that wore dark trousers crusty with old blood stains. She knew only one who had been falling apart the last time they spoke, who had been seeking death as much as the undead.  Silently, Eve pulled out her phone, and began taking pictures of the scene, her camera flash made the blood glisten, caught every blood soaked fibre of the denim jeans.

It shouldn’t have been surprising. Slayers didn’t break the way Owen broke and keep going for long. Every hunter had a little bit of a death wish. It was their final release from a duty none of them chose. Owen had one more than most. Over the years, Eve had grown familiar with the ache of dealing with the bodies of hunters she knew well. This was no different, just because they tried to save him a few weeks before. The hardest part, she knew now, was the part where she saw their faces, eyes and mouths agape, skin drained of all warmth. The worst ones had always been the eyes that were her exact shade of blue. Eve had buried family; she could bury anyone. It just meant bracing for that first, unknowing look. Eve took a deep breath, shut away the thoughts of how Owen had looked at her in the barn, lifted the lid on the dumpster, and gasped.

The face staring back at her with clouded eyes wasn’t Owen Lundkvist at all. It was Emilio.

Emilio Cortez, who Eve had first met hiding in a closet, both wielding a knife as they exchanged clever words and clever looks. Emilio, whose first joke had been a message of a mop, asking if it was her. In her car, it had been Emilio, smiling about his new fiance as she went through the list of evidence they were looking for. In the police station evidence locker, watching the horrors of their lives unfold as etchasketch morality tales, both of them joking until there was nothing left to joke about. Emilio Cortez, begging her to show him something they both knew he couldn’t stand to look at. His eyes had looked at her with such horror, illuminated by the cold blue light of her laptop screen. Her list, his name on her list. Hundreds of people had died in San Augustin Etla, and he had been the one to demand she remember them. Another car ride, another break in, another list. A small joke shared over a near death experience, her fingers covered in his blood.  

They said that your whole life flashed before your eyes right before you died. Eve didn’t know about that, but she saw the entirety of their relationship in the whites of Emilio’s eyes as her camera light flashed. And then she put those memories in a box, sealed the lid on tight, and turned a person into a to-do list item. Emilio Cortez wasn’t a friend, or someone who hated being near her, or a private investigator, or a Slayer anymore. He was a task she needed to complete. Her camera flashed: this time, there was nothing but death in his eyes. 

Satisfied she’d documented the scene as much as would ever be necessary, Eve took Emilio’s arm and tried to move it. Stiff as wood. It was still warm. Not warm like a person was, but not as cold as the trash around him. Whoever had phoned her had found this body soon after Emilio had died. They may even have been the one to deliver the killing blow. Eve felt sick as her eyes drifted to the bloodied stain that started at his chest and ran down his front. At least it had been quick. Far from the worst death she’d seen a hunter die. She looked at the pool of blood inside the dumpster, far more than would leak out by gravity alone, and felt a sick twist in her stomach. 

She lifted the corpse out of the dumpster and onto the ground. The body was folded in the form of the trash bags he had died upon. It would be easier if he was something closer to flat. Eve peeled a yoghurt lid out of his hair, and wiped down his face and hands from the grime of the trash. There would be more to do, later, when she knew what she was doing with his corpse. But the first box on her to do list was to get him flat enough to fit in her body bags - she needed to break rigor in some of his joints. Despite the term, it didn’t involve any kind of real breaking, just the gentle but firm movement of his joints until they stretched and the muscles gave way. As Eve worked, she ran the rest of her to do list through her mind. She needed to phone Teddy, to find out if their entanglement had become legal enough that the body had to make it to the town morgue. She needed to find Teddy’s number, before that. If someone needed to find the body, at least it wouldn’t need modifying - a stab was a perfectly mundane way to die. Maybe she would just plant some evidence, point the police down a perfectly human wild goose chase. Eve was pretty sure no cameras were in the area, but she’d have to check that too, or see if any of the windows nearby had opened for a curious pair of eyes or camera. Teddy would be responsible for their flat, but Emilio probably had weapons and evidence lying around Axis Investigations, so that would have to go too…

It was easier to think about what was next than think about what her hands were doing, but the next step demanded that she look. Before she could do anything else for him, she had to act to protect herself. There was blood in Emilio’s mouth, which was probably his, but she had to check before bringing his body anywhere. Check to see if the vampires had tried to pull one last cruel trick on him. Her recent Wight encounter has reminded Eve of the importance of not assuming a dead body would stay that way.

As  she rolled up his sleeves to check for bites there, her gaze was caught by a tattoo written across his wrist. A simple word, just five letters, and it knocked the breath out of her. Eve stared at the letters, blinking hard as she tried to pull up her walls as a dam against the trickle of emotions that might become a flood if she didn’t bury them. The smallest stickfigure in a pool of etcha-sketch blood. The youngest name on her list, that Emilio had stared and talked about, without ever telling her this name. Eve and Emilio never spoke about Etla, but in the way that they were always talking about Etla. Even when they were talking about Etla, they were never talking about her. It always came back to these five letters, signifying four short years, even if she hadn’t known it until right now. Eve hoped that his version of an afterlife granted him one with her.

No new bites anywhere to be seen. One small mercy, in the midst of all this.  If he was a ghost, he probably would not even linger. She hoped he wasn’t now - no one wanted to see the reality of how a corpse was handled. Even in death, Emilio didn’t have the stomach for her work. Eve rolled up the sleeve, covered up Flora’s name and Emilio’s finally-finished grief, and ended her inspection. 

Eve and Emilio were once again closer in death than they  had been in life.  How little of what she knew about him had been shared by choice. She hoped he'd forgive her as  she unrolled the white plastic of a body bag and  set it  beside him,  completely  unzipped. She lifted  his body   gently, setting  him into  the bag.  She lifted one leg to tuck into the plastic,  then the other. She folded  his arms down by  his side. The only sound in this whole miserable town was the rustling of the bag as she began to pull up the zipper. 

When the zip was pulled up to just by his neck, and the white plastic lay over him like a funeral shroud, Eve paused, and gently cupped the side of his face. Her face had been cupped like this a thousand times in her childhood, every time her siblings and parents ran out the door to respond to a new call, to chase a new opponent. It was to remind them that their hands were not just made for bloodshed, their lips were not just made for lies. That in the midst of the Phobids and Muses and Fauns, there was one feeling that would always ring true. It was a hunter’s goodbye, just in case they never saw each other again. She’d said it to Emilio a couple times now, a useful border to acknowledge the complexity between them, and to shield herself from, well, this. Eve found it about as useful now as she had for every other hunter she’d buried. 

“Goodbye, Emilio Cortez. I’m glad you were here.” she murmured, but didn’t move her hand until his cheek felt deceptively warm. Eve took a breath, and closed the bag. She opened her phone and switched her leg’s mode to ‘Heavy Lifting’, and picked up the body easily. She slung it over her shoulder, walked the short alley to her car, and left it in there. Better not to feel his presence as she cleaned up the pools of blood left in the shape of the body on the floor and in the dumpster. As she worked, she hummed tunelessly. Music had always been her distraction, her way to lock the doors of her mind, so that she could wipe up blood without flinching. She was a music box, a dancer moving mindlessly through a routine she’d done a thousand times before. 

The part that came after was harder. Once the blood was cleaned up and the alley made convincingly dirty once more, the mindless work ended, and she was once more dealing with the reality of Emilio’s body in her car. She paused, leaning her body against the cool bricks of a nearby wall, hunting down contact information for Teddy Jones. (She should have looked into this before now. She should have known Emilio’s plan. Should have been brave enough to ask, even knowing he’d hate being asked.) 

“Hello, is this Teddy Jones? I’m Eve, I’m a friend of Emilio’s,” was how it began. By the time the call was done, Eve had been hollowed out. She stared at the wall opposite, and nothing at all, catching her breath from the effort of keeping her voice even. It was worse when the person you had to notify wasn’t also a hunter. But at least now she had a destination. And music, blasting through her earbuds loud enough to deafen the pain of Teddy’s words right out of her head. 

Eve walked over to her van, feeling leaden, and pulled herself into the driver’s seat. She was halfway down her to-do list now. Once the corpse wasn’t her responsibility anymore, she could have a light rest. 

—

When Emilio was twelve years old, his oldest brother had died. Victor had been eighteen at the time and, to the knobby-kneed twelve year old that looked up to him, that had seemed ancient. He’d thought of Victor as invincible, as infallible. And then, one day, his uncle went out on a hunt with his brother and came back alone. Emilio had never seen the body; later, when Lucio was drunk enough for his tongue to loosen, he’d admit that there wasn’t much of a body left to see. It wasn’t Emilio’s first experience with death, despite his young age, but it was the first that resonated. It was the first that felt real.

It wouldn’t be the last.

Death was a shadow cast over every aspect of his life. It swallowed the light from every room, cut through every attempt to drown it out. It was inescapable for everything and everyone, of course, but it always felt personal for Emilio. Death, for him, wasn’t an occasional unwanted guest arriving unexpectedly. It had a regular place setting at the dinner table. He always knew it was coming.

He’d known it would come for him sooner rather than later, too. The period of time he’d been afraid of it was shorter than the period of time where he hadn’t. For the first half of his life, he’d been made to think of it as an honor. Death was something he was meant to do, like his father had, like his brother. Dying for a cause made a man into a martyr, and wasn’t that a good thing to be? The fear had come later, with a writhing mass of dark hair and wide eyes sitting in his arms, with a woman he loved in his bed and a little girl curled between them in the blankets. He was only afraid of dying when he’d had something to live for. When he lost it, he’d gone back to setting the kitchen table. He’d gone back to waiting, to watching the door and wondering when his turn would come.

And he’d gotten things to live for again, of course. He had someone waiting for him at home, had people who would mourn when he stopped breathing. Teddy didn’t deserve to lose him; none of the friends he’d made in Wicked’s Rest did. But Emilio never could recapture that fear he’d held when his daughter blinked up at him from his arms. He could never quite make himself afraid of dying again, no matter how much he knew he ought to be. He still chased it, even when people he loved begged him not to. It was a selfish thing, he knew. A better man would have let it go.

But he’d never been a very good man.

Still… finding it had come almost as a surprise. Even as the knife had entered his chest, some part of him had been so sure it was survivable. It wasn’t until the world had faded that he’d realized it was the end. And it didn’t feel the way he thought it would; he figured it never did. He’d been expecting something grander, he guessed. Bright lights to walk into, confirmation of Heaven or Hell, something. Instead, there was only fading consciousness, muffled voices, and the faint sensation of his body being moved and stuffed somewhere cramped. 

He let his mind wander, as the last of it faded. He let himself imagine Flora’s face, even if it was a hazy, blurry thing. He let himself hear Juliana’s voice calling out to him, offering a forgiveness he’d never quite earned. He let himself think of Victor, who’d been dead longer than he was alive, or of his sister Rosa, who’d probably died hating him. He let himself picture his brother Edgar, his mother offering him some semblance of pride that he’d never been awarded while either of them was alive. He let his mind conjure up the people he’d loved who’d met death at that table before he had, let himself think they’d welcome him.

It was a good lie. 

The comfort wasn’t quite enough to drown out the anger, in those last moments, but nothing ever was. Emilio died the same way he’d lived — furious and vengeful, with hatred clinging to every inch of him.

He woke up the same way. 

It was a slow awakening. He came to piece by piece, the order reversed from how he’d faded. Sound came rushing in first, muffled and far away. Music was playing, and someone was humming along. Both the song and the voice were familiar, but he couldn’t place either of them. The feeling came next — something touching all parts of him, closing him in somewhere small and sending him reeling into a panic. His fist shot out to one side, sloppy and weightless, with little real control behind the motion. His leg kicked out, pain shooting through it as it did so. His bad knee ached — was it because he was cramped up in this small space, or had he injured it again? Memory was hazy, too. 

He blinked as his vision began returning, and something was wrong. It was dark, and it wasn’t supposed to be. Slayers were gifted with perfect night vision; Emilio had never experienced the dark without it. The closest frame of reference he had was being blindfolded, but this didn’t feel like that. It was a suffocating thing, the darkness around him. He could feel it closing in with the plastic he was wrapped in. 

As the feeling returned to him, he began flailing out in earnest. His hands pushed in every direction in search of an exit, his legs kicking and jerking despite the pain each motion sent vibrating through his bad knee. His heart —

His heart wasn’t pounding. It wasn’t stuttering like a jackrabbit in his chest, wasn’t pumping blood and panic through his veins, wasn’t moving at all. His heart was still, even as the rest of him thrashed and flailed. Was this Hell, then? Was this what was left for him? An eternity stuffed in some small space, his aches and pains still with him even as his heart no longer beat. Emilio let out a low keen, sounding like something not-quite-human, like an animal stuck in a trap. 

Distantly, he registered that he was moving, and then registered that movement stopping. He couldn’t hear the hum of the engine beneath him — the thing he was stuffed inside muffled outside noise a little too much — but logically, he knew he was probably in a vehicle. And since the last thing he remembered was someone sticking a knife in his chest, he wasn’t sure he wanted to be in whoever’s vehicle he was riding in.

It was a vampire who’d stabbed him (killed him? Was he dead?), but he didn’t feel the shiver down his spine that accompanied an undead presence as they approached. Was it the panic dulling the feeling? It didn’t matter. Whatever situation he was in now, he wanted out of it. He thrashed and lashed out as best he could, intent on carving out some kind of advantage for himself here, on getting out and then getting away. He could still salvage this, whatever it was. He still needed to salvage this. If it was Hell, he’d make it regret taking him in. He could at least do that. 

—

The body moved. The body moved and Eve slammed on her brakes immediately, hard enough that her seatbelt was likely to leave mayflower bruises, gone by the end of tomorrow. The harness that she used to secure corpses held too, but the body within it kept struggling, fighting against the plastic bag. The voice that cried out was heartbreakingly familiar, but Eve could not afford to feel, could not do anything other than let instinct take over. Moving at a lightning speed, Eve unfastened her buckle with one hand and reaching for a stake in the other. 

Whatever was in the back was not alive, and therefore, was hungry. The only advantage Eve would get was in this first moment of disorientation, like a babe screaming at an unfamiliar world. She twisted, pushing herself half out of her seat between the two backrests, so that she could reach the bag that Emilio was struggling in. Her right hand found his chest through the white plastic sheeting, giving her a guide for where to drive her left. She raised the stake and began to drive it down towards his heart.

The stake hit his chest and stopped. The wooden tip pressed into his chest, probably right at the entrance of his recent stab wound, but went no further. It took Eve’s mind a second to realise what her instincts had already clocked, to figure out why she had stopped. Something wasn’t right. 

Even a fledgling, panicked by their rebirth, would have the strength to push back. Their flailing arms would have shredded the plastic of her bag. She’d put a hand on his chest to figure out where his sternum was, but that hand was enough to pin his body down without any effort.

The first instinct a hunter trained, before they even learned how to fight or protect themselves, was to protect a human. After all, they met human children before they met any monster. As toddlers, they were taught to reign in their strength, slow down their speeding hands and kicking feet. Careful, Evie, she could hear her mother say, they can’t play as rough as you. You don’t want to hurt them. Slow down, play gentle.

The weakness beneath her hands felt human. It had been enough to give Eve pause, her breathing ragged, as he continued to flail, his limbs encased by nothing more than plastic. But he couldn’t be. Fae weren’t gifted with strength either, but they didn’t rise from the dead. Eve pulled herself through the rest of the gap as quickly as she could, straddling his hips, using her knee to pin down one arm and one hand to catch the other. Her stake punched a hole through the plastic right by his throat, a hole that she tore open to expose his face. 

It didn’t matter who he was, or who he had been. Seeing Emilio’s face looking back at her did little to pause the resolve in her eyes. There was a good chance he was in there, wholly, as the person she had grieved just twenty minutes ago. It didn’t matter. It couldn’t. No matter the person they were behind their bloodlust, a vampire out of control was a danger to any human nearby. But Emilio wasn’t out of control, he was completely within her control. It was enough to wait a moment, to learn more of what fae trickery this might be… and to rapidly swap her stake for a knife built for cutting through necks. (It was Daiyu’s favourite rule, after all. There wasn’t much that survived decapitation.) 

—-- 

Pressure against his chest, hard and sharp, made him hesitate. He couldn’t see anything, couldn’t tell what it was. The plastic entrapping him made a poor barrier between his chest and this new intrusion; he knew it wouldn’t hold up if more pressure was applied. Was it a knife? Maybe this was Hell. Maybe Hell forced you to relive a version of your death time and time again. Maybe the same vampire who had pushed that knife into his chest was poised to repeat the motion. Would everything fade the way it had the first time? 

(Maybe he’d get those last few moments of peace repeated, be allowed to tell himself pretty lies when the sound ebbed out. Hell wouldn’t be so bad if that was part of it, would it? Hell could be made manageable. It was a funny thought.) 

He continued to thrash as a hand held him down, panic setting in once more. (Had it ever left him?) His arms were pinned down, and there was a weight trapping his legs. Whoever this was must have been strong, because Emilio couldn’t buck them off. And — and the plastic trapping him must have been strong, too. Something supernatural? It would explain how the dark was able to creep in, wouldn’t it? 

Something penetrated the barrier, but it didn’t find his skin. Instead, it tore a hole through the plastic encasing him, one that was widened with a careful hand. If he’d been more present, he would have turned his head and snapped the fingers off with his teeth. As it was, he was too panicked to do much of anything. It was a pitiful display, the kind of thing his mother would have been ashamed of. He was ashamed of it, of the hungry way with which he greeted the light. His head was freed, the dim night came to greet him, and he gasped as his lungs gulped in air that he hadn’t realized he couldn’t properly get inside the bag.

(How long had he been without oxygen? How long did it take a person to suffocate? Was he dying, or was he dead already? What was happening? What was happening? What was happening?) 

He blinked, shaking his head as his eyes darted wildly around. He was inside a vehicle. He was in some kind of bag. There were straps keeping him from rolling, and a body on top of him keeping him from moving. And the body — the body was Eve, who was swapping a wooden stake for a sharpened knife. 

It was funny — his first thought, upon seeing this, was to wonder if it was his stake she was using, or if she had one of her own. His second thought was to wonder how he’d pissed her off this badly. And his third thought, the one that he decided to stick with, was that he wanted her off of him.

“Get the fuck off me,” he snarled, bucking again to try to throw her. She must have had a reason for it, because Eve rarely did anything without reason, but Emilio couldn’t focus on that. All Emilio could focus on was the tight confines around his body, and the way his heart was still not pounding as it should have been. “What — What the fuck is happening? Why am I — Get off, Eve, I need to — Get me out of this fucking —” He struggled against her grip, but it felt like fighting iron restraints. Had she always been so strong? She was a hunter, same as him. Shouldn’t their strength be proportional to one another? “What is this?”

—

He gasped for air like he needed it, and Eve wondered if that was just because he was in the habit of needing it, or if he had never been dead at all. If he had never been Emilio at all. She watched, knife hovering over him, as he looked around panickedly. Terrified. What a hellish way to go this was becoming. Apologies pressed against the inside of her pursed lips, the desire to let him go bubbling up in her. But held like this, she was safe. He could not bite, he could not hurt her. Hurting him was a small price to pay. Hunting was full of finding the lesser price to pay. 

They weren’t supposed to hunt each other. How many months had passed since she last saw Owen? How many weeks since she’d last aimed a weapon at a person she could admit in the privacy of her own heart that she liked? The more he looked around, the less this felt like a trap, which was always when you needed to be most on your guard. His eyes finally, finally focused on her face, for the first time recognising her. Eve inhaled sharply as he snarled at her. But didn’t move. He could see her, he could recognise her, he could even name her as he pleaded for her to give him space. 

“No.” Eve pressed her knee down harder, tightened her grip, just to prove her point. She wasn’t letting go any more than she was letting him get to her. It wasn’t a lapse she could afford, even if her chest ached worse now than it had before. Did Emilio recognise the same look in her eyes now as she’d had aiming that rifle at Owen? It didn’t matter. It didn’t matter. “I would stop struggling, if I was you. I’m not in the mood for fucking around and finding out. We would just skip straight to finding out.” The knife in her hand felt heavy. She kept it hovering an inch over his throat anyway. 

The hand pinning down one of his arms in the plastic let go (it wasn’t like the plastic wasn’t restraint enough, only to quickly slide beneath his jaw, resting on his neck. It was still cooler than body temperature, and no matter where she touched, she couldn’t find a pulse. “I checked you for bites. I checked. There was no magic out there either. How the hell are you undead?” 

—

He was looking at her now, finally. The world was still a topsy-turvy thing, nothing making sense the way it should have, but the biggest threat was almost certainly the one holding a knife to his throat, so he kept his eyes locked onto her face. The expression she wore was a familiar one, and it was a little funny to think that the last time he’d seen it, he’d also just been stabbed. Back then, it was Owen’s knife, was a blow he’d redirected from something fatal to something survivable in a way he hadn’t been able to do with the vampires holding him down… was it hours ago now? Days, weeks, months? Had he been wrapped in that plastic for years, suffocating or decaying? Eve was looking at him now the same way she’d looked at Owen then, her eyes burning with a determination she’d claim was emotionless. It had taken him a while to figure out that that wasn’t true.

Eve was good at hiding what she thought, what she felt. She had a lot of masks, and she slipped each one over her features in a way that seemed effortless. Emilio still didn’t know what the truest parts of her looked like, still couldn’t pick her real face out of a crowd, but he still knew a mask when he saw one. The neutrality with which she’d approached Owen in the barn had been feigned. So was the one she wore for him now. She felt, even if she pretended not to.

But feeling would not keep her from doing what she felt was necessary here. And the knife that kissed the skin of his throat and the weight still holding him in place made no secret of what she thought this situation necessitated. 

Rage burned in his chest anyway, the flames of it touching every part of him as she refused, and it felt so much hotter than normal. It was a physical thing burning through him; he swore he could smell the smoke of it. His eyes bore into hers, rage written so clearly on his features. He wondered if that made him more familiar. Eve had seen him angry far more often than she’d seen him at ease. 

The weight pinning him increased with her refusal to move, her hand letting go of his arm to touch his neck. He still couldn’t move, was still trapped by the plastic as she looked him over. The rage still burned, igniting all the more when she asked a question he suspected to be rhetorical. How the hell are you undead? 

It seemed to echo in the small space, seemed to cling to the metal walls of the van. It burned through him, and a strange pressure at the tips of his fingers was the only preamble to the plastic pinning him down tearing as his hands thrashed against it. Something sharp assisted him, but what? He had knives on him — he always had knives on him — but he hadn’t been able to reach for any. In any case, he took advantage of the quick burst of strength the rage ignited, bucked again to try to knock her off balance. He needed the knife away from his throat, no matter who was holding it. He needed to be able to think. 

“I’m not!” He snapped, and it came out garbled. “I’m not — What the fuck are you — That isn’t —” His mind moved a mile a minute as he tried to put the pieces together. He couldn’t be a vampire; his blood was acidic to them, there was no way they could consume enough to turn him. And the cross he still wore around his throat hung in its usual place, no pain where it rested. A zombie? No… his leg still ached, the stab wound in his chest hadn’t healed. Not a mare, either; he hadn’t slept in days, so how could one have found him? “I’m not, I’m — I’m —-” 

Shit. 

The possibility loomed over him. A rarer thing; a less simple answer. Furies were something he’d been taught to kill, because slayers needed to know that sort of thing. But unlike other undead, he’d been advised never to seek them out. Last resort, his uncle told him once. You can cut off its head, but it’s probably going to take you with it. You avoid them if you can, Milio. Last resort. He knew only the basics of how they came to be, knew they needed rage and violence and — and vengeance.

Shit. It was a thought he figured bore repeating.

—

Eve could worry about the hatred in his eyes later. He bucked against her again, and this time Eve needed to put down a hand to steady herself. He was getting stronger by the minute. This was what zombies did, right? Except they began overwhelmingly strong, and this was the opposite. Her mask fractured for a second with real worry. The outcome was the same, and in letting her first instinct win, in leaning in for a fight rather than bolting out of her car, she’d made whatever came next inevitable. If he kept gaining strength, she had seconds to make her choice, rather than minutes. The plastic around his hands had torn, but she couldn’t look away from his face.

“Emilio,” she warned. Her question hadn’t been rhetorical; she searched his eyes for an answer even as he searched his own mind. She saw the moment he found his answer, the fury on his face slipping into something much more complex. Something much more awful. Whatever Emilio had found in his slayer’s archive, he did not like the answer. He didn’t feel the need to share it with her either. Eve groaned, wanted to shake him, throttle him, remind him of how hard she’d worked just weeks ago to keep him alive. How Eve had accepted that her effort with Owen was wasted, how she wasn’t ready to accept that with Emilio again, twice in one hour. 

She’d mourned. It didn’t matter now, not with the way he looked at her. She grit her teeth together, turning her hand to iron as she touched his neck again. Nothing, no pulse, no burn, nothing. Eve shook off the iron as she shifted the knife in her hand, giving herself the space to reach over to a toolbox in the other seat, the knife never wavering from his throat as her fingers wrapped around a small iron device. She didn’t have many to spare, and this was one of her better ones, gifted from her father when she’d been young. 

Dispellates normally worked by being thrown to the ground and letting the smoke hiss out. Eve crushed it in her hand instead, the metal cutting her palm as smoke poured out of her fist. It changed nothing. It was still Emilio beneath her, still glaring up at her, his pulse still dead. If this was a trick, it wasn’t a fae one. “Fuck,” Eve muttered, flinging the dispellate into the corner. She’d need to open the window later. If there was a later. “Fuck!”

Shouldn’t slayers be immune to this sort of thing? Not every warden had iron skin or the speed the Farrans built their reputation on, but fae were wildly variable, and it was impossible to become them. Surely all slayers should get the one luxury of being guaranteed to stay dead when their shift finally came to an end? Eve’s stomach lurched with it. “I need you to give me something, Emilio. I don’t-” Eve took a deep breath, straining to regain the composure her voice had had moments ago, “I don’t want to hurt you, I can’t imagine what you’re feeling right now, but I need you to give me something, anything, here.”  

—

Distantly, he was aware of her running through a list of her own. Emilio had conducted his silent tests with the necklace, with the strength, with the reminder of his lack of sleep, had ruled out one thing after another. And now, it was Eve’s turn to do hers. He didn’t know what she was looking for exactly. He guessed that whatever she had in her hand was iron, but he didn’t know what result she expected. He knew less about fae than he did undead. Maybe part of him hoped, in some strange way, that her test would prove him wrong. Maybe part of him wanted the iron to burn, wanted it to show that his hypothesis wasn’t true. 

(Maybe he just wanted Eve to get it over with, just a little. He wondered if she’d saw through his throat with her blade, if he let her. Then he remembered his uncle’s warning, and he wondered if he would let her. Was he the sort of man who would let someone he liked die if it meant he got a permanent end, too?

He was too afraid to let himself answer the question.)

Whatever tests she performed, it was clear by the look on her face that the answer wasn’t something simple enough to lead her to a solution. She cursed, she tossed her supply to the side, she kept the blade at his throat and kept her weight on his body. He felt stronger the more the rage seeped through him, but he knew he wasn’t strong enough. If she were a normal human, if she weren’t a hunter, if she weren’t trained for things like this, he probably could have tossed her off. But he couldn’t figure out if he wanted to. He couldn’t figure out how far he was willing to let this go.

She pleaded with him and, for a moment, she sounded almost human. It was a jarring thing, coming from Eve. She was usually so poised, so unflappable. Emilio had tried to make her waver in the past. When they talked about Etla, when he was angry and hurting and desperate to make someone else feel just as strongly as he did and she was the only one in the room. He’d lashed out at her then, had tried to tear her apart just so that he wouldn’t be the only one bleeding, and it hadn’t worked. But now, in the small space of the van with only one heart beating, she looked rattled. More than she had in the barn; more than she had in the police station. It was strange to think that this was what it took.

“Give you what?” He snapped, rage pouring out of him. “Go ahead, Eve. Stick the knife in my throat. You can’t hurt me, can you? Can’t kill a corpse.” His nostrils flared, his eyes burned. She couldn’t imagine what he was feeling, but neither could he. 

His arm, freed from the plastic but still hard to move in this position, shot up to grip her wrist. The claws at the ends of his fingers were unimpressive things. He wished he knew more about what he was now. Did they grow with age, or with something else? Did he want them sharper? His hand held her wrist, but the grip wasn’t crushing, wasn’t even tight. He couldn’t tell if his next move would be to press the knife further into his own throat, or to pull it away. In the end, he settled for neither. Her pulse thrummed against his palm, a reminder that his own heart was still, and he dropped his hand as if her warm skin burned him. He closed his eyes, taking a deep breath that he didn’t need to draw, filling his dead lungs with oxygen that wasn’t necessary.

He’d been wrong — this wasn’t Hell. This was so much worse than that.

“If you cut off my head,” he said numbly, “we’re both going to die.”  (Notably, this was not a request for her to remove the knife. Achingly, part of him hoped she’d ignore the warning.)

[hollow--sun]

🕒 When: Today

📍 Where: Library at UMWR

👥 With Whom: Henri O’Dea and a NPC Archeology Professor

🔹 Summary: Henri works at the library (UMWR) on Netherville. A study in character of sorts.

 At this hour, the library at the University of Wicked’s Rest was near empty save for the irregular sound of pages turning, the quiet scrape of chair feet on carpet, the distant tinker of the tired neon lamp in the anthropology section. 

In the air hung the scent of paper and detergent, the sort they wiped every table with right before closing. 

It was late, yes, but Henri O’Dea was still here, sitting at the most remote table with stacks of books piled precariously around him and a notebook that could only be defined as well loved, its worn cover guarding hours of research carefully collected and scribbled in by the archeology student. 

To the casual bystander, the young man seemed like a regular student, albeit a rather hard working one, but if one were to take a closer look at the books, you could begin to wonder what kind of course he was following:  Legends and Lost Settlements of New England. The Tides of Wicked’s Rest. Haunted Waters: Maritime Folklore of the Maine Coast. Pages had been marked with post-its, each of them scribbled with more notes and Henri’s pencil still moved swiftly on paper now. 

He was not studying.

Henri was hunting.

His finger traced along a map of Wicked’s Rest. A century old and definitely not nearly precise enough for day to day. Google Maps would have been his go to, had it not been for the location of the monster he was hunting. Bleak Point was written on the map in beautiful capital letters, the faded ink giving charm to a part of town he personally considered to be against nature. Henri had nothing against the supernatural, or magic. He found it quite beautiful, really. But, when it served as an excuse to commit the most awful and selfish of crimes (on his fellow hunters or the supernatural beings side), he had to intervene. 

In this forsaken part of town, something was stirring. Three people had disappeared in the past couple of weeks, all in the same street (could a tunnel be considered a street?). 

A moving shadow caught the corner of his eye. With one leg moving slower than the other, Professor McAlister was easy to recognize without even looking up. The balding man was a respected historian, known mostly for his work regarding pre columbian populations from the Acadian coast down to New England. 

“Still chasing ghost stories, O’Dea?” McAlister’s voice was light, almost amused, but his eyes flicked over Henri’s notes with too much interest.

The young man casually picked up a book he’d been using to keep the map from rolling closed, setting it on the most damning scribbles on the desk. “Research.” He replied, his voice even. “I’m looking into Bleak Point. Huh… Netherville.” 

The professor offered a compassionate smile, but Henri could have sworn he caught worry in there too, especially as the old man opened his mouth: “Local history then. Funny thing about history… It has a tendency to swallow people whole.” 

Stern as ever, Henri met the man’s gaze. “And it’s an archeologist’s job to know how to dig. Lucky me.” 

With a quiet chuckle, the professor raised his shoulders and wished Henri good luck and good night, before he turned around, the sound of his feet familiar as ever while Henri watched him disappear down the aisle.

[magmahearts]

TIMING: current. PARTIES: @ariadnewhitlock, @vanoincidence, @muertarte & @magmahearts LOCATION: the magmacave. SUMMARY: as cass prepares to leave town for good, ariadne, van, and metzli show up to speak to her. when makaio finds them, things go south. CONTENT: parental death, child death, emotional manipulation, domestic abuse

Something had shifted with Metzli’s last visit. Cass had always known, on some level, that her father was capable of being dangerous in the same way she was, but she hadn’t thought much of it. Most of the people she loved were capable of being dangerous, and it never made her love them any less. Even now, she wouldn’t pretend she loved Makaio less than she had before. He was her father. She still loved him, would always love him. But… she didn’t think it was safe for him to be around her friends anymore. Not after he’d tried to have her hurt Metzli, not after he’d made it clear that there was only room in her life for him. She loved her father, but she didn’t think he belonged here.

Which probably meant she didn’t, either.

She’d already started planting the idea in his head. The two of them would be better suited for somewhere far from Wicked’s Rest. Alaska had a lot of volcanoes, and would put a whole country between them and the people she loved. It had a lower population, too, which meant less risk of… accidents like what had happened with the security guard. (Or things that weren’t accidents, like what had happened with the hunter. Cass tried not to think about that one.) Makaio actually seemed excited about it, and that was a good thing. The two of them could start over somewhere fresh, where no one she loved was in danger and she could have the family she told herself she wanted. 

So, she was deep within the Magmacave, scribbling letters in a notebook. She knew she couldn’t say goodbye to her friends in person; they’d all ask her to stay, and Cass wasn’t sure she was strong enough to say no. The notebook would be a better option. She’d leave it in the woods near the cave, someplace where one of them could find it. They’d be sad, but they’d be okay. They’d move on. Everyone always did. 

If she were less busy with the writing, she might have known someone was coming before the footsteps echoed off the walls. She might have registered that those butterflies in her stomach that signaled the presence of another fae, of her father, were absent with the approach. But knowing probably wouldn’t have changed anything, anyway, and so it didn’t matter that Cass didn’t hear them coming ahead of time. Her pencil paused in its scribbling as the footsteps finally echoed close by, head snapping up. “You shouldn’t be here.”

—

Van remembered the last time that she’d seen Cass and how tense it had been, of how she re-ran the conversation over and over in an attempt to figure out how to have it better next time. She wanted so badly for things go right that she didn’t heed the warnings. So what if Cass’s dad was dangerous? So what if Cass thought she was dangerous? Van was dangerous, too. She could do things, too. Unimaginable things. For the first time in a long time, Van wasn’t afraid as she walked towards Cass’s cave. 

It almost felt foreign in a way, a forgotten kind of memory that was only linked to the dreams she used to have about all of them beneath the cavern’s edge. She thought about the times that she’d been there to visit Cass, with or without the others– of the comics spread out on the floor, of the movies they’d watch on their phones. Van wondered very briefly if she should’ve brought pizza like before. 

It was just as difficult as before, navigating her way through the cave’s entrance to the opening that would lead her straight to Cass. Before she turned the corner, she could hear her friend’s voice ring out. “You like, said that before.” She didn’t have to do much to dodge the overhanging parts of the cave, as she was already on the shorter side. Instead, she walked right through, feigning authority and confidence. The moment she finally saw Cass, however, it shattered. She was wearing the necklace. It burned itself like a plate against the magma, but she was wearing it. Van stuttered as she spoke, “I just really wanted to see you. I’ve been– it’s– I missed you. A lot.” 

—

Ariadne had missed Cass more than she could put into words. Except that she’d decided that she had to go by the cave now. There wasn’t any other option at this point. Cass could yell at her, ignore her, do anything, but she needed to see Cass. Cass was her best friend and she’d been the person to make Ariadne really understand what it was like to have a best friend who wasn’t part of your family. She also needed to make sure that Cass was okay. Even if Cass never wanted to talk to her again, Ariadne needed to see for herself that her friend was at least okay.

She should’ve brought cookies – M&M, or something like that. Chocolate-caramel-chip. All sorts. Lifesavers gummies too. Except she’d shown up, with only a embroidered piece of fabric that was another volcano. A volcano with stars shining above it.

“I’m sorry.” She nearly walked into Van as she arrived at the cave. “I – uh. I missed you. Also. I’m sorry. I know you said – but you’re my best friend in the whole world and I really, really miss you and I needed to see you because –” Ariande cut herself off. “Please, let me – us – let us in, just for a little while?”

There was something finite about visiting the cave again, feeling the stone beneath their fingertips as they trailed behind the two girls ahead of them. More than ever, Metzli felt like death was permeating around them. Whether it was from a separate source or from within, they weren’t sure, but they saw the way Cass’s father kept himself gripped to her. Quite literally. 

From what they’ve seen and what they’ve experienced, Metzli knew all too well that it would take violence to get Cass away from that man instead of sacrificing the life she made for herself. They couldn’t let her give up the home she had worked hard to make, not for anyone. Especially not a man who abused his position as a father. The very thought of that made Metzli’s stomach sink, gagging them into silence while they listened to Van and Ariadne speak until there was a pause. 

They swallowed, wringing their fingers together several times until the ball in their throat released their voice. “We love you.” Metzli breathed, “It has been too long since we are able to be with you. Just for a little bit, we will like to see you.” Their body stiffened, and they added, “Please.”

It was overwhelming, having three of her closest friends show up at once. For weeks now, Cass had felt as though she was drowning just dealing with them one at a time, trying to keep both her families intact while knowing they needed to be kept separate. Seeing Metzli, Van, and Ariadne all here, all telling her the same things they’d been telling her for weeks… It was hard. More than that, it was scary. Cass glanced towards the back of the cave, where Makaio was resting. Hadn’t he said he’d kill Metzli if they returned? Wouldn’t he do the same to Ariadne and Van? This was why she had to go. None of them could ever be safe so long as she was here.

Half panicked, she looked back to them, getting to her feet. Hesitantly, she put up her glamour, stone and magma giving way to skin and hair. It was the first time she’d bothered with it for weeks now, the first time she’d worn it in her cave since Makaio first introduced himself to her. She took a step towards them, gently pushing the notebook towards Van.

“I love you, too,” she said quietly. “All of you. But you can’t be here, okay? Just — Look, I’m not… We can’t do this right now.” Or ever, really. But if she told them her plans, would they let her go? The best case scenario was for them to leave, and for Van to open the notebook after. By then, Cass and Makaio would be gone, and it would be better. Wouldn’t it be better? “I’m sorry. I’m sorry I’ve been — weird lately. But you guys really need to leave.”

—

Van hadn’t anticipated the others, but they were welcomed additions. What better way to prove to their friend that she was loved than to all show up? It might’ve been overwhelming, too. There was no sense in facing the back and forth of what it could mean for Cass, because it was clear that they all thought they needed to be here for their own reasons. She figured from her’s and Cass’s last meeting that there’d be no such appreciation for the sudden visit, but hadn’t anticipated panic. She remembered what it looked like on Cass’s features from the time in the grocery store, Debbie’s blood spilt between them. 

“What is this?” Van didn’t open the notebook that Cass pushed into her hands. Instead, she held onto it tightly at her side, fingers denting the flimsy cover. It was a little odd, seeing Cass in the way that she remembered her most easily, and while Cass might’ve argued that the former was more in tune with who she was, Van thought that they both were. She didn’t really know how fae glamor worked, but it was clear it was different across the board, given Regan only had to hide wings. Well, not anymore, but still. 

“What’s going on, Cass?” This was different than the last time, too, Van realized. “Are you okay?” Her voice trembled slightly as she took a small step forward, catching Cass’s hand with her own. “You can come with us, right? You can come with us, and you can tell us.” Her eyes swept behind Cass where she anticipated Makaio’s arrival, but all she saw was darkness. “You can come with us.” It wasn’t a question this time, instead it was spoken with finality– a plea dressed in the most basic of emotion. 

—

A part of her had wanted to be the only one here, but it made sense that Van and Metzli had shown up too. If Ariadne were honest, it was also a welcome addition, because it meant she didn’t have to convince Cass of her value all alone. Van and Metzli were perfect additions because she knew Cass loved them deeply too. So maybe this would work. Maybe she could get her best friend back. To show Cass just how desperately loved she was.

Cass’s panic was unsettling. Ariadne would’ve preferred anger, preferred being yelled at to go and being told she was annoying, no matter how much that hurt her. Cass’s glamor shifted, and Ariadne opened her mouth to say that Cass didn’t have to do that, that she was so incredibly beautiful in her true form, but maybe now wasn’t the time for that.

“Please come with us.” She echoed Van, taking a step forward and grabbing Cass’s other hand with her own, gaze falling to the notebook, wondering what was in there, if Van knew more, and what that more might have been. She hadn’t met Cass’s dad yet, but figured he had to be somewhere in here. “Just come on, we can – we can do whatever you want to do. Anything at all.” Because even on the most normal of days Ariadne would have done anything on earth for her friend. But now it seemed especially important to highlight that, to make sure that her best friend knew how much she’d do anything on earth for her.

“I missed you. I love you.” A mantra, almost. The way it flowed off her tongue was nearly like a prayer. “We love you. We love you.” She changed, not wanting to ignore the others who were there, even if a part of her wanted to wrap Cass up in their own little world. “What’s the matter?”

The reciprocated love, although quiet, meant everything after the months of pushback. It helped further prove to Metzli that it was never truly Cass who spoke so cruelly. Maybe she once believed the words as they flew off her tongue, but that didn’t seem the case anymore. They recalled the last time they were there, and looked to Cass’s shoulder. Metzli could still see the jagged grip on it, detested the idea that she was left with a bruise and an ache that they couldn’t soothe after they left. 

Quickly, the thoughts were shaken away before more could be conjured in a panic. Their focus was better set on getting Cass somewhere away from her father, somewhere safe. By the looks of it though, with Metzli’s trained eye and propensity for analysis, the notebook Cass was shoving into Van’s hands looked a lot like a goodbye. Their shoulders fell and their posture stiffened at the realization, and it was all they could do to keep their composure. If Cass left, she would be sacrificing everything for a man that did not deserve it. Metzli couldn’t let that happen, and they were glad to have the unexpected help to convince her of that.

“You should not go with him.” It was a quiet plea, much too quiet for anyone to actually hear, so they said it again. “You should not go with him. He hurts you. Love is not supposed to be painful.” Metzli paused with a swallow. “Not like this. Will you please listen? We can help you.” They took a step forward, taking a breath. “We can. Let us help you.”

Van didn’t open the notebook, and that was good. Cass wasn’t ready for her to do that yet, wasn’t ready for the goodbyes to be acknowledged. If they knew she was leaving, they’d argue, and… Cass didn’t want to fight with her friends. She’d done enough of that already. She would be leaving them with this terrible impression, this quiet doubt of who she was and how she felt about them thanks to the last few months of distance she’d forced between them all. The last thing she wanted to do was widen that gap at the end, make any of them think she loved them less than she did. She was sick of fighting with them, but she didn’t know how to stop. This thing with Makaio was a boulder rolling down a hill; the momentum was too intense to keep it from rolling to the bottom.

“I’m okay,” she said to Van, a quiet mantra she’d been repeating for a while now. She was fine, she was loved. It wasn’t Makaio’s fault that no one else understood him; how could it be? They didn’t know him the way Cass did, didn’t know his history. Even if they did, they couldn’t understand. No one understood her father the way Cass did, and maybe that meant that all of this was okay. She could go with him, and she could understand. She could go with him, and she could be understood. It didn’t have to be a bad thing. So, she repeated it, trying to make it feel right. “I’m okay.” It didn’t burn her tongue the way a lie would have, but there was an uncomfortable feeling in her chest all the same. 

She swallowed around the lump in her throat, shaking her head. “I can’t go with you. I’m sorry, but I can’t. I’m — My dad needs me. He’s alone. He’s been alone for such a long time. I can’t… I have to stay with him. I’m sorry. But that doesn’t mean I don’t —”

“What’s this?”

A jolt of panic rose to her throat at the cool, familiar voice behind her. Her guts had been so twisted up in all the things she was feeling that she’d neglected to recognize the fluttering in her stomach that had signified her father’s approach, had missed the tug of the cave around her as his feet padded along its floor. Cass whirled to face him, fear and guilt spreading over her face. “I — They were just leaving. They came to get some things, that’s all. Right?” She looked back at her friends, hoping they’d take the hint and go.

—

Van had done a lot of running. She’d shied away from danger time and time again, favoring ignorance as a means to keep things normal. But the reaction Cass had to her’s, Metzli’s, and Ariadne’s pleas was anything but. She knew that Cass didn’t believe herself to be the girl from the grocery store, but there was another edge to it. Van listened to Ariadne’s voice, soft and delicate, and then to Metzli’s– still soft, but with an edge of knowing. What did they know that she didn’t? She cast a glance in their direction before it realigned on Cass’s face. 

Before she could echo Metzli’s sentiment about having Cass leave with them, the sound of footsteps and a minor vibration beneath her feet had her snapping her mouth shut. She looked past Cass to see her father– not traced in any kind of glamor, but more akin to the way that she’d seen Cass the last few times now; molten and blistering. She swallowed the plea she had tucked at the back of her throat, and instead held onto the notebook tightly. 

It occurred to her then, what it meant. It was a goodbye. Cass planned to leave with him. Metzli figured it out quickly enough, and maybe she should have, too. 

At Cass’s insistence that they agree with her, Van felt the weight of her’s and Cass’s friendship slip over her shoulders– a heavy weighted thing. The idea that if she didn’t fight back against the ill fated reassurances, she’d lose her forever. “We weren’t.” The words came out, never mind how minor, and they surprised her. Before, she would have relented– found her way through the cave’s mouth and escape only to message Cass later. But this had a certain finality to it, that if she turned her back, she might never see Cass again. 

“We’re here to see her.” Her tongue felt heavy and iron pulled from the back of her throat. 

—

Life was dangerous. Ariadne hadn’t been quite so aware of that when she was growing up (and she had a guess that being human then was a good part of it – and then there was how her parents didn’t have a clue about anything, and if they did have a clue, they kept all of that well away from her). But in the past year, and even more particularly in the last half year, and even more recently than that, she’d been terrified for Cass. Because her best friend wasn’t someone to shy away from friends. If anything, Cass was – or had been – ever-present in a way that provided unending comfort.

So her sudden drawing back was weird, especially when it came with confusing reasoning that Ariadne couldn’t find a way to make sense of. Wynne and Van had agreed about that, and now it seemed Metzli had, too. Even though she didn’t know them too well yet, they were Leila’s partner, and if there was someone whose opinion she knew would always be right, Leila was top of the list. Leila was scared for Cass too, she recalled.

Except before she could say anything else someone else appeared behind Cass. Non-glamoured, and beautiful in some ways (though not as beautiful as Cass), and she wrapped her arms around her torso, fingertips digging into each opposite upper-arm.

“Yeah.” She nodded, bolstered by Van’s words. “We’re – we’re here to see her. She’s my – my b-best friend and I just – I miss her. We all miss her.” Ariadne focused on Cass, not wanting to look her father in the eye, feeling incredibly tiny despite her height. “I can’t – can’t go, not yet.” The words burned in her mouth, and she found herself grateful that being dead meant she couldn’t blush anymore. Maybe it gave her an edge. Maybe it would allow her to help Cass.

—

Panic and fear were powerful feelings, sometimes unstoppable, but they brought out a violent honesty that was near impossible to suppress for most people. Metzli could recall countless moments they looked just as Cass did, and their mind went back to a painting still displayed at the gallery. A looming shadow in the background and a being unable to escape its touch. It was a sight Metzli had every instinct to protect Cass from, but they weren’t sure she’d allow for it. 

The truth was far too terrifying to witness, so what would make the illusion fall right then? Metzli wasn’t sure, but they knew they had to try. Even if it meant getting burned. Stepping forward, they placed themself between Cass’s father and the two younger women, becoming a shield. 

“Her friends miss her. I miss her too.” They stated firmly, keeping their eyes low and avoiding any gaze, but focused. Fear didn’t drive them to look away, not exactly. Looking at the man would only drive Metzli to violence, and they didn’t want to find out how Cass would react if that happened. “If you want to be good father, then you will be happy that she has so much…” Taking a breath, Metzli’s nape bristled, uncertain whether or not they were choosing the right words. “Family. She deserves every love. All of it. We will not leave her, and it will be w-wrong to make us leave. Wrong. Wrong.” 

Wrong. Wrong. Wrong. Wrong. 

They felt the emotion begin to run their mind in circles, and before they could trip over it, Metzli wrung their fingers against themselves and counted softly to themself until the episode passed. 

For a moment, it felt as though the world stood still. Cass was beyond hoping that her father would have a positive reaction to something like this. Maybe months ago, in the very beginning of their companionship, she would have longed for it. She would have imagined a world in which he cracked the smile that, until now, had existed for her and her alone, would have crafted a universe where he invited her friends to stay for dinner and listened to stories of Cass as she had been before he knew her. But naivety wasn’t the kind of thing she’d ever been able to afford, and she knew better than to hope for the impossible. The world stood still, not in anticipation of something decent springing it back into action, but to ask the question of just how bad things would be. 

Van was insisting that they were here to see her, not leaving as she’d suggested. Ariadne was saying, again, that she missed her, and Cass ached with the words. Metzli was standing in front of a man they knew wanted to see them turned to dust with their fists clenched and their jaw set. Makaio glared at the lot of them, fire burning behind his eyes. And Cass loved them all. She loved Van’s stubbornness and Ariadne’s bravery, loved Metzli’s careful words, but she loved Makaio, too. She loved his protectiveness, loved the way he said her name like it was a precious thing. And she wondered if she was supposed to. 

Her friends looked at him like he was a monster, and Cass loved him. She loved him even now, with her hands trembling and fear crawling up her throat. Could you be terrified of someone and love them still? Could you adore a person and still have nightmares about the things they were capable of? 

Makaio turned to look at her, and she shrank beneath his gaze. She felt smaller than she’d ever felt before, felt like an insect at the foot of a giant. “I told you,” he said coldly, “that they didn’t respect you enough to understand your decision to be apart from them. I told you this.” 

“It’s not — It isn’t like that,” she insisted, unable to meet his eye. “They’re just worried. And I was — I was going to tell them to go. Before you got here, that’s what I was doing. They just — They don’t understand.”

“You’re right,” he agreed. “They don’t.” For a moment, she thought that might be the end. She thought, maybe, he would let her handle it. But Makaio sucked a breath, and Cass stilled. She knew, in a way, what he would say before he said it. Loving someone meant being able to predict what they might do next, after all. “So it’s time that you make them. You say you want us to be equals, Cassidy. This is how you can achieve it. Get rid of them, and you and I can carry on in peace. It’s the last thing I’ll ask of you, keiki. Kill them, and it can be just the two of us. The way it was meant to be from the beginning.” 

—

Van could understand to a degree where Cass was coming from. The idea of having somebody that loved you enough to stick around was something that drew her forward, too. But this was not right. The way that Makaio looked at the three of them, and then at Cass… there was something deeply sinister about it, and it made her stomach twist. She listened to Ariadne trip over her words, but the strength was still there. Metzli’s steeled voice sounded authoritative, and it had hope blooming through her. 

Cass, however, seemed frightened. She was being split in multiple directions. Between their begging words and the stern look from Makaio, she knew what kind of weight must be pressed onto her right now, and Van felt bad that she was making it worse. That there might be repercussions once they did leave. But if she, Metzli, and Ariadne had it their way, the repercussions would come later, after they managed to get Cass out of the cave and talk some sense into her away from Makaio. 

Defiant words crawled up and over Van’s tongue, pressed against the back of her teeth as she clenched her jaw. This was gaslighting 101, right? Like, how could Cass not see that? But she knew it wasn’t fair to impart that thinking on her friend, especially given the fact that when on the side of things where you thought this was love, it was hard to see it wasn’t. Maybe Makaio did love Cass, but not in the way that she deserved. Not in the way that everyone else in Wicked’s Rest did. 

Their prior conversation rattled around in Van’s head like a bell calling the livestock home, but home looked different now that she was in front of Makaio who was telling Cass that her friends didn’t understand, and that– 

“Whoa, whoaaaa–” That had to be what turned Cass over, right? Van’s gaze slipped over Makaio, then back to Cass, her hand still locked around her friend’s wrist. If Cass really wanted her to let go, she could pull back. Van wouldn’t stop her. “Are you serious– Cass, are you listening to him?” A nervous sweat licked at the back of her neck, and her throat suddenly grew dry. “Cass,” Van tugged on her hand, begging her to take a step away from Makaio. “She’s our friend! Why are you doing– why are you asking her to do this? She would never do that, not to us. She wouldn’t.” For once in Van’s life, there were no tears. Her magic was absent, held back by the ring wound around her finger. She could feel it bubble, but there was no spilling. 

—

It wasn’t that Ariadne wasn’t happy for Cass to have family in town. Ariadne knew that she was lucky to have the parents she had. Ridiculously lucky, and shouldn’t she want that for her best friend too? She did want it, but with everything that had happened recently, she wasn’t sure just how much joy she could feel. She didn’t like how Cass’s dad was looking at them. It kept making her feel small, feel like she could just shrink into herself. 

Her friend’s voice wavered and it made Ariadne feel sick. Cass was so often giddy and excitable and sure-footed. There was no judgment about her not being this way all of the time – and there never would be – but it was so much unlike the Cass that Ariadne knew that she had to do a double take. She didn’t want Cass to be afraid. She wanted to devour every hint of possible fear that her friend could have, keep them away from her. To never let her be hurt, not even one bit.

– so why couldn’t she move? She took another step toward Cass, on the opposite side from where Van was. Trying to keep her friend safe, as best as she was able. Which might have not been so very much, but something was better than nothing. Looking for any free space, she hooked her pinkie finger around Cass’s. Treasured the warmth from her friend.

Even if her dad did care about her, why would he want her friends to go away? Ariadne’s parents had practically literally jumped for joy when she’d admitted to finally having a few real friends. They’d wanted to meet them, for her to have them around for as long as it was possible. So it didn’t add up that Cass’s dad seemed to want them to go away.

Then he was saying to kill them and Ariadne shook her head right away. “Hey, uh, no. No thanks – there’s, uh, there’s no reason to do that! You know?” She was squeaking again, and she was maybe weak, but she could be better than that. She could be anything but weak. “Cass?” She echoed Van’s words. “Hey, Cass. I love you. Come on, you can – you don’t want to hurt us.” Didn’t say kill, because she couldn’t get the words out. “She won’t hurt us.” She narrowed her eyebrows, the hand whose pinkie was not around Cass’s clenched into a fist. “She’s not that sort of – friend.” Person, she almost said, but maybe Cass’s dad wouldn’t like that. Maybe Cass wouldn’t like that. Friend, however, was indisputable. “We can all hang out. We all love Cass so much.”

—

There was a sensation coursing through the vampire that they hadn’t felt since Chuy broke the news of his string of betrayals. It was an anger that had gone long past a simmer and a boil. Silently and with a bit of hyperventilation, Metzli wondered if that was what it felt like for Cass. The heat of her own body mixing with the anger. Her devil was dancing with her father’s demon, and the fiddler’s tune was only just beginning. Each pizzicato from the bow sent another rippling burn in Metzli’s belly, and before they could stop themself from speaking without thinking, they snapped. 

“You make her work to be equal?” Parents weren’t supposed to do things like that. Being alive, just existing was supposed to be enough. Every moment was precious, and Cass had such little self worth from her life of abandonment that she couldn’t tell what her father was doing. “You make her do things for you so you can love her? How…how dare you?” The words came out in a growl, acid dripping from their tone. Looking up, Metzli’s eyes were already red and their fangs were sharp. They had to unbury Cass’s eyes to the truth, expose the man’s secrets to the glare and reflect it out like a grotesque carnival mirror. 

“What-what is wrong with you?!” Their voice shook, but their spine was made of steel. Taking a step toward the two fae and van, Metzli swallowed, shaking with an anger akin to a volcano ready to erupt. With every plea that came from Van and Ariadne, the tremors grew, and when the man spoke of what was meant to be, Metzli vehemently shook their head. 

“If she does not want to kill us, you will be a bad father if you make her. What kind of father does not want their child to be loved? Why does this family threaten you?!” They took another step forward, staring daggers into the bigger fae with their lungs filled with a mixture of courage and anger. “You are not good father. A good daughter like mijita deserves a good father.” Metzli’s fist was balled tightly while they kept the last shred of composure they had. “Be one. Be better. Maybe I leave one time, but I choose better and listen to Cass. Listen to what she wants!”

Makaio’s eyes slid to Van and Ariadne, and Cass was fairly unfamiliar with the feeling of being cold — volcanoes seldom froze, after all — but a chill ran through her all the same. She wanted to tell him to stop, but the words were caught in her throat. She could feel them stick to the inside of her mouth, feel them cling to her tongue and refuse to leave it. The world seemed to be closing in on her, two universes colliding in a way she’d always imagined would be joyous but was anything but. 

“She’s killed for me before,” Makaio said, and Cass flinched. “More than once now. It’s asking very little for her to do it again. Things like you die so easily.” 

They’re not things, she wanted to say. They’re my friends. I love them, just like I love you. Why can’t I have both? I want to have both. Please. Was it a selfish thing to want? She’d spent all her life longing for one family, and now she was throwing a fit over her inability to have two. Would she spend every waking moment wanting more? She wondered, with a sharp pain in her chest, if it would ever be enough. If her father had wanted to merge with the family she’d found in Wicked’s Rest, would Cass be happy? Or would she still long to add to it, still want in the way she always had? Maybe nothing would ever be enough for her. The thought was a stifling one, a thing that ached. 

People were taught not to want, weren’t they? People were taught to be happy with what they had. Maybe Cass’s life would have been easier had she ever learned that lesson. But she didn’t. She wanted, even now. She wanted this moment to be different, to be better. Ariadne was scared, Van was confused, Metzli was angry, Makaio was close to eruption. Cass closed her eyes, taking a deep breath, taking a moment to steel herself. 

He wasn’t expecting her to pull her wrist from his grip. She’d never done it before. So when she yanked, her hand came free fairly easily, and Makaio’s expression shifted to one of surprise. Cass planted herself firmly between her father and her friends, trying not to look as nervous as she felt. “Stop it,” she demanded. “I’m not — I’m not going to hurt them. They’re my friends. I’m sorry I’m not what I wanted you to be. I’m not — not what anyone wanted me to be. I know that. But I’m not going to hurt my friends.”

The surprise was still present on Makaio’s face. It rippled, a rockslide that shifted his features from shock into rage with a quiet rumble. His hands, now free without her wrist in his grip, clenched into fists at his side. Cass had seen her father angry, but never at her. In spite of everything, it hurt. She chewed her lip, standing firm despite her nerves.

“Stupid girl,” he said lowly. She flinched as if it were a physical blow. “I thought, with time, you could be shaped into something worthy. Perhaps it isn’t too late. If you won’t do what needs to be done here, I will. Let the slowness of their deaths be a lesson to you.” 

He took a step forward; around them, the cave rumbled.

—-

Ariadne echoed her sentiments about not wanting to be killed, and Metzli conveyed the anger that stirred inside of her, displaying it for both Cass and Makaio to see. Van stayed still– silent in her disbelief that somebody could request this of somebody they claimed to love. The idea that Cass had killed for him before didn’t bother her, not in the way she thought it might at the confirmation. Instead, she thought of Debbie. Of the branding she and the others shared on their stomachs after being slashed with what Van knew now to be iron. She considered telling him, but what did it matter if she did?

Instead, she made eye contact with Cass. She hoped that her expression conveyed a certain neutrality, but the kind that was loudly on Cass’s side. Even if Cass had killed before, it was clear that it wasn’t in the vein of cruelty, but in something else– the hope for a connection, maybe. It was clear that Makaio had made their relationship all about what she could do for him, not what they could be together. Van hated him in place of Cass. Hated him enough to envision him dead, crushed beneath the weight of his choices. But now wasn’t the time. Her magic was stagnant, a boat out to sea with no power to move forward. 

She listened to the way Cass fought back, insistence laced with longing. Van couldn’t completely understand the way that Cass felt, but she knew what it was like to love somebody who had the wrong idea. Would Jade ask her to kill a friend for the sake of her duty? Was it wrong to impart that idea onto her? Her chest tightened as Makaio began to speak, calling Cass stupid of all things. 

Cass was the opposite. She was kind, compassionate– loving, fierce, loyal. She was everything Van had hoped for in a friend, so when Makaio began to shake the walls of the cave around them, Van enveloped herself in the love she had for her friend and she stepped forward, grabbing onto Cass’s arm. “She’s better than you’ll ever be, and she’s– she’s everything, and if you don’t see that, then you’re…” Van shook her head, fear beginning to worm its way through the adrenaline as the walls around them continued to rumble, “I don’t know what you are, but you’re not a father. You’re somebody who wanted something, and Cass is more than anything you could’ve hoped or dreamed for, and–” She held onto Cass’s arm tightly, partially forgetting that the other two were there as well, “she’s killed for me, too– protected me, and that’s what it should be about, love and protection, and maybe she did that for you, but I did that for her, too, and I helped her, and we share something, and I don’t think you’ll ever share it with her because you don’t know her and you never will.” The words came tumbling out laced with something that was hard to identify. She turned to Cass, “we can leave, we can go– he can’t hurt you when you have us.” 

—-

Cass was one of the bravest people she knew, full stop. It was something Ariadne had believed forever, and right now was only further proof of that. She just wished that her friend didn’t have to be so brave. She deserved a break from things, and she deserved to have support from people closest to her. From her father, of all people.

“I don’t care if she’s killed. She’s still my best friend!” Ariadne shout-squeaked, wishing she had the ability to seem just a bit more frightening in this moment. She’d never really wished to be scary, but if it could get Cass’s father to back off, she’d wish for it a thousand times over. Wish for it until she couldn’t wish any more.

Van looked over to Cass and Ariadne did too. “She’s my best friend for-ever and always, and I love her no matter what.” That much was true. Her stomach turned as she thought back to the hunter who’d almost killed them both, and how that seemed to be when Cass had stopped talking to her in the same way. Ariadne should’ve followed after her. She knew that. She should’ve reassured her – or maybe not even stopped her. Even though she didn’t like the idea of that, and she didn’t know if she could go back and let Cass kill someone (even though maybe they did deserve to die, if they tried to kill her. Maybe, maybe.). What she did know was that she wished she’d never let go of her friend’s hand, literally or metaphorically.

Cass spoke, but her words wavered and Ariadne’s heart hurt. She shouldn’t be feeling that way. She was a volcano. She was bright and powerful and sometimes pretty loud and excitable and it felt wrong to see her looking small. It felt even worse when her father called her stupid. That wasn’t what parents were supposed to do. Van seemed to think along the same lines, and Metzli would too, Ariadne knew. They’d talked about protecting family. Cass was family.

You didn’t let go of family. Cass was family. She moved closer to Cass. “She’s not stupid. She’s one of the most brilliantest,” okay, not her finest word choice, “amazing people I know. She’s anything but stupid. She’s clever and caring and so so smart.” The cave’s walls were rumbling, but Ariadne didn’t move. “We’ll keep you safe.” She echoed Van again. “We’ll keep you safe and I’ll make sure he never hurts you. Make sure you’re happy.” It was all she wanted. She wanted to wrap Cass up in her arms and protect her, to tell her what familial love should feel like. Her parents could adopt a grown up, right? She could give Cass a family who wouldn’t force her to do what she didn’t want to do, right? “I love you. I love you forever.”

—-

“You do not scare me with your threats.” Metzli growled, unwavering in their place as Cass’s father attempted to strike fear in them by weaponizing the truth. Cass had killed someone, but that didn’t shape her into anything different in the vampire’s eyes. They were more worried for her mental well-being, knowing the guilt that riddled her heart for smaller things than murder. Taking a life was never easy, even when it was right, and Metzli wasn’t going to let a strange man perpetuate an idea he had no ground to uphold. 

“Cass, it is okay. I still love you. It does not scare me that you have killed. I have too. It is scary and heavy when it is new, but we can be okay again. Come with us,” Metzli breathed shakily, eyes glistening with hope when she talked back to her father. “I love you, okay? You are not stupid.”

Family loved, unconditionally, and Cass dreamt of having her father fill his role the way he was supposed to. She fell prey to her own wishes, making excuses and rearranging the image of a family in hopes of the pieces fitting together seamlessly. You couldn’t force them to fit, and despite the pain, Metzli could see that Cass was beginning to accept that, in her own way. Even if she was still telling herself she was the cause of the puzzle not being cut correctly. They could work on that later, help her see that she was always perfect the way she was. When her father was out of the way and they were all safe, Metzli and Van and Ariadne would help her, and others too. 

It looked like it was time to leave, anyway. Cass’s father was throwing a tantrum violent enough to shake the cave, endangering everyone who wasn’t stone. They had to act quickly. 

“Come with us, mijita.” Rubble began to bounce off Metzli’s shoulder, and they looked up to see the integrity of the cave diminishing. They stepped closer to be a shield, watching Van pull Cass toward the group. She came to her senses, so she was going to leave with them. She had to. Right? 

“We will take care of you. Come with us.”

She was wavering. She knew her father could feel it, knew he saw the way her body language screamed of her uncertainty. Where she’d previously leaned towards her father, she leaned back towards her friends now, making no move to shrug their hands off of her or step away from their comforting words. Makaio’s eyes flickered between them, glowing faintly with his rage as he scoffed.

“They rally behind you because they know you don’t want them,” he told her bluntly. “They’ll leave the moment you’re more accessible to them. They’ll walk away freely, as everyone always has. Who has stayed with you, Cassidy? Who besides me?” 

Cass swallowed. Those old fears were swirling in her gut, reminding her of all the times she’d felt alone. But — but Van’s hand was on her shoulder and Ariadne’s words echoed in her ear and Metzli stood beside her the way she’d always imagined a parent would, in a way that spoke of the pair of them as equals. Makaio had never done any of this for her. 

“They love me,” she said quietly. “They love me, too. Why can’t — Why can’t you be okay with that? They love me, like you do. They —” 

“How could anyone love you?” Makaio snapped, and Cass’s mouth shut with such force that her teeth gnashed together painfully. “You are a disappointment. You are a failure. I thought you could be made useful, thought something good could come from you, but I was wrong. I spent months playing pretend for a sad little girl, and now I see it was for nothing. If I can’t make use of you, Cassidy, I’ll be sure you pay for wasting my time.” 

It was jarring, this shift. For months, she’d been so sure that, if nothing else, her father loved her. Whatever else he was, he was still her father. He still cared for her, still wanted what was best for her. That thought had driven her all the while, had inspired her to push everyone else away and to defend him to the bitterest of ends. And now, standing here with the cave rumbling around her, she realized it was a lie. Makaio wasn’t someone who loved her. The people who loved her were the ones standing behind her now.

Cass turned back towards her friends, her heart in her throat. They wanted her to go with them. She wanted to go with them. But…

“I won’t leave you. I promise, I won’t.” Her words, the ones she’d spoken to him months ago, echoed in her mind now. She glanced towards him, saw it in his eyes. He remembered, too. He was probably tugging the bind now, causing that anchored feeling in her chest. There was only one way for her to go with her friends, only one way for her to leave.

Her father had to die.

In spite of everything, the thought made her stomach twist in violent discomfort. He didn’t love her, and maybe he never had, but Cass loved him. Even now, even standing in this trembling cave. She loved him, and she wanted to go, and the only way for her to do that was to force the bind to shatter. 

The cave rumbled violently, the two oreads’ control warring with each other. Rocks fell on Metzli’s head, and they were small enough not to do any real damage, but a few feet away a much larger chunk of cave ceiling came loose and shattered against the ground. She glanced back to her father, and he was stepping forward. He burned dimly — never as bright as Cass herself, which might have been why he’d sought her out the way he had — but it was a dangerous glow all the same. A hand snaked out, trying to grab Van behind her, and Cass shoved him back. 

“You think you can protect them?” Makaio sneered. “They’re going to die here, Cassidy. And when they’re gone, you’ll have only yourself to blame. And only me to fall back on.” 

Cass whirled around, panic in her eyes as she faced her friends. “Go!” She yelled over the sound of the rumbling cave. “Go outside! I — I’ll meet you up there, I promise! But you need to go, now!”

—

Both Ariadne and Metzli continued to echo her own sentiments. If it were just her and Cass alone with Makaio, would they have gotten this far? Would Van so clearly be able to see the shift in her friend’s demeanor? The stark realization that she’d been manipulated? It wasn’t Cass’s fault, and Van didn’t blame her. Despite the hurt she felt due to the growing distance between herself and her friend, Van wasn’t angry at anyone other than Makaio. This was his fault. He preyed on the fact that Cass wanted nothing other than to be loved and he twisted it like a knife until it was too late to pull back without any blood loss. 

But now, Cass was hemorrhaging. They all were. 

Small rocks from above began to rain down, hitting the ground with enough force to make snapping noises. Van’s anxiety had begun to show its head in the way that iron coated her tongue, slipping down through her throat. She pushed it away. There was no room to be afraid, especially when Cass needed her. What good would it do, anyway? 

Makaio’s words lit a fire beneath Van and she clenched her jaw, her magic still stagnant, but glaringly obvious now that she’d become more aware of it. It was there, and she would allow it to help if needed. She would trust her magic to protect them all if it came to that, but she knew she also needed to trust Cass, too. Van had learned that fae could not lie, not without some level of discomfort, and so the vitriol that Makaio spewed told her that he believed she was nothing. “Cass is the greatest thing to ever happen to you, the greatest thing to ever happen to me, and the fact that–” She looked towards Cass, recalling the night with Debbie– of their blood spilled, of dumping her into the pit, of everything else. The late night talks, the sweets shared between them, the jokes, the reassurances. How it had all come to an end because of him. 

Makaio reached out for her and Cass put herself in between them. Van’s hand was still on her shoulder, grip loosening only due to the constant rock fall. The sound of the cave groaning made her skin crawl. This would likely be all of their ends if they didn’t leave, but Van couldn’t leave without Cass. “Not unless you come with us– you can’t– we can’t leave you, Cass.” Her grip tightened almost instantaneously, a hopeful thing laced with an edge that reached her tone as she dared Makaio to challenge the three of them. “Please, come with us. Don’t stay here. Just leave. Please!” Worry spun circles around her as her vision became hazy from the dust as it bloomed around them, larger chunks of rocks beginning to fall at their feet.  She could see the look in Cass’s eye– had seen it a dozen times. There was a promise there, and she knew it to be binding, but what if she didn’t make it? Van enveloped Cass into a tight hug from behind, attempting to drag her backwards. “Come on, help me!” It was said to the other two behind her as she tried to bring Cass towards safety. 

—

Her best friend’s father wasn’t really much like a father at all. Fathers weren’t supposed to act like this, to do things that made their children scared or uneasy or even significantly uncertain. Ariadne knew that she’d won when it came to parents, but she also knew that right now, Cass’s dad wasn’t meeting even the bare minimum requirement. Cass deserved so much more. Van and Metzli were echoing the same sentiment, and she knew that Nora and Wynne would think the same. Cass had so many people on her side, Ariadne just wished she could make sure that she knew that. Because Cass doubted the love people had for her, and she’d been given love, but the love she’d been given hadn’t been real, and yet she’d been convinced that it was.

And now she was realizing just how much it wasn’t and Ariadne wanted to take away every bit of sorrow and fear that Cass must have been experiencing now. She was grateful that she wasn’t alone with Cass and her father, but in the same thought, there was a certain part of her that wished it was just the three of them. Because then maybe, somehow, she could deal with this. She could prove to Cass that she could be strong, that she could do anything for her friend. For her forever friend. Or at least as close to forever as she was going to get. Hundreds and hundreds of years sounded pretty neat.

“Cass is the best thing in the world. I didn’t know anything really about friends – best friends – until I met her.” Ariadne didn’t look right at Van, mostly because she didn’t want to hurt her other friend. She and Van had been friends, but Van had been closer with Chance, and the two of them had grown apart until just over a year ago. Besides right now was all about Cass, and Ariadne was intent on keeping it that way.

The cave made a sound that was unsettling. One it had never made when it was just Cass around. Because Cass loved the cave, and the cave loved her, and things were balanced, then. With her father around, things were darker and cloudy and Ariadne opened her mouth to speak as Cass stood between them and her father. She wanted to scream that she couldn’t die, that she was already dead, that it didn’t matter, so long as Cass lived. Not in any form of a ‘want to die again’ way, but Cass mattered more than anything right now. She grabbed Van, reached out to touch Cass’s arms, to pull her as tightly as she could. “Just come now. Please, Cass. Please.” She had to listen, didn’t she? “You’re still my favorite superhero. My favorite friend. I – Cass, please.”

—

The structures around them all groaned and cracked, but nothing sounded louder than the way Cass urged them to leave. Van and Ariadne protested, and Metzli kept their hand out for just a little longer until a larger piece of stone crashed into their shoulder. Their arm went numb momentarily from the sudden impact, and it suddenly became very clear that they might have to do as Cass says instead of convincing her to join them. 

She was promising, becoming an anchor to two tethers in separate directions, if the look in her father’s eye was any indication. It looked a lot like the look in both Eloy and Chuy’s eyes when an opportunity to exploit a weakness presented itself. The smug smile on his face was taunting and arrogant, making a pit in Metzli’s stomach as they pondered on the possibilities. He had something to use against Cass, but they just didn’t know what and time wasn’t on their side to figure it out. 

“Van. Ariadne.” They swallowed, placing a hand on the young mare’s shoulder, but it fell quickly when another rock landed on them. With a hiss, Metzli tried again and tugged her gently toward them. They didn’t want to force them to follow, but if Cass was promising she’d meet them outside as the cave around them collapsed, Metzli didn’t really have an argument. No matter how badly that they wished they did, unsure if an oread could prevent themself from being crushed by their own nature. They loved her, so they had to listen. 

With a little reluctance, the vampire tugged again, ignoring the way panic marched up and down their skin. “We have to trust her.” Metzli’s voice shook, but they did their best to not waver as more and more rubble began to surround them. “We have to go. She is promising!”

She couldn’t concentrate. It was taking all she had to keep herself together, to keep her father from getting too close to her friends, to make sure he didn’t hurt them. She knew she needed to take a more offensive stance, needed to fight him off directly, but with Van’s arms around her and Ariadne trying to help their friend pull her from the cave, Cass couldn’t focus on any of that. With the rocks falling around them, she couldn’t focus on any thought beyond the desire for her friends to be safe, for them to get out and get free. She could deal with Makaio, she knew she could. She recognized now that her strength had always surpassed his, that he hadn’t offered to help her destroy tourist sites or hurt hunters not because he wanted her to learn, but because he wasn’t sure he could. Cass was the stronger oread. She knew that now.

She just needed to prove it.

Maybe there was something selfish in the desire for her friends to leave the cave. She wanted them safe, of course she wanted them safe. But, at the same time… she didn’t want them to see what she was going to have to do here. She loved them all, and she knew now that they loved her, too, that they always had, but some dark voice in her mind still whispered that if they saw her cross a line — if they saw her do what needed to be done to separate her from her father — that love would falter. They would look at her differently, they would flinch away. Cass didn’t think she could handle it, not after everything. She wanted them to be safe. That was the main drive behind the insistence that they go. But it wasn’t the only one.

Makaio took another step, his face twisted into something terrible. For months now, Cass had thought the rocky features of his expression an immovable thing. His face was like that of one of the sprawling cliffs near the Magmacave — constant and smooth. Seeing it now, she realized she’d been wrong. Rage was capable of causing an earthquake that could shift that cliff into a crater, could make it into a terrifying thing. She thought of the Allgood pit, with the steep edges and the stench of death. Her father was much the same.

Pulling her arms free from Van’s grip, she moved to shove her father back, a resulting crash echoing through the cave as stone met stone. Her expression was one of desperation as she looked to her friends, locking eyes with Metzli. Of all of them, she thought, Metzli understood the most. Hadn’t she helped them take out Chuy in that crypt, when they were still mostly under his control? Hadn’t they said nothing when she’d let her magma seep into his skin? Her expression turned to one of pleading as the vampire called out.

“I promise!” She repeated desperately. She looked at Metzli, begging with her eyes. “Metzli, I can’t — I can’t do this with all of you here. I can’t keep them safe. Please. Please help me keep them safe.”

—

Van could barely hear Metzli or Ariadne over the sound of the cave splitting at the seams. Its groaning was a mournful thing– the acknowledgment of what was to come if they all left this place without Cass. Van’s fears were becoming a reality; that she would lose Cass forever. She tried her best to keep her arms around her friend, dodging the litter from above them by burying her face into Cass’s shoulder. She committed the feeling of Cass’s frame to memory, because it was the only thing that eased her into pulling away. 

That, and Metzli’s arm snaking around her waist. Van let out a yelp as she was torn away from Cass. “Please, please– we have to take her with us!” She knew the ending of this story. She knew Cass may never come back from beneath the rubble, and who would she be if she left without acknowledging that? “Cass, please!” She shouted again, struggling against Metzli’s grip, but it was no use, they were far too strong for her to remove herself from. She tried to twist the ring from around her finger, to let the explosion of magic take them all down– to at least sacrifice herself in favor of the others, but Cass was becoming harder to discern from the dust and rubble. 

Ariadne hadn’t followed them out, and thus another wave of panic washed over Van as she tried to peel herself away from Metzli. She gulped in the fresh air as soon as they broke free from the cave, and just as she managed to wiggle free, she watched as a large chunk of the cave came crashing down into the entrance, sealing them off from those left inside. “Ariadne is still in there! Cass!” Van threw herself at the rubble and immediately began trying to clear it away. “Cass! Ariadne!” She screamed as she scooped away the debris. The larger chunks were unmoving, and so she turned towards Metzli. “Help me,” Van pleaded. 

There was a look in Cass’s eyes that Metzli had seen only months ago. Suddenly, the fiddler’s tune began to ravage the strings with fervor, and the devil began its dance, though to the blind eye, one would only see Cass’s father. She needed to join in, and everyone else needed to let her, trust that she could out-tempo his tune. They just needed to get the others safe, but they only had one arm. 

For a few beats, the vampire looked around, trying to figure out a way to get both of Cass’s friends out in their arm. Then it clicked. Ariadne would be fine. 

“I love you.” They said shakily, “I am proud of you.” Squeezing their eyes shut, Metzli nodded their head and tears rolled down their cheeks. They wanted to stay and fight for the girl they saw as their own, but the world had other plans. It always did, and before Metzli knew it, they were dragging Van out of the cave, only looking back to see Cass disappear in the clouds of dust. “Ariadne will be okay. It is night time. We have to trust.”

When they made it out, they were welcomed with fresh air, still warm from the day. Metzli looked back to the mouth of the cave and finally set Van down, arm ready in case she tried to run back in. “We will wait.” Their voice was shaky yet firm in its command. “Too dangerous to be inside with flesh.” Taking a breath, Metzli added, “I want to stay inside too, but no one ever listen to Cass when she was child. Loving is listening. I am sorry.”

Cass was telling them all to leave and Ariadne was five again, refusing to leave the ice cream store. Except this was much more important than that. This was about her best friend. Her best friend who was desperate and afraid and it made Ariadne shake with anxiety, because Cass wasn’t listening and her stubbornness was one of Aria’s favorite things about her, but right now she just wished that her best friend would listen. Except she wasn’t, and now Metzli was dragging Van out and Ariadne ducked out of the way.

She’d help Cass. She’d get her out. Everything was dusty, and it was becoming harder to see. She was grateful that she didn’t have to breathe. Except Cass did. But maybe because she was part rock and volcano and maybe that meant that it would be okay for her?

“I’m not leaving, Cass!” She screamed as loud as she could manage. Doing something that made her lungs hurt like she’d run for too long in the cold. “I’m not. Not until you leave. We’re best friends, and I love you, and come on, please!” She ran forward, grabbing onto Cass’s arm. “Collapse it or whatever you’ve gotta do and then hold my hand and we’ll run and you can — it’ll be okay, right? Please.” She wasn’t going to cry. Ariadne was going to be brave, for her and Cass’s sake. And also for Van and Metzli who were outside, and safe – because they had to be, because she could only worry about so much right now.

“I’m staying and then we’re going together.”

—

Metzli pulled Van out, and Cass hoped they understood the flood of gratefulness that flowed from deep within her chest even if there was too much chaos to properly voice it. With two less people to worry about in the cave, the oread could focus more of her attention on holding her father at bay and a little less on where the stones were falling around her. Van and Metzli were safe; Makaio couldn’t use them against her so long as they were outside the cave, and Cass could focus more of herself on defeating him and joining them at the surface. Van and Metzli were safe. 

But Ariadne wasn’t.

It struck her all at once, her friend’s voice echoing through the cave. Metzli couldn’t drag the pair of them out, not with only one arm, but she’d hoped Ariadne would go with them all the same. Instead, the mare was gripping her arm and begging her to leave, and Cass wanted to shout her frustrations into the collapsing structure around them. I can’t, she wanted to yell. You don’t understand. I can’t leave him, I promised. But saying it aloud felt like saying too much, and there was always a risk that Aria wouldn’t understand the weight of it, anyway. She’d explained promise binds to her friend, but wasn’t it the kind of thing that was impossible to understand from the outside? 

She couldn’t leave her father, and she couldn’t do what she needed to do with Ariadne watching. She wanted — She wanted an after, a place where all of them could exist unchanged. She wanted a world where her friends wouldn’t see her differently, a place where she could exist outside of this moment. It was already a slippery concept to hold, already like trying to grip a stream of water between her fingers. But if Ariadne stayed, if she bore witness to what Cass knew needed to be done here —

Even if she got out physically unscathed, the bond between them wouldn’t be the same. Cass knew it as surely as she knew her name, as surely as she knew what she had to do here to free herself from her father. She needed Aria to go. She needed the cave empty for this next part, needed it to be only herself and her father the way it had been for months now, even if she needed it for different reasons than she had then.

She set her jaw in a stubborn line, stomach churning with the knowledge of what she had to do next. There was only one way to get Ariadne to leave the cave quickly, only one way to contain the damage. “You thanked me,” she breathed, the sound of her voice rumbling along with the cave. “Back — months ago. You thanked me and I didn’t — I never cashed it in. I’m cashing it in now. Go outside, Ariadne. Get out of here. Now.” She made the bind with practiced ease, even if doing so made her feel a little sick. This was what needed to be done for all of them. Cass knew that.

—

Cass seemed mad. Which didn’t make sense – she couldn’t actually be mad, could she? She was stressed and maybe Ariadne had overdone it with the staying, but she couldn’t help herself. She also couldn’t not stay. That wasn’t an option. Friends didn’t let friends stay down in a cave that was falling apart alone, or something. Some modified version of the actual phrasing. 

You thanked me.

Ariadne’s stomach turned and she wanted to refute that fact, but it wasn’t really possible to, because Cass couldn’t lie and Ariadne was sure she’d messed up more than once with her expressions of gratitude, even though Cass had told her not to do that. But she was forgetful and she loved her friend so much, so messing up was something she was bound to have done.

She just wished Cass wasn’t so keen to use it. Cass hadn’t really ever cashed in on thanks or promises before, and Ariadne didn’t like the implications of what Cass was doing right now. “I – no!” She shook her head. Except, of course, that did nothing. It was nighttime, and with her friend’s words, she found herself suddenly outside, cursing herself that she actually was good at astral projection. That wasn’t how things should have worked, and she collapsed onto the ground, in front of Metzli and Van and shook her head.

“She – she made – I – she made me go. She’s still there!” Turning towards the entrance, Ariadne screamed again, “Cass!” Turned back to the other two. “I – she’s – I – why did she do that? She – I – Cass!”

Dust and rubble collected at the entrance of the cave, and Metzli watched in horror as it covered it completely. Their heart begged their legs to move, but they wouldn’t comply. Cass wanted them to trust her, believe that she could do the impossible when her father so clearly did not. Metzli gritted their teeth at the thought, keeping an eye on Van. “Please,” They whispered, watching and waiting. Their entire body continued to tense, and it wasn't until Ariadne appeared out of thin air that Metzli allowed themself to relax. Slightly. 

“You are out!” The vampire blurted, still keeping an eye on Van as they embraced Ariadne tightly Leila surely would have somehow had a heart attack if anything happened to either of them, and it was a relief to Metzli that they would have no bad news to share once Cass was out. They swallowed, “She wanted us safe. We have to trust her. We have to. She is strong. Her father is not. He is a weak coward.” Squeezing a little harder, Metzli planted their cheek atop Ariadne’s head in a soothing manner, shifting their eyes back to the cave entrance in hopes of seeing Cass crash through soon. 

Van was not gentle with the rocks she pulled from the small mound blocking her entrance to the cave. Instead, she threw them behind her. Some were too large to throw, so they rolled at her side. She could hear voices behind her– Ariadne’s, but she made no move to turn and see if her friend had escaped, because the question of Cass and why she’d forced Ariadne out had come to light. 

She focused on the rocks, pulling each one back, hopeful to see Cass’s face on the other end. “Help me! We can– we can dig her out!” She knew that realistically, Cass would be able to get herself out, but what would happen if she didn’t? Would she think that her friends ran away? Cass had spent so much of her time worrying she wasn’t loved that Van needed to show her she was. “Please, help me.” Exasperated, Van could feel the sweat begin to bead at the back of her neck, and her eyes burned from both the tears and the salt. “We can get her– we can get her out! We have to try!” 

Ariadne disappeared from the cave, into the astral and off to safety. Relief was a palpable thing, a pressure pushing down on her chest hard enough to force all the air from her lungs at once. Ariadne was safe. Van was safe. Metzli was safe. She hadn’t doomed them with her stubbornness, hadn’t been too late to save them from her downward spiral.

She hoped she wouldn’t be too late to save herself, either.

Rocks still fell from the ceiling, from the walls. The safe haven she’d built for herself felt anything but safe now, and she felt a piece of herself crumble with it. She thought of a story she’d read once, years ago, when the public library was her safe haven and she’d picked books off shelves with a desperation built from bricks of wanting to understand and be understood in return. It hadn’t been one of her favorites or anything, but it wasn’t a bad story. 

It was about a chicken, because most children’s stories seemed to star animals in the place of people. He’d gone outside one morning and been so sure that the sky was falling. He’d run through town, warned everyone he saw with a desperate plea: the sky is falling, the sky is falling, the sky is falling. And everyone took shelter, everyone hid away in their homes trembling and afraid because the sky was falling, and no one knew what to do with that.

And then came morning, and the sky was still there. It hung above the Earth the same as it always had, and that silly chicken realized that the piece of the sky he’d been so sure had fallen on his head was a tiny acorn. It must have felt so much bigger in the moment, Cass thought. It must have felt like the world was ending.

It was the kind of thing she realized she could relate to now. All her life, the smallest acorns had convinced her that the world was at its end. The people she loved never loved her back the way she wanted them to, they left when she needed them to stay. Every time she stood staring at someone’s retreating back, she was that stupid chicken running through town, screaming for all to hear. The sky is falling, the sky is falling, the sky is falling. And the next morning, the sky was still there. 

There was another fable, wasn’t there? About the boy who cried wolf. It taught that if you made enough false claims, no one would believe you when the claims were true. If you screamed about a wolf in the bushes over and over again, if you convinced the shepherds to come with their guns and their staffs only to find the bushes empty time and time again, they’d eventually stop coming at all. There would be no one left to save you from the wolf, no one left to keep it from devouring you. 

For years now, Cass had felt as if every acorn that fell on her head was an apocalypse. The sky fell, but only for her. She warned everyone around her, and maybe it meant something the first few times. Maybe it scared them, too. But there had never really been a wolf hiding in the bushes and, sooner or later, the shepherds had stopped coming to save her. 

So what was left for her, now that the sky really was falling? What would Chicken Little have done, had his piece of sky wound up being larger than an acorn?

Hands grabbed her, slamming her against the wall. The cave shook harder, her own fear crumbling the walls the same as her father’s anger. His eyes were glowing a faint orange as he glared at her, rocky face twisted into something rageful. Cass wondered if she looked the same. The thought that she might no longer felt like a comfort.

“Stupid girl,” Makaio snapped. He sounded different than he ever had before; it took Cass a moment to realize that he was afraid. “Do you understand what you’ve done? You ruined everything. For the both of us. Do you truly believe that those… insects you drove from this cave are capable of loving you? Of staying with you? I am the only one who could have done that. I am the only one who could have made you great.”

She thought of all the things she wanted to say, all the things she could tell him. She thought of Metzli, who took her to the zoo and asked her to help them name a baby giraffe. She thought of Van, who ordered takeout while she sat upside down on the couch and played Go Fish. She thought of Ariadne, who saw every movie Cass dragged her to even when she probably had no interest in them. And she thought of other people, too, of people not outside her cave waiting for her. She thought of Kaden, who let her call him her sidekick with only a faint roll of his eyes. She thought of Leila, who had always been willing to fight for her even when Cass wasn’t sure she was willing to fight for herself. She thought of Wynne, who asked for her opinion on things. She thought of Mack, who liked her even after she accidentally threw her down the stairs, or of Thea, who talked about comics with her even after Cass accidentally shaved her head. She thought of Elias and Nora and Regan and Jonas, of Alex and Ren and Luci and Milo. 

She thought of all the people she loved and the ones who loved her back, and she couldn’t find the words to name them all to tell Makaio that he was wrong, but she knew he was, anyway. He held her against the wall, and she stared at him for a moment before her mouth fell open, words tumbling out: “Would you believe me if I said the sky was falling?” Makaio’s expression flickered — rage turned to confusion, but only briefly. Cass decided not to let it stop her. “Everyone believed Chicken Little. I never understood why. He said the sky was falling, and everyone believed him. Would you — Would you believe me?”

Makaio pulled her forward, went to slam her back into the wall again. Cass let her arms shoot out, let them land hot against his chest and shove him back with all her strength, magma surging forward. He grunted, stumbling back. She was stronger than he was; it was the only reason he’d ever wanted her around.

“Because I think… I think that’s what love is. You know? Believing someone when they say the sky is falling, even when it’s right outside the window. And they —” She gestured towards where the mouth of the cave had stood before. It was gone now, buried by rocks and rubble. “They would believe me. If I told them the sky was falling, they’d go into their houses and they’d lock the doors and they’d be afraid, but they’d believe me. I could tell them there was a wolf in the bushes a thousand times, and they’d still come to look.”

Makaio stared at her for a moment, but he made no move to step closer. His face was still twisted in that strange, unfamiliar expression that she now knew to be fear. It wasn’t the rocks he was afraid of anymore, she thought; it was her. She didn’t know if it felt good or not.

“I won’t release you from your promise,” he told her in a low, gravely tone. Cass closed her eyes, nodding her head.

“I know,” she admitted, barely a whisper. She opened her eyes, saw larger pieces of the cave falling now. A chunk came down to Makaio’s left, close enough to shake the ground beneath his feet. He didn’t move. Another landed just behind Cass, so close that she felt the sharp pain of it brushing against her spine. She didn’t move, either. 

Rocks fell between them until she couldn’t see her father anymore. They fell beside her until she couldn’t see the walls of the cave, either. She took a deep breath. She closed her eyes.

The sky was falling. 

—

Metzli held tightly onto Ariadne, careful not to crush her, but enough that it might've been uncomfortable. They didn't let go until the rumbling stopped, only a few smaller rocks tumbling down here and there from the disturbance. Silence surrounded the trio and it was as if an symphony had died, unable to swell into a crescendo and keep rhythm with the pace Metzli's heart would've set if it could leap. 

“Please,” They whispered beneath their breath, as if some higher being above could hear their petition over the billions of others. Closing their eyes, they counted, over and over again, only opening their eyes when something in the wind changed. Their eyes widened with a mixture of surprise and relief at the sight of Cass outside the cave, and without another moment of hesitation, Metzli let go of Ariadne to run to her. They stopped short, restraining themself in case she needed a moment to not be overwhelmed. 

“Y-you did it!” They grinned and blinked, squeezing their fist tightly shut to keep their excitement from bubbling over. “You-I…I am so proud.”

She fought against Metzli’s hold on her as the cave seemed to collapse into itself. She screamed as it did so, falling to the ground the moment that their grip on her loosened even just by a fraction of anything. Ariadne didn’t bother to look down and see if her knees were scraped, if glitter was on them, because she was fine and Cass was the only real priority now. The only priority, full stop.

Then she was outside of the cave and Ariadne ran toward her, with little regard for the concept of personal space. If Cass didn’t want a hug, she’d deal with apologies after. She needed to hug her best friend, she needed to pull her away from the falling rock and hold her and never ever let her go again.

Except as she went to grab Cass, she found that her best friend was intangible and Ariadne screamed again, completely collapsing on the group as she let out a loud sob. “She – she’s not – she’s not here! You – Cass!” She gulped for air, feeling suffocated even though she didn’t need to breathe. “Where are you? You’re there but you’re – where are you? Please – just come over here. Hold my hand. I’ll make sure things are okay.” 

—

Pain was sudden and intense and everywhere. It was an all-consuming kind of thing, and Cass couldn’t bite back the scream that came on its heels but she didn’t think it mattered, anyway. The sound, ripped from her throat against her will, was lost to the deafening boom of falling rocks. The sound of stone hitting stone swallowed up everything else; she couldn’t hear her own thoughts bouncing in her head, couldn’t hear if her father was still trying to speak to her, couldn’t hear anything outside the cave at all. It was is if nothing existed except for her and the rocks falling around her; they were the same. They were a part of her just as much as she was a part of them. 

It was overwhelming, how much it all was. The pain, swallowing her up with gnashing teeth and an acidic burn, knew every part of her. Her head, her shoulders, her legs, her stomach. There was nothing that didn’t hurt. Even the tips of her ears ached in a way she’d never known possible. Her eardrums, too, hurt with the noise of it. The rocks falling, her own hoarse yells, the rumbling and the pounding. Light was swallowed up, until only the faint glow of her own magmic veins remained. And then those, too, disappeared, falling beneath stone that cracked everything open with its weight. She thought of Atlas in the myths and wondered if his shoulders had hurt as much as hers did now. 

It went on forever, somehow. The pain, the sound, the darkness. And then, abruptly, it all stopped. Nothing hurt anymore; silence surrounded her. She hadn’t realized she’d closed her eyes, but there was the barest hint of light visible from behind her lids. She opened them slowly, afraid of what she might find.

The sky was still there. Hanging above her head, just as blue and endless as it always was. She stared up at it for a moment, heart in her throat as she wondered if, once again, she’d built an apocalypse from an acorn. Something felt strange, felt wrong; she felt different in a way she couldn’t quite put her finger on. 

But then, a voice called out her name, and the worry and fear that came with that strangeness seemed to melt away. Metzli was running towards her, Ariadne was calling out. She’d saved them and, impossibly, she’d saved herself, too. Ariadne went to wrap her up in a hug, but she — she missed, somehow. Cass didn’t quite register it as strange, adrenaline making it difficult to focus as she scanned the surrounding area. Ariadne and Metzli were here, were in front of her, but she couldn’t fully relax until she saw —

“Van!” She stepped towards her friend, still crouched by the stones that had once been the cave’s entrance. She was out. Didn’t Van see? She’d promised to meet them outside the cave and, somehow, that fae magic had pulled her out to let her keep it. “Van! I’m here! It’s…” But Van didn’t look up. She was still at the rocks, still looking distraught as if Cass hadn’t spoken at all. “Van…?” 

Dread built up in her stomach, gripped her by the throat. No… 

—

Van only dared a look over her shoulder as Metzli spoke. Their gaze was trained on the nothingness in front of them, and then Ariadne followed suit. She twisted around, watching them, hopeful to see what they could. Cass was out? Cass was– 

But Ariadne was stumbling forward, desperation whistling from her open mouth. Van couldn’t stand. She couldn’t move. She remembered what it was like watching Erin speak to somebody that wasn’t there. She remembered the absent feeling, of being on the outside of something that she couldn’t put together. It was uncomfortable, and it revealed everything that Van needed to know. 

“No, no– no!” She turned back towards the rocks. The majority of what was left were too heavy for Van to lift, so she started to kneel against the ground, arms hugging them as she tried to wedge them from the spots they’d landed in. “Cass!” Van screamed, but not behind her towards the others– of where Cass was presumably at, but to where she’d been left in the wreckage of her father’s doing. “Cass, I’m– I’m going to get you, I’m going to figure it out, I’m going to– we have to–” She turned towards the others, eyes glossy. “We have to get her out of there. She’s not out. She’s not out.” 

Van had lost, and she had lost again, and she would continue losing those she cared deeply about and she knew that she would. It would consume her, twist her insides until she couldn’t breathe, and then over time, she would heal. But at the moment, she wasn’t sure she’d ever heal from the loss of Cass. Of one of the truest friends she ever had. “The necklace,” Van choked out, turning back towards the rocks, “the necklace is in there, too.” But the notebook was there, on the ground a few feet behind her, dropped from when she beelined for the cave’s entrance. She scrambled towards it, still on hands and knees and gathered it to her chest. It was the last thing any of them had of her. She had to keep it safe. 

“She’s– Cass?” Van knew from Erin that the others on this plane of existence could hear her– could see her in a way that she could not see them, and so she hoped Cass was listening. “I’m– I’m sorry.” 

—

“N-no. No!” Metzli shook their head vehemently in disbelief, rejecting the sight of Ariadne passing through Cass. “We-I-I can fix this!” The march of ants became frenzied, each step accompanied with a fierce bite full of venom. It was overwhelming and Metzli feared it would eat away at the beautiful music that Cass had brought into their life. They met that silence with a sorrowful noise, choking on sobs as they leapt into action. 

“I know first aid.” The vampire used their strength to toss aside the larger stones, urgently trying to make an opening. With each reach, their nails dug against the rubble, tearing off when Metzli’s movements became too erratic. 

“Can-does-does my bite–Cass!” They pleaded, building an opening and trying to crawl inside only to find there were more rocks. “No!” Metzli's voice became a scream, the crunch of their knuckles slamming against the wall of stone joining in the noise. There was nothing but a crack left behind with a smear of black ooze, and Metzli quickly turned to Cass and ran back to her. It was no use to panic. Being a ghost couldn't have been easy to realize, and as someone who loved her, Metzli knew they had to set everything aside to provide a safe space for the one they called theirs.

“You should not be dead. You-you…Mija?” Parents weren't supposed to outlive their young, they weren't supposed to put them in a position that led to their death, so maybe, Metzli thought, they were just as bad as Makaio. They had outlived everyone in their bloodline, and now, they had outlived another. 

“I…am sorry.” They sniffled, nearly hovering their damaged hand over Cass's cheek before thinking better of it. “You saved us. You-you…are hero. Our hero.”

Cass was her first real best friend. She’d had friends before but none were quite like Cass. Van couldn’t see her and Van was the only one of the three of them who Cass had forced outside of the cave who was alive, and that had to mean – no. She didn’t want to say it out loud Didn’t want to think it, either, but thoughts had minds of their own (which wasn’t like, physically possible but still, it seemed right, and somebody smart had probably said that before) and so Ariadne couldn’t stop her thoughts from racing – from going ghost ghost ghost.

Which meant Cass was dead and another sob escaped from Ariadne’s mouth, loud and eerie enough that she wasn’t sure if she even recognized it herself. “No!” She looked around, desperate, “Cass, please, please come back. I’ll do anything!” She shook her head, and she kept shaking her head, “we were supposed to be friends for hundreds of years!! Not just – not this short of a time.”

Cass couldn’t be dead. Her best friend, who was so full of life and light and fire (quite literally, as a matter of fact) couldn’t be gone. She’d touched Cass not even ten minutes ago, and now she couldn’t. It seemed impossible. “Please!” She scream again, and she felt like she was going to be sick and she couldn’t think and Cass was dead and she’d known Cass might die before her, but that wasn’t supposed to be a problem she had for like, almost a thousand years. Cass wasn’t supposed to be dead yet.

“There’s so many movies I wanna watch with you, and places we’ve gotta go! You need to take me to the best volcanoes – Cass! I love you. Je t’aime beaucoup, pour toujours.” I love you so much, for always. “You’re the bravest and best person I’ve ever known. You are my superhero. I love you. I love you so much. I’ll never stop.”

Dead. Dead. Dead. Dead. Dead. 

It felt different hearing it this time. She’s dead, they’re dead, he’s dead– they’re all dead. We killed her, it killed him, the fire killed them and others– how many different ways could something be said that made her feel this lost? Suspended in something she couldn’t quite identify. Her muscles felt like jelly as she watched Ariadne plead with the space in front of her. She forced herself to memorize the way Cass felt beneath her arms just moments ago, of how she smelt of ember and pine. Metzli called Cass her their hero and the word echoed, morphing itself into the word dead and can’t. Heroes can’t die. Hadn’t that been what her father had told her time and time again as he lifted his dvd’s up for her to see, X-Men on the cover? 

But that wasn’t true, right? Heroes died all the time. Cass was dead. Behind the rocks, submerged in them– probably an unrecognizable thing. Was it cruel to imagine her in that way? Van imagined her father, Makaio in that way– of his eyes opened and unseeing, of blood trickling from his mouth. Something akin to relief rose in her. It made her feel sick, too. 

Ariadne continued to plead with the ghost of her friend she could no longer see, and Van was left on the ground with the notebook pressed to her chest. Her mouth felt dry. “Have to tell– have to tell Thea, tell Nora.” She needed to tell others before she could completely fall apart. How would she be able to get in contact with Ren? Would Ren care? Her mind raced as she stared at the ground, memorizing the way the rocks she’d managed to carve away from the entrance had gathered at her feet. 

“She’s dead,” Van croaked. It was a confirmation for nobody but herself, because she already knew that. She already knew that Cass was dead and she wouldn’t be coming back. She knew that life would be forever changed. Whatever was in the notebook she held would be her final goodbyes, and that in itself made Van bite the hand of grief, drawing its blood until there was nothing left but skin and sinew. She couldn’t fall apart now, not when others would need to know. When Cass deserved a burial. When– She looked at Ariadne and Metzli, both grief stricken. Van wasn’t sure what to do for either of them, but she would figure it out. 

“I’m sorry, Cass,” Van said again, a small half-sob building in her throat as she got to her feet, legs wobbly. 

—

Van finally looked up and, for the briefest moment, hope was a living thing in her chest. It fluttered and rose and sang until the moment her friend’s eyes looked past her, looked off into the middle distance and then back to the rocks. Van couldn’t see her, even with Metzli and Ariadne looking at her, speaking to her directly. Ariadne’s hands had gone through her, not past her. The rocks had been falling from every direction, the pain had been everywhere. And Cass knew. Cass knew what it meant, what it all added up to. The pieces came together like a puzzle no one wanted solved. Cass knew the answer, and everyone else did, too.

The chaos that came after the realization was an immediate thing. Everyone was yelling, stones were being tossed aside. If there was ever a physical embodiment of love, it was in the way Metzli’s hands gripped at those rocks, the way Van dug at the dirt, the way Ariadne screamed and sobbed. She’d been right, down in that cave when the sky was falling. The people here loved her enough to come to her aid every time she called for them. She’d been stupid not to realize it all along.

There was a certain tragedy that came with a certainness that arrived too late. If she’d known weeks ago what had been proven to her now, she wouldn’t have slipped as far as she had. But what had been proven to her now couldn’t have been made certain without what had preceded it. It was like one of those stupid riddles, the ones with no right answer. If a tree falls in the forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound? If you can only be saved by knowing you’re loved, and you can only believe in the love your friends have for you when they’re mourning your loss, did you ever stand a chance?

They were all apologizing, and Cass wanted to cry, wanted to scream, wanted to shake the Earth with all that she felt. But already, her form was flickering; she’d had a promise to keep, and she’d kept it. She’d met them at the top when it was over. It didn’t matter that she wasn’t finished; she wasn’t meant to stay. 

“I’m sorry,” she choked on a sob, though there was no wetness on her face. Maybe ghosts didn’t cry; maybe they weren’t capable of it. “I’m — Tell Van. Tell her, too. Make sure she knows. I’m sorry. I love you — I love all of you.” She looked to Ariadne and Metzli in turn, looked to Van who was trying to look at where she stood but couldn’t quite find the right position. The ache in her chest wasn’t a physical thing; on some level, she knew it. 

That didn’t make it hurt any less.

The world flickered around her, going from black to golden white before resetting back outside the cave. “It wasn’t your fault. Okay? I need you to know that. It wasn’t any of your faults. It was — It was me. Or it was him. Or — Or maybe it was both of us. I don’t know. But it wasn’t your fault. You were — You were everything to me.”

She looked to Aria, forcing a smile. “You’re — I think you’re the best best friend I could have asked for. When I was a kid, I never could have imagined that I’d find someone like you. And I’m sorry. I’m sorry I wasn’t a good friend to you in the end. I’m sorry I couldn’t be what you deserved, what I — what I wanted to be. I’ll still love you for a hundred years, even if I’m not here to do it.”

Turning to Metzli, she swallowed. “And you… You were my family. Not him. I should have seen it sooner, I should have —” She could fill an ocean with should haves now, couldn’t she? She closed her eyes, willing herself to remain a little while longer. “Please don’t… Please don’t hate yourself for this. It wasn’t your fault. You deserve a family. And you have one. With Leila, with Aria, with so many people who love you. Please don’t… Please don’t let me be the thing that ruins that.” 

Van still couldn’t see her. Cass choked on a sob at the realization, looking back to her friend still standing by the ruined mouth of that empty cave. “Tell Van… Tell her I’m glad we were both in the supermarket that night. Tell her that everything that happened, all of it, was worth it just to get to know her. Tell her I wouldn’t change any of it, not for a second. And… and tell her she was right. We would have been friends either way. All of us. The Allgoods were written in the stars, I think.” 

She smiled, looking back to Metzli and Ariadne. The world flickered again. “I’m okay,” she told them. “I need you to know I’m okay. It doesn’t hurt. I’m going to be okay. Whatever’s next… I think we’ll see each other again someday. Just not too soon, okay? I don’t mind waiting.” 

Another flicker, and it was over. The space she’d occupied was empty, without so much as an echo left behind. The final rumblings of the cave silenced as the ground came to settle beneath the remaining three pairs of feet. There was no more cave; there was no more oread.

And the sky was still there, in the end, still hanging above the Earth as it always had. There was just one less person to see it.

[nicsalazar]

Out of grasp || Nicole & Siobhan

TIMING: A month ago LOCATION: The Pines. PARTIES: @banisheed & @nicsalazar SUMMARY: Nicole and Siobhan meet the dullahand. CONTENT WARNING: Head trauma tw

The picturesque buildings Downtown became nothing but colorful squares flashing through her window, transforming into a blur of brown and green as Nicole took the highway toward The Pines. Nacho rested by her side, chewing on the newest toy she bought for him –fifteen minutes ago– to reward him for his impeccable behavior at the dog park. She let the squeaky sounds be background noise instead of turning on the radio. These days, the old thing picked up nothing but static. 

Perhaps she should’ve had the radio on. Perhaps, one of the emergency stations would be running something about the car parked on the road shoulder. The car Nicole had just spotted in the distance. Every light was switched off, igniting her curiosity further. Didn’t look like it was hit either, nor damaged in any way. Did someone make an emergency stop and proceeded to— forget about their car? Or worse, Nicole immediately considered such a scenario, they got swallowed by a creature hiding past the tree line. 

It was a present concern in the back of her mind, that it could all be a ploy to get her to step out of her truck. Making herself vulnerable to criminals. She carried nothing of value they could rob, however. Her truck was junk on wheels. And Nacho was trained to jump out should an emergency arise. It was likely her proudest achievement, but as hardcore as the trick was, she never wanted to see it in action. 

The stupid need to be helpful won in the end. She parked behind the vehicle, climbing down her truck to inspect. “Give me a second, bud” she whispered to her companion, closing the door behind her. She peered inside the windows and— nothing. Car was empty, as predicted. It came as a relief, though the feeling didn’t last long, never did. For once, it wasn’t her anxiety that soured the moment. It was the woman emerging from— who the fuck knew. She didn’t want to know.

Nicole closed her eyes, wishing for a moment she had continued driving. Let that be a lesson for the future. “You?” She greeted her as politely as she could. They parted ways on decent terms last time, no? Other than the death threat but, details. She nodded her head, “bones again?” She would leave her to it, if that was the case. 

—

Siobhan was boning, but her heart wasn’t in it. She struck down with her trowel and pulled out ribs, pelvises, chips of bones that invited her to find the rest and yet, nothing excited her. She should’ve been thrilled; as bones were the only sanctioned fixation for a banshee, it was the only excitement she was allowed. It was the time of year that got to her. As fae trickery reached its peak, Siobhan stumbled into its shadow—It wasn’t for her anymore. No matter how many bones she collected, there was no one to envy them, no one to try and steal them away from her (which was itself an act of affection to her mind). Even if she trapped a human in a fairy ring, ruining their life, who would she brag to? Who would care about all the wondrous things she was doing? She looked up into the foggy moon and felt with pathetic clarity that she would give up a year’s worth of boning just to have someone understand just for one slice of time: a little piece, just one word. If she could know she was good for something…

“Oh, you,” Siobhan said, emerging from…honestly she couldn’t remember where she was. Such was the way of following the bones; she went where they called her. Now she was on a road, and there was the boring tree cult member whose name she would never learn because learning someone’s name was an act of intimacy she was not willing to commit. The woman could be—oh, why not—Joan. “Bones again. Honestly, I didn’t recognize you not dressed in ugly uniform.” Siobhan was, for her part, dressed in all-black again. However, in lieu of the robber attire, she was wearing a tight black-dress with a low, boob-showing cut and long black gloves and—predictably—inappropriate hiking footwear. If their first meeting had given Joan the impression she was a cartoon robber, her current attire might give her the impression she was a cartoon rich widow, the sort that wasn’t anguished over the death of their late husband.

She dragged her bones behind her. Honestly, she wasn’t in the mood to be annoying. She wanted to go home and stare at a wall. Then she wanted to pick up that book she meant to read and then not read it. And then drink a lot and then sleep. Her gaze followed Joan’s and found the car. “That’s not mine.” And then turned and found another car. “Oh, Fates, don’t tell me that one's yours. Do you curse your car to be as ugly as your fashion? Is that…Is that a dog I see in the window there? You have a dog? Is its name ‘Khaki’?” She had a dog. Maybe their dogs could—No. These were exactly the sort of intimate details she was trying to avoid. Siobhan turned back to the car and since she was closer to it—having emerged from who-the-fuck-knew where—she examined it. 

It seemed a little…crushed. The metal jabbed upward as though someone had slashed through it but the gouges were larger than any human would have managed with their hands alone. It seemed more to her like someone had driven an axe in five slashes across the car. Which was an odd thing to do because it got tiring after the third cut; Siobhan would know. She opened the driver’s door and a body flopped out, dressed in a modest blue suit. Bloody. Headless. “Without me?” Siobhan clutched her chest, just about the gratuitous boob-window. “If you were going to murder, I’d hope you’d invite the bone woman along. This is just rude, Joan.”  

—

“Wish I could say the same,” Nicole replied wryly, watching the woman drawing closer in a very distinct all-black attire. Somehow, she managed to make it even less suited for the woods. An achievement. Nicole only huffed, if nothing else, admiring the nerve of the other woman to not give a shit about anything, let alone uncomfortable terrain. Though complimenting her on how recognizable or bold she was in any setting wasn’t something Nicole aspired to do. Not a fucking chance. Her ego was inflated enough. 

She was relieved to move from snarky greetings, to the more pivotal conversation. The empty car left on the side of the road. Nicole frowned, when the woman claimed no ownership of the vehicle, and frowned deeper when she moved on to insult her truck as well. Even though Nicole was grumbling about it too, moments earlier. She was the only person allowed to call the piece of junk for what it was. “Works for me, long as it takes me places,” she shrugged —what else was there to do? — the truck was clearly hers. Nacho peeked from the passenger’s window, drawing attention away from her vehicle. Despite the woman’s attitude, it seemed she wasn’t immune to the sight of a dog either. “His name’s Nacho. He bites,” she lied through clenched teeth, knowing her dog would show no loyalty if the woman were to approach him. Was probably wagging his tail already. Should’ve warned him about the unpleasant woman from the woods when she had the chance. Though she never expected to encounter her again. 

There was the matter of the abandoned car, which the woman claimed wasn’t hers. Nicole’s gaze followed the other when she too decided to examine it. Something was wrong, however. The car didn’t look like that before. Or— Did— did it? Fuck, did she “inspect” the car only to do a pisspoor job at it? Where did those impacts on the hood come from? What had looked like a previously untouched car now showed evident signs that it had been smashed at some point. Horror crossed her features when the door opened and a decapitated body dropped to the ground. That wasn’t there either. Was it there? Should never trust her eyes again. She needed a flashlight, or the jaguar’s eyes. The sudden — to her— appearance of a body paired with the woman’s presence, the same woman who threatened to push her off a cliff, wasn’t exactly a beacon of hope. Anxiety sped up her heartbeat, blood rushing to her ears. 

Of course, there were no qualms from the woman about the dead body dropping to the side of the road. No. Why would she have a normal reaction upon finding a dead body? Even worse, she assumed— no, she was joking about Nicole doing it. “Who’s—” she bit down the rest of her sentence. Didn’t matter. If she was referring to her as Joan, it worked for her. She could be Joan. “Right. I’m Joan.” She stepped toward the driver’s side, hand reaching inside her jacket’s pocket.“ So this wasn’t you either? You look real fucking calm about it,” Though, in her defense, Cliff pushing was established to be more her style. “What makes you think I’d do that?” Only getting a rise out of her, surely. “Should uh—probably report this, shouldn’t I? If you’re not the murderer.” Was she… implying she would’ve stopped if the other woman was the murderer?  

—

“As in…the food?” Siobhan shifted her weight, eyeing ‘Joan’ with confusion. While Joan was perhaps the sort of person to name an animal after food, she certainly did not seem like the sort of person to name it after something like nachos. If the creature was going to be named after food, she expected the dog to be “gruel” or “oatmeal” or “porridge”. That was a danger of expectations, they told her far more when they were broken; now Joan was complex, complicated, different. Siobhan shivered. “He bites? Nacho and I have that in common. Of course, I only do it to people that are good.” The sexually charged comment was her diversion to turn away and escape the growing complexity of Joan, lest she turn into a full human with needs and wants and ideas.

“Hm.” Siobhan hummed, more than just calm but alight with amusement at the gore. She crouched down beside the body. Death called to her in whispers inside her chest, her slow-beating heart building to a rapid pulse. She couldn’t risk a vision now—not with boring Joan standing over her—but she’d come back for the body and indulge later. Or…perhaps that wouldn’t be necessary at all, if she could deduce the manner of death the old fashioned way. “You’re awfully calm yourself.” She looked up at Joan and smiled. “I bone regularly. It really changes a woman.” She pulled her gloves on and picked up the corpse’s wrist, his lifeless hand dangling. 

It was strangely pink still. If not for the missing head, Siobhan thought that to an uneducated person (such as Joan) the body could be mistaken for being alive. “It’s very fresh.”  Siobhan dropped the wrist and it flopped down. Siobhan straightened up. “Exactly as if you’d done it. Were you about to drive away when I arrived?” She smiled wide. Her voice slipped into a teasing rasp. “Report a murder you committed? My, aren’t you bold? If I’d known you enjoyed being chased so much I’d have…” Siobhan waved her hand, coming to stand beside Joan as though they were two detectives who had just arrived at the scene of a crime. “...run you over with my car.” The more pressing concern was that what really had done it—obviously not Joan, she was too boring—was probably still around.

—  

“N—” Why did everyone assume she named her dog after some food? Worse than that, was the assumption that she’d chosen nachos out of all the vastly superior choices available. For example— Oatmeal. Matching Nacho’s fur color, that was logical. Reasonable. Why would she name him— She cared little to clarify all of this with the other woman, however. She was Joan. Perhaps Joan had a dog named after fucking nachos. “Sure. Nacho as in the food,” she let out a defeated sigh. Of course, the warning that her dog bit people wasn’t taken seriously by the other woman. Of course, there was that… that— insinuation. Her cheeks burned. She was stupid, but not that kind of stupid. Everything was a game in the other’s mind. “Right,” her response was more air than words, pathetic— making it easier to pretend nothing had been said, burying the conversation just like she wished to bury her head in the ground.

Luckily— no, nothing about this situation had anything to do with luck. A person was decapitated in front of them. Because of the sight before them, the other woman —should she give her a name too?— pivoted her interest to the cadaver. Nicole watched her crouch, wondering what she planned on doing with the poor dead body. Or was this some sort of plan? A distraction before she attacked Nicole too? Was it the man’s bones she was after? Instead, the woman pointed out her calm demeanor over their finding. Nicole figured it was an attempt to imply she was the killer. Despite this, she chose to answer with the truth. “Worked at the park for over seven years— some of these… turn up. Seen worse.” The woman wasn’t wrong —a fact that Nicole would keep to herself— horror of decapitation aside, she barely flinched upon discovering the dead person. She wasn’t supposed to become unaffected. Was it… too late to show more care? The victim’s arm flopped back on the ground, stopping her from going too into a spiral. An assessment came from the woman’s mouth a second later. The death was recent. “And you know that…” she pointed out, wary of this expertise. Despite her encounters with dead bodies, she wouldn’t be able to estimate the time of death. All she knew was, if it stank, then it was real fucking late. 

The woman stood tall again, speaking with that teasing lilt in her voice. The one that sought to get a reaction out of Nicole. Didn’t she learn in the forest not to get caught up in the game? Perhaps, in her belief that it would be a one-time encounter, she’d made better choices. Here, she bristled. “And do it with what— my bare hands? Don’t see anything sharp to remove a head around here, do you?” she narrowed her eyes, looking back to… wherever the fuck the woman had come out from. “You— you came from… somewhere. Getting rid of the weapon?” A woman who proudly proclaimed her desire to push Nicole off a cliff had more chances of being the murderer than— fuck… she forgot about— Did she transform into a jaguar and didn’t remember? She didn’t do it, but the jaguar… could’ve done it.    

No. Nicole shut down the possibility. She looked at the facts. Went over them thoroughly, like she’d done dozens of times before, when panic— Her clothes were intact. No taste of blood in her mouth. Her truck was parked right where she left it. She couldn’t have— she didn’t do it. She was convinced, mostly, by the time the woman stood beside her. She almost felt the brush of her shoulder. Something about the gesture was annoyingly comforting. Whatever… esteem she could’ve mustered in that moment vanished the moment another teasing remark came. Nicole glanced up, rolling her eyes. “Can you stop… fantasizing about killing me one time and focus on,” there was nothing to focus on. A man was dead, and she had to report it. That was it. The marks on top of the hood, however… Was she comfortable letting humans deal with… the monster responsible for this? 

Had to be. Nicole would worry about the possibilities later, in the comfort of her cabin. More importantly, with Nacho far away from danger. She dialed 911, lifting an eyebrow at the other woman while she waited for the tone. “Aren’t you cold?” She grumbled, noticing her uncomfortable outfit again. Not fit for escaping anything or anyone chasing them, should it come down to it. Though, that would imply the woman would be interested in running, given the experience in the park— 

The dispatcher picked up, but Nicole couldn’t hear her, nor speak to her. Common night sounds were overpowered by… faint galloping. Didn’t stay faint for long, however. Something approached, and fast. Lowering her phone, Nicole attempted to peek into the trees. She couldn’t see shit, yet the sound intensified. It was all she needed. “Right. That shit doesn’t sound normal. Better get back to your—” Seriously, where the fuck did she come from? Didn’t matter, Nicole was already shuffling back to her truck. 

—

Siobhan grumbled; she did not want to think of Joan as having a dog named Nacho. She was so fixated on the agony of knowing this contradiction about Joan that the rest of the woman’s words fizzled away. Well, it was unlikely Joan was saying anything of importance, anyway. Siobhan sunk back into reality around Joan accusing her of this particular murder. “Stop flirting with me,” she said with an obvious teasing lilt, “I was told that’s very rude to do over a dead body.” Then something odd washed over Joan’s features. Perhaps late onset disgust at the body? At this point it was comically late. “What…” Siobhan swallowed. How silly of her, she was just about to ask Joan what was wrong, as though she cared. 

Her body shifted an inch closer to Joan’s in lieu of asking. “Ah.” Siobhan nodded. “I see. You want me to fantasize about you in other ways?” She made a show of the motions of contemplation: humming and swinging her arm out wide before slowly drawing it in to tap her lip, her brows furrowed. “I’m thinking very hard, Joan.” Her mind was decidedly empty, focused instead on her reenactment of The Thinker. “Could be colder, honestly. Want to help?” Siobhan straightened up, mouth held open. She didn’t get a chance to finish her thought. 

There was galloping. Like a horse. Like, perhaps, one particular legend of a headless woman on her pale horse. Siobhan’s heart leapt into her throat. Joan was moving but Siobhan stood completely still, smiling. From the treeline, a pale line winked between the dark. Then another. Then three, all together. Then four. Then…five? Siobhan squinted, frowning. A hand clawed out of the dirt, shaking itself off like a dog. She stared at its bloody stump. She noted the blood oxidizing on its fingers. Siobhan turned and jogged behind Joan; finally, she was regretting her choice of footwear. “My, how kind of you to offer me a ride!” Siobhan was at the passenger door of Joan’s truck, knocking on the glass before she could say anything. “A ride I would like to have soon; unlock the door.” She stared at Nacho through the glass. It would be terrible to be killed by a hand. It would also be terrible to sit with a dog. She frowned. 

—

She didn’t get it. Her. Nothing about this random woman made any fucking sense to Nicole. It wasn’t new, being so completely thrown off by human—or non human if that was the case— interactions, but something about not being able to predict what was about to come out of the other’s mouth was especially unnerving. “What are you—” Flirting? How did she flirt? She didn’t flirt. Did she even know how to? She scoffed at the joke, annoyed that the woman was succeeding at getting a rise out of her. It only heightened when she proceeded to mock think. Nicole wasn’t sure how she was supposed to help make anything colder. Murder, surely. Always a possibility with this woman. And though the appearance of a mysterious killer was generally frowned upon, at least this one meant she was able to skip the rest of the conversation. 

She wouldn’t have been able to form words, regardless. Nicole gaped at the— thing, coming out of the woods, not believing her eyes.

Having spent almost a decade in the heart of Wicked’s Rest woods, Nicole had a high threshold for the type of bullshit that came out of it. The giant, hairy beasts that drew visitors' attention, or the not-so-bear bears hiding in the shadows and caves. The mutant sized insects, flesh eating worms, prehistoric looking birds. If she was in the woods, she was expected to encounter something that defied the rules of what humans considered normal. Natural. Somehow she never took time to consider a bloody, horse sized hand prowling in the woods, the rest of its body no longer attached. No. That one was a first. Judging by the decapitated man by the side of the road, it might be a last as well.  

Nicole was very stubborn about lasts, however. How many of those she’d managed to escape? Survival instinct prevailed, no matter what. More agile than a regular human, she made it to her truck in seconds, climbing inside and pushing the keys into the ignition. “Under the backseat, buddy,” she instructed Nacho, reaching for her seatbelt. Her best friend growled in disagreement —though, he likely growled due to the giant fucking hand galloping their way— but did as told. If the hand got them, she hoped they’d be enough for it to spare her dog. It was all she wanted. 

She twisted the key, jolting when she heard the knock on the window. She couldn’t hide her surprise to see the woman standing there. She was almost certain she’d seen her smile at the initial sight. Nicole reached for the passenger's door, pulling up the old lock. “Hurry,” even asking so felt like too late. The hand slowed its galloping, only to stalk the truck like a predator would. It was deciding how to better kill them, wasn’t it? Did— would a disembodied hand think? How would that w—Once the woman slammed the door closed, she shut down the onrush of logical questions any reasonable person would have under the same scenario. “Buckle up,” shifting into gear, she took off, wheels squeaking against the pavement. 

It wasn’t fast enough to lose the hand, however. Looking through the mirror, Nicole saw the massive fingers cling to the tailgate, making it impossible for the truck to advance the way it should’ve. Panic flashed across her face, when the fingers crept down the bed panel and jumped at the top of the truck, almost cracking the windshield with the force of the slam. The truck shook, and Nicole shrunk in her seat, tightening her grip on the wheel. She was torn between pumping the brakes or continuing to drive with massive finger pads obscuring the vision. The fingers squeeze the roof of the truck, metal clanking with the strength of the grip. “Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.” Adrenaline pounded in her veins. If she stopped… they were done for, right? 

—

Siobhan did not “buckle up”: she was philosophically opposed to safety, law and buckling. The suggestion—more of a command—was scoffed at. The dog scampered away, as told to, which tickled inside Siobhan the odd and disgusting impulse to tell Joan that her dog was a “good boy”. Siobhan settled into her seat, trying to squint at dog hairs in the darkness—if any of them got on her clothing—and determined to let Joan know that her comment was unwelcome and would not be heeded. Fate cleaved down on her. She opened her mouth to scold Joan and her body snapped forward and her cheek cracked against the dashboard. She winced and held her face. Silently, she buckled up, telling herself that her face was red due to the injury and not the embarrassment. 

Buckled now, she expected the car to move. And it had lurched, else her cheek would not be screaming, but the forest around them was still, the road was anchored, and the wheels screeched and expelled burnt rubber. Siobhan glanced at the side mirror, staring at the flexing of monstrous fingers. The car jerked again—Siobhan was saved this time by the seat belt—and the car burst forward. Above, metal crunched. Ahead, fingers draped over the windshield. “Language, darling.” She grinned. “You have a child in the back.” Siobhan clicked the latch of her seat belt, whipping it over her body. “This is why I don’t buckle.” She pushed down her window and crawled half-out. She pulled out a knife and plunged it into the hand; her hunter’s knife was a splinter in the massive hand. The finger’s on SIobhan’s side lifted; the pinky twitched and tried to swat her. On the other side, the thumb clenched down and burst through the back window, spraying glass across the seats. 

She pulled out another knife. Someone had told her—Kiera, with her stupid sniffly voice—once that she had too many knives, that she couldn’t possibly need that many knives. Well, she thought, wasn’t Kiera a proper idiot? The second knife went in around the knuckle and the hand twitched again, more of the fingers peeled back from the windshield. Yet, the hand’s crusade hadn’t stopped. It seemed to Siobhan that it really wanted to crush them, like insects suddenly found crawling on a table. 

“Can’t you do some drive-y things?”  She leaned down and yelled at Joan. “Like in those action films? James Bone? Have you heard of James Bone?” No, of course she hadn’t: Joan was uncultured (as was obvious in her lack of attractive fashion). “He’s an international spy? Works for the worms? Drives a nice car? Something like that, Joan.” Siobhan pulled more knives out, stabbing them into any place she could reach. The car was digging into her belly and her arm throbbed, having to hold herself steady as she hung out of the car. Despite it, she laughed at every lurch, every twitch and every gush of congealed blood: she was having fun. “I believe in your basic motor functions, Joan!”

—  

Nicole knew very little about life, but she knew she didn’t deserve… this. Being chased by a murderous, disembodied hand, with a mad woman in the passenger’s seat. That type of punishment should only be reserved for horrible, irredeemable people. People who littered, for example. She didn’t fucking litter, so why was— The truck jerked after her own poor maneuver, and a thud came from the other side. Didn’t take a genius to figure out the woman hit the dashboard. Because she wasn’t wearing her seatbelt like Nicole had warned her. Actions had consequences, didn’t they? The satisfaction was short-lived, however, as the impending threat of a massive hand crushing them to death took precedence over petty arguments. 

She heard a click — the buckle snapping into place after the humbling incident— then a second click barely a second later. What was she doing? Nicole had a truck to drive, a deadly hand to lose, she couldn’t gather what the woman was attempting to do from her peripheral vision. She didn’t have a good feeling about all the shuffling, though. Surely the seats weren’t that uncomfortable? “What are you… what are you doing!?” It was too late to react by the time Nicole understood what was happening. She instantly regretted the glance she took, her heart jumping to her throat at the sight. “Fuck. What the fuck? Get back in here! Are you—” How the fuck could she focus on driving when there was a woman with half her torso hanging out the window? Her eyes widened in horror, reaching out and grasping for nothing. Something glinted outside, but before she could decipher what it was, giant fingers curled against the top of the truck, metal crunching underneath. The back window exploded, shards of glass spraying across the backseat as the thumb punched through. Blood splattered across the windshield too, hindering her vision. 

“Stay down, buddy,” she instructed Nacho, voice hiking up and giving away her fear. The dog whined from underneath the backseat. She gripped the wheel tighter, casting short glances to her side, if only to check that the woman hadn’t flown out the window either. No, still there. Still… pulling out knives to stab the large fingers with too much delight for Nicole’s liking. How was any of this real? “Action films? I don’t… who’s— James Bone?” She shouted over the engine. Whoever that was, Nicole wasn’t him. She wasn’t cut out for action hero bullshit. Couldn’t do drive-y things like this woman wanted her to. Regardless, she shouldn’t be taking suggestions from a woman who was laughing as she hung out of a speeding vehicle. She was laughing. Some people laughed in uncomfortable situations, no? If that was the case, Nicole couldn’t judge. This one was one giant uncomfortable situation. 

She knew she could never live up to the epic depiction of James Bone the woman provided, but watching the fingers peel away with every stab gave Nicole an idea. It was reckless— No, it was stupid. When the other option consisted of them being crushed by a relentless killer, she supposed she was far more open to testing out unconventional solutions. Like knives or— Where was this woman storing all these knives? Another one plunged into flesh and Nicole didn’t think, she simply acted in response, slamming the brakes when the finger lifted. The tires screeched against the pavement to a halt. She jerked forward with the motion, but so did the hand. In fact, the hand flew past them into the treeline, momentum carrying it forward as it was unable to secure its grip again. Thanks to… the woman’s stabbing ways. God, if they survived this, would she have to thank her? The hand hit the trees and flopped on its back, looking lifeless for a split second. Then it twitched.   

The truck's engine roared again, and it took her a second to realize she was responsible for it. Nicole supposed she could always count on her survival instincts to prevail. Hitting the gas, she jolted once the truck gained speed once more, racing past the disembodied hand not caring about speed limits. They weren’t going to sit around and wait for the hand’s next move. She was no James Bond, but escaping was the one thing she excelled at. She doubted the other woman had any more knives to spare either. The— Shit. Nicole whipped her head toward the passenger’s seat, concern pounding in her chest. “Sorry! You okay?” She’d forgotten about seatbelts or safety measures when she decided to send the hand soaring through the air. 

—

Siobhan had stabbed many hands, though none so large as this one. She started to wonder what bones laid under its monstrous weight; she imagined peeling its skin and hanging it to dry like leather. She started to want it too—there was always that ledge to violence, when she fell off and blood might as well have been jelly. Was it fun because she was good at it? Was it fun because it kept coming back to her, again and again? Even on a day she hadn’t planned for it, her knives still found flesh. Unnatural, disembodied hand flesh, but flesh nonetheless. She supposed that it didn’t matter: even if she didn’t enjoy it, it was the only thing she understood. Siobhan was sure that above all, she enjoyed understanding things. 

She was trying to draw an image with the knives jutting out of the hand—a smiley face—but couldn’t manage it with the weaving of the truck, and the occasional splatter of a bug on her cheek. She was going to tell Joan to keep steady—forget the James Bone stuff, it was clear she was no James Bone—when the truck screeched, red light spilling out on the road behind them. The hand flew back and Siobhan crumpled forward, her chest (voluptuous, in case anyone was asking) smashed into the side mirror and her body slinked back into the passenger seat like a retracted tape measure. She groaned but then remembered she was seated next to someone, and shovelled all of her anguished sounds back down her throat. The only thing worse than an injury was being witnessed in it. 

Siobhan poked her stomach, which returned her curiosity with throbbing pain; so she hadn’t been sliced through when she crashed into the car, but she’d develop an unflattering, linear bruise. She turned around, winced, and watched the hand writhe on its back before it quickly disappeared. She glanced at the speedometer, and then the speed limit sign that blurred past them, and smiled. She sensed that this was important growth for Joan: first speeding, then being less boring. Siobhan clicked her seat belt on. Then Joan said it: the bad word. Siobhan turned and blinked at her, hoping that she’d just imagined the apology. No, it clung to the air in that heavy, cloying way that it always did. Apologies were something Siobhan did not understand. Worse yet, the asking if she was okay—she understood that even less. If only Joan had just stabbed her, that was a more comprehensible action. 

“The greater good isn’t something you apologize for,” she said, hoping it sounded wise and final and like something her mother would say. Her body was thick with a churning awkwardness; being asked how she was set a curse on her. Siobhan felt dirty, suddenly. The sickening display of friendly concern was everything wrong with humanity, other than the littering. She was disgusted, personally offended, and horrifyingly touched. She was starting to think that it was nice that Joan asked and nice that she apologized and maybe she should ask what her name actually was. Siobhan shivered and closed her window. “Worry about Nacho,” she said, “and then pick a better name than Nacho.” Then she started to think she should apologize for being the general, unpleasant thing that she was. She shivered again. 

On account of the speeding, which had seemed so wonderful before, Siobhan could not jump out to escape the curse of politeness that Joan cast. It was infecting her, corrupting her, making her desire small talk and basic kindness. She wanted to open the glove compartment up and throw out any papers she found, for the sake of annoyingness, but couldn’t summon the will; the curse was too strong. She felt it was too mean. She wanted to talk about the dog instead. She was going to be sick. “Drop me off at the nearest bar,” she commanded, though it sounded strangely like a request instead. And then she realized she was painting a very distinct, very pathetic picture of herself—a woman who came from nowhere, couldn’t answer a basic question, and needed to be sent off to a bar. “Ber,” she added. “Bar…ber. The nearest Barber. Yes, I’ll even take a salon. In fact, just the closest commercial establishment of any sort.” 

She sunk into her seat, stifling the burning desire to ask Joan a simple thing: how are you? Siobhan had never been more disappointed with herself. 

[mortemoppetere]

TIMING: current LOCATION: owen lundkvist's apartment PARTIES: @technowarden  & @mortemoppetere SUMMARY: emilio and eve team up to break into a mutual... something's apartment and figure out just what the fuck is going on with owen. CONTENT WARNINGS: wrspice (implied), mentions of past child death, alcoholism (alluded to)

Which meant just one thing: in the best case scenario, Owen was covering for a hunter-killer. In the worst…. He was one. Tonight they’d found out which.

Well, this felt familiar. Eve sitting in her car, down the street from a target building, waiting for Emilio to join her. Last time they’d done this, it had gone so well! They’d parted on great terms. Eve couldn’t possibly see breaking into the apartment of the guy she suspected was responsible for multiple hunter deaths being any more complicated than releasing some dildos from police custody. 

The same guy that, well, there was some sort of complicated knot in her stomach when she thought about it. There was an equally complicated one at the idea of seeing Emilio again. Eve reached for her coffee, taking a deep gulp. The less her emotions were involved in any of this, the better. She buried the knots so deep she couldn’t feel them. 

While she waited, it was easier to skim through what she’d found on her tablet. Nasir’s body was the obvious one, the canary in the coalmine. When she’d started looking back at other hunter deaths, Eve hadn’t found any that looked too suspicious, general vampire bites or mauled by werewolves were common themes, but then one had stood out. Natasha, who was a fellow fucking Warden, had died at the start of September. She had cuts all over her, and Eve had assumed that sprites were to blame, as they so often were for this kind of warden death, but the more she’d looked, the more the similarities started to glare. The killing blow, for example, was so similar it might have been identical. On the other hand… Eve couldn’t tell if she was finding excuses for it not to be Owen, or if she was right in saying that there were only so many ways to wield a dagger. Only so many fatal blows that a hunter’s body could take. It wasn’t all the same. Natasha had more cuts, far more shallow each one of them, and her own blade had never even touched her assailant; there wasn’t any blood on it but hers. Maybe whatever had killed Nasir had killed Natasha. Owen had killed that vampire, and that was the end of it. Except… 

Here was Maya. From the night Emilio and Eve had last seen each other, in fact. Maya dying had been inevitable a while, she’d crossed fifty a couple years ago, and her injuries had been slowing her down. The night Eve had been called to her body, she’d been so detached from anything hunter related she’d barely absorbed what she was cleaning. It was only after, when she’d looked at the pictures. Same aggressive cuts again. 

Which meant just one thing: in the best case scenario, Owen was covering for a hunter-killer. In the worst…. He was one. Tonight they’d found out which. Eve swiped to a different app, and checked the location of Owen’s phone. He was still on route to a bar, so she figured they had at least a good hour. She looked up, and smiled brightly as she spotted Emilio walking over. 

“Howdy partner,” Eve greeted, leaning over to push the car door open for him, “Great night for some more crime, isn’t it? Looking forward to finding out who is Sus among us?” 

—

Distraction was a thing Emilio was profoundly familiar with. He’d always been far happier fooling his mind into believing his problems didn’t exist than he was acknowledging them, always found it easier to close his eyes as much as he could. It wasn’t always possible — some things seeped through even the most enticing distractions the world had to offer. But it made him feel a little better, at least, to have the illusion of an option when it came to his breakdowns. He could pretend it was feasible to distract himself from the drives Eve had dropped off on his porch, could pretend that planning to see her again now didn’t stir up all the complicated anger and grief she’d left him drowning in the last time they’d spoken face to face. It didn’t ease the hollow pit in his stomach very much. 

(Emilio was a bad liar and a paranoid bastard. It made believing the lies he told himself pretty close to impossible.)

Still, this distraction was a decent one. Whatever the fuck Owen was up to had been crawling under his skin for months now, thrashing and screaming since the moment the other slayer had shown back up in town. After their last encounter, with the vampire who’d mentioned that ‘she’ wouldn’t be pleased with Owen’s actions, the urge to find out more had only grown. He should have known Eve would already be poking around as well. The two of them certainly had different methods and motivations for their snooping, but they did seem to be similar in their nosiness. And as much as their last encounter had left him uncertain he ever wanted to see her again… he could admit that she was good at this kind of stuff. Emilio could break into Owen’s apartment without issue, could find whatever it was he was looking for without help, but Eve could make it so no one ever knew he was there. Staying one step ahead of Owen was the best move he could make, and Eve was better at that than he was. (Sometimes, that was on purpose. Emilio liked to gloat a little too much to be sneaky.) 

He did wonder, though, how their ideas of handling the situation might differ. It was clear that the two of them had different thoughts on a lot of things, and it wasn’t such a stretch to assume their opinions on this wouldn’t line up, either. Emilio wanted to know what Owen was up to, wanted to stop him, but… He also wanted to make Owen feel the way he’d felt when Owen shoved him up against that wall. He wanted Owen to feel small and hopeless, wanted to hurt him. He wasn’t sure how much of that sentiment Eve shared. He didn’t think asking would be very productive.

Her car came into view, familiar to him now even if it wasn’t quite as recognizable as something like the bright yellow Bug Teddy used to drive. He approached it slowly, dreading the awkwardness that was sure to follow their last meeting. They’d been able to exchange information online well enough, but it was easy to remain civil in a conversation where you didn’t have to look the other person in the eye. Things got a lot more complicated when they were sitting right in front of you.

Or… maybe they didn’t. Eve pushed the door open as he approached, greeting him in a tone that made it impossible to discern how tense their last face-to-face conversation had been. Emilio faltered momentarily, uncertain. But… this was what Eve did, wasn’t it? She covered shit up. She mutilated corpses to make sure the truth couldn’t be found in their bones. Carving up the corpse of an awkward conversation to turn it into something friendly was probably easy by comparison.

It was harder for Emilio, of course. He slipped into the passenger's seat stiffly, shutting the door behind him. “I don’t know what that means,” he said flatly. “Let’s just go. What’s the plan?”

—

“It’s a game, I think you’d actually really enjoy it,” Eve replied, but just like last time, he rebuffed any idle banter. Fine. Eve could cut to the chase no problem. She could as easily chatter about murder as she could about video games. When she’d messaged Emilio about her suspicions, he’d mentioned she wasn’t the only one with suspicions. The moment she’d read that, her stomach had dropped. Emilio was emotionally driven, but he was smart as hell. It was confirmation, at least, that Eve’s own frustrations with Owen weren’t being projected onto dead bodies. 

It hadn’t even occurred to her that there was something else to find suspicious to find. 

“The plan is to figure out whether Owen is covering for someone else or if Owen’s just covering for Owen. I’d love to completely absolve him of kin-murder and just find out that he’s still an ass, but that isn’t feeling likely.” She swallowed, hiding it with a mild shrug.  

“I have earbuds so we can keep in touch–” Eve put them on the arm rest— “I can keep an eye on where Owen is so there are no nasty surprises” — she held up her tablet with a security cam of Owen in a dank bar— “and I have these,” Eve pulled out a keyring with a couple keys on them from her dashboard, dropping them in Emilio’s lap. Each key was labelled O.L. along with his address.  “But you’re the actual investigator, this is your hunt. I’ll follow your lead.”

—--

“Don’t usually enjoy games.” Not the kinds everyone else seemed to think were fun, in any case. The things Emilio considered fun didn’t really line up with what most people would make a game of, after all. (Though… axe throwing seemed to be growing in popularity. He’d seen it offered at a few places Downtown while investigating various cases. Part of him wanted to ask Teddy if they’d be interested in a date to one of them, but another part figured that his and Teddy’s competitive relationship mixed together with axe throwing might not be the best thing to take into a public space.) 

Right now, though, he didn’t want to focus on any of that. He didn’t want to make small talk with Eve; he didn’t even particularly want to be in the car with her. In his stomach, there was a knot of complicated feelings. The anger was still alive, still burning. It was a hungry forest fire desperate to devour everything it touched. But there was more there, too. He’d started on the drives, at least a little. He’d seen comments on how she’d ‘edited’ the corpses and the stories they told, and that fueled the fire. But he’d also seen other things. Grocery trips to provide food to people whose livelihood had been affected by the massacre, conversations and interactions with children left alive, small translation notes that spoke of someone trying to better grasp a language. The drives painted Eve as more human than he wanted her to be. And so, the anger wasn’t alone in its bottomless pit. There was guilt, too. Guilt that she’d been there when he hadn’t, guilt that he’d snapped on her, guilt that he was angry, still. And grief sat on top of all of it, because it always did. 

He’d rather focus on Owen than unpack any of the rest of it, because Owen was simple. Maybe things had been complicated between Owen and Emilio once, when they’d first gone from fucking to fighting, when Owen had carved into him with things he’d never wanted to hear and used his words like a weapon designed to scoop out Emilio’s insides and toss them on the dirty floor, but it had simplified over time. Owen was good at making himself easy to hate, good at removing all hints of complexity from whatever thing they’d once had. These days, it was hard to remember that he’d ever liked the guy at all. Instead, he let himself recall how good it felt to shove a stake between his ribs, how satisfactory it was to snatch a victory. This would feel good, too. He was sure of it.

“Found out a bit last time I saw him,” he replied, absently rubbing the ring on his finger. An old habit he wouldn’t call nervous, even if that was exactly what it was. “I ran into him at a bar. Full of undead, and all of them seemed to know him. Managed to talk to a vampire who it seemed like thought Owen was on his side. Got a little bit out of him, but not much. Biggest thing was that he mentioned ‘she’ wouldn’t be happy Owen was with me. He killed the guy before I could get anything else from him. So… I know he’s got someone pulling his strings,” he commented, grabbing one of the earbuds. “A woman. And I know he’s willing — and able — to kill people he’s not supposed to kill to keep us — or me, I guess — from figuring out who that is. Him being willing to stake a vampire doesn’t tell us shit. He’d do that either way. Hell, he does that for fun. But the way he was able to do it? No physical reaction? That tells us more. If he’s bound, it’s a loose bind, which makes me think he isn’t. Bind loose enough to go against in a way that big wouldn’t be able to do much to keep him in it for long, and he’s been at this at least a few months. Not compelled, either, if he’s able to go around killing people he’s meant to be protecting.”

Popping the earbud in his ear — the one that a banshee hadn’t screamed in, since the other was still a little too muffled to do him any good — he moved his attention to the keyring. Seeing the key to Owen’s apartment gave him some pause, and he eyes Eve cautiously out of the corner of his eye. He wondered if she had a key with his initials on it, too. Paranoia creeped in, and he did his best to push past it. He could grill her about that later. After they figured out what Owen was up to. 

“There may be something in his apartment that’ll clue us in on how she — whoever ‘she’ is — has him leashed. Could be some kind of magic with looser terms. Could be blackmail. Though… not sure what Owen cares enough about to be blackmailed with.” His bias blinded him a little here, he knew; it was hard for Emilio to view Owen as a person for the same reason it had been hard for him to find those small details in Eve’s drives: it was easier for him if Owen was a simple kind of evil. But, of course, simple evil didn’t exist. Emilio knew that better than anyone. “I’ll go up and look around. You can come, or you can stay here and play lookout. Might have to go in behind me and clean up to keep him from knowing we’ve been there after.” He bit back a comment about how she ought to be good at that by now, though it was a hard thing to swallow. Emilio wasn’t really one to hold himself back.

—

Eve twisted to listen to Emilio fully, first out of interest, but the more he spoke, the more she began to frown. “What?” The idea of Owen voluntarily associating with vampires was laughable, except apparently it wasn’t, Emilio was dead serious. (He also referred to vampires as people, some part of Eve’s mind registered, which was notable for a Slayer) It made what she’d been suspecting him of seem… not trivial, but predictable. It was a damning reflection of how she saw Owen, Eve realised, that it seemed more likely that he’d murder someone than hang out with a vampire. It was a damning reflection on her, that her first thought had been that something in him had snapped, and not that something could be controlling him. “That's not what I was suspicious about.”

Eve sat there for a moment, twisting back to look at her steering wheel, because Emilio would be able to see every flick of emotion in her eyes if she kept looking at him. If there had been any hope left that she was wrong, it had dissipated with Emilio’s damning testimony. It only sat alongside the sickening dread, the knowledge of what would happen if they found more evidence in his home. 

“It could be a bind that prioritises her protection above any other. If revealing much about her to another slayer were endangering, it might make sense. But a fae bind like that would be complex to word, never mind for other kinds of magic. Probably makes more sense than blackmail.” Eve speculated, but her voice sounded like she was elsewhere. It was easier to twist her mind into warden contortions, and weigh up what a deal like that would take, how experienced a fae would need to be to pull it off. What situation Owen would have needed to find himself in to ever agree to that. It was the season for it, and he wasn’t immune to the charms of a faun. (He wasn’t immune to the charms of anyone.) Never mind the other kinds of binding magics Eve was less familiar with. Spellcasters were terrifying in the range of their abilities and magnitude of their powers. Demons even more so. 

If it was a fae, even the fae’s death might not offer absolution. Even if Owen had made no choice in the matter, he was the weapon. The logical part of her brain offered only one solution in that scenario: a threat that big to hunters had to be put down. What the rest of her thought about that was inconsequential, it always had been. If Eve swallowed and rubbed her face as if she could rub the emotion off of it. She ended the silence she had lapsed them both into, her voice remarkably clear. “I have evidence he killed a slayer. Maybe even three hunters. Which makes slightly more sense if someone's pulling his strings.”

“Here, look. Natasha Freemond, Nasir AlRokh, and Maya De La Costa. They all died of similar knife injuries. Look at how these wounds match up,” Eve pulled up her tablet, handing it to Emilio, where the screen highlight just how similar a couple of these injuries were. “I was called out for Natasha and Maya, their bodies were found a day or two after they died, Natasha had even been moved, but Nasir called me out to work on something else. Whatever happened to him happened after he was confident he’d cleared out all the undead in the area.” 

She slid her tablet over the arm rest to him, with the pictures of the three hunters. Emilio  knew death - slayers probably knew it more than even she did, their hunting grounds being what they were. He probably knew the stages of death and decomposition, the pallow and blood pooling in the two women, the autolytic sheen that the skin collected as it stiffened up. He could probably also see, in contrast, how alive Nasir looked. If it wasn’t for the pool of blood around him and the faint clouding in his eyes, he might not have even been dead in that picture.  If Eve had been a few minutes faster, he might not have been. She wondered if she might have hesitated the way Nasir had. She wondered if she would hesitate now. Her gun felt heavier than usual on her hip. 

“I found Owen on the scene, also injured,” she didn't mention that she had patched him up, that she had wiped Nasir’s blood from his arm.  “He said he’d killed the vampire that had killed Nasir, but his story wasn’t adding up. There was more blood on him than injuries.  Then Maya died after. I’m not a CSI, I can’t read blood spatters that well and say anything conclusive, but it feels pretty fucking damning, especially when taking what you’ve said into account. If he's been associating with vampires, protecting them, maybe that's why. Natasha was a warden, but we all tangle with things outside our duty sometimes.” 

Like, apparently, other hunters. One thought scratched the inside of her mind, jarringly. If Owen was killing hunters in the way of whatever leash he was being dragged by, what was she doing still alive? Eve had been so close to him, seated between his arm and his body, that if he’d stabbed her in the temples Eve wouldn’t have even realised it until she was already dead. She looked at Emilio, whose anger at her was still plain on his face. 

“Well, if Owen is as sloppy with incriminating evidence as he is with his normal hunts, I’m sure the answer will be in there somewhere. Do you really want to be in the same space as me for that long?” She smiled wrily, not giving him a chance to reply before making the decision for him. It was probably good to have a diversion on the outside anyway, just in case Owen caught them off guard somehow. Eve could be ever so distracting when she needed to be. “I’ll check out the exterior and play lookout. Don't you worry!”

—-----

Eve hadn’t known about the company Owen was keeping, then. In a way, Emilio felt accomplished. After all, Eve was typically someone who boasted knowing more than anyone else in any given room. She was smart and resourceful, and that often meant she figured things out before anyone else. And Emilio was fine with that; she was still an ally, even if things had been complicated by that damn book and everything that followed. But… he was also a competitive bastard, and knowing something that she didn’t felt good. It made him feel a little more in control, allowed him to reclaim something he’d lost when those drives had shown him things he’d never thought he’d see. “First time I caught him being un-Owen-like was a few months back, just after he came back to Wicked’s Rest,” he replied. “I was after a vampire. He stopped me from staking it. I thought he was just being a petty ass.” Not a poor assumption, given everything about their relationship.

He watched her digest the news, and he wondered how well she knew Owen. All things considered, Emilio didn’t know him very well at all. They’d fucked around a few times, but they’d never had any particularly deep conversations. That was by design. Emilio tended to avoid conversations like that with most people, didn’t tell anyone anything personal unless he had to. Eve was one of very few people in his life who knew about the massacre, who knew about his daughter, and he hadn’t even told her by choice. Similarly, she hadn’t revealed anything about her past willingly, either. Did Owen know about those kids she’d hung around with, the ones who’d died all at once? He doubted it.

He hummed at her speculation, drawn out of his thoughts by the sound of her voice. “Wouldn’t explain him willingly hanging around undead like that. Wording in that bind would have to be real specific, wouldn’t it? To make him go… against his instincts like that.” It would indicate a fae very skilled in word games, something that made Emilio uncomfortable just to think about. He’d been caught in a few binds through his time in Wicked’s Rest, but most were relatively harmless. (Even if the one Siobhan had trapped him in felt anything but.) 

It was… worrying, to say the least. Emilio didn’t like Owen, didn’t give much of a shit what happened to him at all, but if someone out there was able to make him behave in a way so unlike himself, it could spell trouble for more of them. Emilio had undoubtedly put himself on their radar with his snooping; Eve likely wasn’t far behind. What was the next step, then? What would someone like that do? The not knowing made his palms itch, made him all kinds of uncomfortable. If there was one thing Emilio hated, it was any sense of agency being taken from him. If someone could do it to Owen, could they do it to him, too? To Eve? That was what worried him.

Maybe other things should have worried him more.

He took the tablet as Eve handed it over, looking down at the pictures as she spoke. It was far easier to see this than it had been to look through photos of the massacre in Mexico, far easier to flip through images of dead strangers than it was to look at ones of people he’d once made small talk with on his porch. He could be far more clinical now, could make notes of the injuries that had killed them. Knife wounds, skilled and precise. Eve was right, the injuries on the different bodies shared similarities to one another. They’d either been made by the same person, or by someone with a similar background in style. 

The last one was different, but only in that the body was fresher. It was clear that, in this case, Eve had arrived only just after the hunter’s heartbeat stopped. Emilio glanced at her, wondering if he could find any semblance of emotion on her face. He thought of what he’d said to her the last time they’d seen each other, what he’d called out towards her as she walked out the door: that, one day, it would be his death she was covering up. Would she look just as stoic then as she did now, he wondered? Would she show pictures of his corpse to some other hunter, questioning his cause of death as if it were little more than a mystery to be solved? They didn’t know one another well, but they did know one another. She’d known this man, too, at least well enough for him to call her. How much did that complicate things?

He turned his attention back to the tablet, zooming in on one of the photos. “Whatever killed them, it definitely wasn’t undead,” he commented. “But… you knew that already.” Owen’s story was already full of holes, even without Emilio’s expertise putting the nail in the coffin. Still… “You think he killed them?” It was strange to think about. Typically, the idea of a hunter killing another hunter was something taboo. Emilio had come close to it a time or two, had helped Andy cover it up when she’d crossed that line, but… Emilio wasn’t what anyone would call a model hunter. Neither was Owen, but this was still a big line to cross. It was an especially big line to cross multiple times. There were three that Eve knew about. How many that she didn’t? 

Handing the tablet back to her, he shifted in his seat. He snorted at her mention of Owen’s sloppiness, shrugging a shoulder. “Slayers are used to things turning to dust when we stab them. They don’t exactly teach us how to clean up bodies.” He tensed when Eve asked if he wanted to share a space with her for that long, because the answer was no. But they weren’t talking about what happened last time, weren’t mentioning this canyon of awkwardness sitting between the pair of them. 

She saved him from having to bring it up, from having to think on it any longer, and there was a rush of relief at that. Maybe she was being kind, or maybe she didn’t want to share a space with him, either. Either way, he was glad for it. “If there’s something in there, I’ll find it,” he replied. “But don’t expect a bloody knife or another body. He’s stupid, but he’s not that sloppy. I don’t think.” There was every chance that Owen had fallen far enough to make this easy on them, but… Emilio had never been one for optimism. 

—

“I can’t imagine why the two of you wouldn’t get along at the best of times,” Eve replied jokingly, shaking her head. Emilio and Owen both had the instinct to aim for the raw spots when they could. It would be like a house on fire, in the worst way.  “We argued a lot, but he was much harsher than usual last winter. He fell off my radar after that, I didn’t even know he’d left town.” Arguing was understating it and overstating it. The first few times had been, sure, but then it had almost become a ritual. Instead of hey, how are you, she sent him grainy videos of him fighting, that were only recognisable because she knew him. His replies that at least he was doing something lost their edge. Sometimes, the arguments had still been real, but sometimes it had just been how the two of them spoke to each other at all. 

Eve nodded at Emilio’s comments, oblivious to his discomfort, as focused as she was at hiding her own. “If it was fae, it would have to be a full contract, I would expect. Which would beg the question of why he’d sign one. …Alternatively, do you think he could be possessed?”

As soon as Emilio was holding the tablet, Eve began driving them closer, focusing on the road rather than the growing dread in her stomach. She drove silently as he processes, although now she did spare a couple glances over to him, to judge his reaction. Wondering if Emilio knew any of these hunters, or if she was the exception in not having met him until recently. “I’d like to be wrong, but, yeah. Either he did or he knows who did.” 

When he finally put the tablet down, Eve was just pulling up outside his apartment complex. Eve clenched her jaw, because even hunts with disappearing bodies would sometimes benefit from a bit of a post-hunt cover-up. Now was really not the time, especially if it worked in their favour. “I’d hope he didn’t have a body in there. That’d be gross. Anyway. He’s in apartment 14. Have fun. Keep me updated on what you find, I’ll still be able to help from out here.” She turned on her own earbuds, testing the connection until she was happy with the volume. “Oh, and Emilio? If you could take pictures before you move things around, that would be a huge help.” 

—

He shot her a look at that, expression utterly unamused. “I’m a goddamn delight,” he said dryly. “He’s the one who’s got problems.” But Eve was right in a way Emilio didn’t want to admit. He and Owen were always going to wind up butting heads. Even if Emilio’s morality hadn’t shifted into something most hunters didn’t agree with, even if Owen hadn’t shoved him up against that wall and sliced through him with harsh words that rung a little too true for Emilio’s liking, even if Emilio hadn’t stabbed him with a weapon Owen was far more accustomed to wielding himself, things never would have worked out in a way that would have allowed them to be anything resembling friends in the long term. They were similar, in a lot of ways, and that was the problem. Emilio had never hated anyone more than he hated himself. The fact that Owen shared a few similarities with him was not a point in his favor. 

Eve shared her own timeline, and Emilio wondered how close they’d been before the arguing started. Were they friends? Did Eve have friends? It was a harsh thought, but he thought it was something to consider. She was so purposely detached that it was hard to imagine her allowing herself to consider someone a real friend, especially another hunter. How many corpses of people like Owen, like Emilio had she made disappear? Was it possible to befriend someone while knowing you’d one day desecrate their corpse in order to keep a secret? “Surprised you didn’t find a way to keep tabs on him.” His tone wasn’t accusatory, though the words certainly could be interpreted as such. After all, Eve didn’t seem the type to allow someone to slip between her fingers when she still had questions they might be able to answer. (She and Emilio were alike, in that way.)

The mention of possession caught his attention… though certainly not in a good way. Absently, his hands dropped down to his thighs, fingers prodding the fabric of his jeans. The last time he’d dealt with someone possessed, he’d nearly ended up a human sacrifice. And he was fine with it, really. He didn’t waste much time thinking about how he’d woken up tied to a chair, or remembering Aesil’s blade carving into him in an attempt to bleed him dry. It was over, it was fine. But he didn’t particularly want to repeat the process, either. It was just too much work. That was all. “I think he’s still him. Still knows shit he’d know, still his brand of annoying. Somebody possessed, they’re like a different person. Don’t remember shit that happened to them, don’t act like themselves unless they’re trying to fool somebody. I think we can rule that one out.” He needed that one ruled out. The way his heart was pounding, the way the scars on his wrists and thighs ached — this wasn’t that. He knew this wasn’t that. 

He let the gentle movement of the car distract him, kept staring at the images on the tablet even though he’d already seen as much detail as there was to see. “Hell of an accusation,” he commented, “but I’m not sure you’re wrong. These injuries are from somebody who knows how to use a knife. Doesn’t mean it has to be Owen, but if he was telling you it was a vampire who killed the last one…” He let it hang. The lie was a damning one. Owen would have no reason to tell it if he weren’t covering something up. 

Emilio hoped they’d know exactly what that was soon. He looked up at the familiar apartment building, nodding. “I know which one it is.” He’d been there more than once, albeit not in a long time now. “If he’s killing hunters, I don’t think he’s drawing the line at gross.” He rolled his eyes, grabbing the key from the ring and stepping out of the car. He was just about to step away when Eve called his name again, catching his attention. With a sigh, he nodded. “Yeah, yeah. Whatever.”

Without another word, he turned towards the building, making his way to the door and slipping the key into the lock. Unsurprisingly, it went in without a hitch, unlocking the door just as keys were meant to do. Emilio had never had any doubt that Eve had the correct key for Owen’s apartment. She was resourceful like that. 

Slipping in, he flipped on the light and looked around. It looked a little different than the last time he’d been there, messier. Owen was clean, as far as hunters went. His place had always looked impersonal and eerie, but never messy, like Emilio’s tended to be. It still wasn’t quite on the same level as Emilio’s Worm Row apartment, but… it was certainly not as put together as it had been a year and a half ago. Emilio snapped a few pictures of the space for Eve, then got busy snooping.

“These things work two ways?” He murmured, testing to see if Eve would respond. “No dead bodies, so we’re off to a good start.” He moved through the living room and into the kitchen, opening the cabinet curiously. Mostly snackfood. He snapped a picture of how it was arranged before rifling through it, looking for anything suspicious. When he found nothing, he moved to the drawers. Not much silverware — at the most, it could allow for two people to share a meal. Emilio doubted that was ever the case. A peek in the fridge saw alcoholic beverages and takeout containers, along with largely expired food products. Emilio almost snagged a drink, but he figured Eve wouldn’t be happy about it. He pulled the flask from his pocket instead, taking a healthy swig and letting the fridge swing closed. 

Nothing out of the ordinary in the kitchen, then, though it did offer a clue as to how Owen had been living. It had been a little more functional before, Emilio knew; this shift was enough to make note of. Whatever was going on with Owen, it was affecting more than just the company he kept. If it were anyone else, Emilio might have felt a little bad for him. As it was, though… he moved on to the next room, and he felt nothing at all.

—

Eve merely shook her head. Yup, it was definitely only Owen who was the problem in that relationship. As Emilio explained his reasoning that Owen had to still be Owen, she nodded. Demons weren’t her area of expertise, and Emilio sounded like he was speaking from experience. It would be easier if it wasn’t Owen at all, in many ways, but it didn’t sound like they would get an easy way out. Looking at Emilio, the way he’d reacted to the suggestion, maybe it wouldn’t have been an easy out at all. Just a more morally comfortable villain. As he replied to her accusation, Eve nodded. There was no need to go into the specifics of it, the blood pooling, Owen’s antsiness, the hidden knife, the lack of bragging about his kill. A dozen symptoms in isolation that kept him off the hook, but in that room had painted a horrifying picture. “You don’t get someone else’s blood on you like that unless you killed them or you were holding them as they died. Owen isn’t the cuddly type.” How embarassing, that for a moment she thought he had been. 

Emilio’s parting shot just had Eve rolling her eyes. Sure, Owen’s standards for hygiene when he was in certain moods was low, but he’d always kept a clean home. She couldn’t imagine him bringing someone home, killing them, and then just leaving the body to decompose. Or worse, killing them and then deciding to bring the body home. He was murderous and protecting vampires, but surely he still had some standards? 

She watched Emilio enter the apartment, and checked Owen’s location on her video feed (still drinking, and acquiring a collection of empty glasses in front of him rapidly), then hopped out her car herself, grabbing a small satchel before approaching the building. There was only one CCTV camera that she could see, which had obviously been out of function for a while, the lens cracked and filled with debris. Disappointing that she wouldn’t get any old data off of it, but fine. The bricks of the wall gave her ample edges to start climbing it, her left leg uselessly flagging against the exterior while she pulled herself up to the camera’s height by her finger tips and one leg.

“Yep,” Eve replied, the tension in her voice audible. “I can even hear you rustling around.” She found her balance, standing on a quarter of an inch of brick with one leg and clinging on to another with one arm. Eve pulled a screwdriver out of her satchel, and began to unwire the old camera one handed. “Great. Where are you starting?” She shoved the screwdriver in her mouth, and pulled out a little button camera, small enough to barely be noticeable. She scrape the back of it against the wall until the back peeled off, and she could stick it on the underside of the camera. 

Deciding now was as good a time as any to pick up the conversation they were having int the car, Eve pulled the screwdriver from her mouth and said, “For the record, I don’t obsessively stalk everyone I know. I don’t have that kind of spare time.” If she had, they might not have been caught off guard by the Cortez reveal in that book. If she had, he might not even have ever known she had been in San Augustín Etla. “Normally, when hunters fall off my radar like that, they’re dead.” Screwing wires into sockets wasn’t exactly easy one handed, no matter how nimble you were. Eve grunted as she twisted the old wires into a plastic bracket to pair up with her new camera, and as soon as she was happy with the connection, dropped back to earth. She landed hard enough on one leg that she was sure Emilio could hear the thud through her microphone, and let herself sit down a moment while her muscles burned. 

—

The pieces of the puzzle seemed to be coming together in an obvious way now, but Emilio wasn’t sure he could blame Eve for not solving it sooner. Despite all the animosity between himself and Owen, even Emilio might have doubted, at least at first, that the other slayer was capable of doing something that went so against the ‘rules’ hunters set out for themselves. They didn’t have a lot of unspoken laws as a people. They were a group who killed until they died, who raised children like weapons and taught them to do the same. There were very few lines that the majority of hunters wouldn’t cross, but this was one of them. Emilio had known, for a while now, that he would cross the line if he had to. He would have killed Parker, still swore that he wanted to kill Owen, hadn’t mourned the hunter Andy killed. But Emilio was a shitty hunter, and everyone knew it. Emilio wasn’t what he was supposed to be. It was a little surprising to learn that Owen wasn’t, either.

“Only way he’d hold someone as they died is if he was checking their pockets,” he scoffed, shaking his head. It wasn’t a fair assessment, and deep down he knew that. But his judgment was clouded when it came to Owen. He couldn’t fathom anything good about the man, and it was easier that way. It was how he preferred it. Cases like this one were a lot simpler when you disliked the person whose shit you were riffling through. It allowed you to see things you might have missed if you were giving them the benefit of the doubt. (Of course, it also meant risking seeing things that weren’t there because you wanted the person in question to be guilty. Every pro doubled as a con, with this kind of thing. Detective work was full of double-edged swords.)

“Must have fucking dog ears, then. Not being that loud.” He snorted, rolling his eyes to no one. “Started in the kitchen. Nothing worth mentioning, except that his diet fucking sucks.” As if Emilio had any room to talk. “Seems… messier than it used to be. Food’s gone bad, floor’s dirty.” It was worth mentioning, even if it didn’t tell him much. To Eve, it might mean more. She’d clearly been friendly with Owen more recently than he had; she might be able to pinpoint a cause for that sort of thing a little easier.

With the kitchen clear, Emilio moved into the living room. He snapped a few pictures again, then got to work. The coffee table was more of a mess than it had been the last time he was here, too. Dirty plates that told the story of someone eating on the couch rather than at the table, a few knives left out instead of hidden in nooks and crannies the way they might normally be in a hunter’s house. Emilio flipped the cushions from the couch, raising a brow at the sight of dust bunnies, crumbs, coins, and… a wallet that must have fallen between the cushions. He reached for it, letting out a small hum as Eve spoke. “You stalking me now?” Probably not before, since she hadn’t known his last name before the police station. But after? He’d be surprised if she hadn’t started keeping tabs on him. 

Flipping open the wallet, he glanced down at the contents. Before he could even start riffling properly, something gave him pause. The driver’s license slotted into the small windowed pocket was definitely not Owen’s. “The name Lena Faulkner mean anything to you?” It could have been someone Owen was hooking up with, someone whose wallet had been lost in the couch cushions in the midst of some uncomfortable couch sex, but given the nature of their suspicions against Owen… it was probably worth seeing if Eve knew the name. 

There was a thud through the microphone, and Emilio tensed. “Everything okay out there?” If Owen was back, he trusted that Eve would have warned him… unless she was taken off guard. His eyes moved to the window, his body ready to follow if necessary. 

—

“If you say so. Huh,” Eve frowned, taking that in. It didn’t speak to someone that was thriving and happy with their life, certainly not in the way that Owen had seemed to before (not that that was a high bar, but, you know), but that was all she could glean from that. “You broken into his flat often, then?”

“Not really,” Other than having a read through his public social media, which had given her the tip off that Emilio wasn’t the biggest fan of Owen to begin with. But that was public, it didn’t exactly count. It was like sticking a newsletter to your front door and being upset anyone had bothered to read it. Other than personal curiosity, there wasn’t any reason to be keeping a close tab on Emilio specifically. Eve only really tracked threats to secrecy. Owen had felt watched because he was often the problem in that regard, not specifically because she was watching him. “Why, should I be? If you want to be the center of my attention, you just have to ask.”

Emilio’s question made Eve pause, and frown around the screwdriver in her mouth. She spit it out and dropped it back in her satchel. “Uh, yeah. Ranger, maybe? I’m not sure. Guessing you found something of hers?”

Maybe it would have been worth warning Emilio before she jumped down two stories, especially when she’d never fully met the description of Warden Grace. Oops. “Yep!” Eve exhaled heavily, pushing herself back to her feet. “Just installing some extra security features. Give me a sec, I’ll see what I can find on Lena.” Satisfied the drop hadn’t disrupted her prosthetic’s suction onto her leg, Eve looked around to confirm there wasn’t anyone new watching before hurrying back to her car, reaching for her laptop, and opening up one of her many databases. 

“Okay, Lena Faulkner, right? She specialises in marine monsters. I met her once at the three daggers, but we didn’t really cross paths otherwise. She mentioned she owned a boat. Let me see if I can find her mooring license, give me a few minutes.”  Eve opened up another directory to begin typing in the command line, and started humming a small tune to herself as she did. Only after a few seconds did she remember that they were on a hot line, and Emilio could definitely hear her. “Sorry.” Ironically, that was the first time she’d apologised to Emilio about anything. After a few minutes of accessing directories she definitely shouldn’t have been able to, Eve deflated. “Fuck.”

It could be that Lena had been a one night stand. It could have been that her and Owen had worked a hunt together. It could have been a coincidence. She could have drowned, could have been swallowed by a giant squid or a mermaid. But. Eve swallowed, and spoke. “Her boat was reported as abandoned on the docks after her mooring license expired a month ago. The licenses last for about a year, so that doesn’t tell us how long she hasn’t been back to deal with it.”

It could also mean that after all their arguments, Owen had finally started paying attention to Eve and had started properly hiding his kills. 

—--

“First time breaking in. Didn’t used to have to.” He was hopeful that things could be left at that. Admitting to having slept with Owen — more than once, on a semi-frequent basis — wasn’t something he was looking to do. It definitely wasn’t something he was looking to do via call while snooping around in the guy’s house. It wasn’t as if he was ashamed — Emilio didn’t tend to feel shame for his sexual exploits, despite the Catholicism… probably because there were other things he felt far more ashamed about — but it wasn’t something he was proud of, either. And it wasn’t relevant to the case, since it hadn’t happened in nearly two years.

There was every chance Eve could have figured it out for herself, of course, had she been stalking him. He and Owen hadn’t been private during their brief tryst, and it wouldn’t be hard to uncover evidence of it. The fact that Eve apparently hadn’t meant he was willing to believe her claim that she hadn’t been watching him. He huffed a quiet laugh at her question, rolling his eyes to the empty apartment again. “No, actually, I’d like you out of my business.” He wondered how feasible that was, given Eve’s tendency to keep tabs on hunters in town. Emilio had never been particularly good at keeping the supernatural secret when he felt it was more beneficial for a person to know the truth, and that seemed like a line Eve wasn’t willing to cross.

A ranger. He flipped through the wallet, making note of the contents. Maybe she was someone who’d come by for a hookup, though… it would be a little odd for Owen to bring a hunter back to his place to hook up when he was actively killing hunters. He was stupid, but if he was that stupid, he probably would have been caught much sooner. 

He relaxed a little when Eve reassured him that everything was fine, though he still eyed the window warily. “What kind of security features?” He turned away, carefully placing the cushions back on the couch. He didn’t return the wallet to its place; he doubted Owen knew it was there, so it wasn’t likely he’d know it was missing. In any case, going through it more in depth wouldn’t be a bad idea. Maybe they could find something useful… or at least have an opening to talk to Lena Faulkner and see if she knew anything.

They just had to find out what they were walking into with her first. He moved as Eve got to work, snapping a few more pictures of the space before beginning to search the shelves for anything worth seeing. He listened to Eve hum, an amused expression on his face, but didn’t interrupt her. “No, no, go on. Enjoying the show, really.” Dry, sarcastic, a little teasing. For a moment, he could almost let himself forget about the tension between the two of them, and the tension in this whole situation. But only for a moment.

Eve cursed, and Emilio tensed again. He listened to her report, he looked down at the wallet. Not damning on its own — hunters disappeared all the time, either because they left town without telling anyone or they died in a way that left their body digested instead of rotted — but coupled with what they suspected about Owen so far… “I’ll see what else I can find.” He’d rather have something a little more damning, even if he wasn’t sure Owen deserved any benefit of the doubt.

He moved into the bathroom, doing the obligatory photography necessary to fulfill Eve’s request before starting his snooping. A little too much product on the sink, a few too many options for soap and shampoo in the tub, though some of it looked like it might not have been used in a while. There was a chance Owen was forgoing showering; Emilio chose to believe it as fact, if only because it made it a little easier to make fun of the guy in the privacy of his own mind. The shower was far less interesting than the clothes hamper, of course; there was a reason dirty laundry was a metaphor for secrets, after all.

Emilio began rifling around, pulling out a few garments and inspecting them. Nothing noteworthy on top, but at the bottom… “Got some bloody clothes here. Not exactly unheard of for a hunter, but the shit Owen hunts shouldn’t be bleeding like this.” If you killed them quickly, most undead died bloodless deaths. If you took it slow, they bled something darker than living blood, something close to black. The stains on Owen’s pants were red. Could have been from a shifter — plenty of them died like humans, and Owen wasn’t exactly the kind of guy who’d refuse to hunt outside his ‘specialty’ — but given everything else they’d found… Emilio wasn’t keen on making excuses. When you added everything they’d uncovered so far together, it either painted a clear picture or told a far-fetched story that required a thousand different ‘possible but not the most likely’ excuses in order to work. Emilio was inclined to go with the more obvious answer. That was usually the best bet.

—

“Oh,” Eve replied, so caught up in working her computer that she didn’t quite manage to hide the knowing in her tone. When had Owen ever invited someone over for just a movie night or a meal? No, his home was so impersonal precisely because it was only intended for the bare essential, and for the one thing Owen would certainly have considered essential. Considering how Owen and Emilio argued in public, maybe this was just part of his thing. Not that it was any of her business, and not that she cared. It was just an interesting little snippet. Funny coincidence, too, although from what she knew about Owen’s proclivities, maybe not as big a coincidence as you’d expect. 

Eve grinned as he huffed something sounding almost like a laugh. “Roger, roger. But it’s fine as long as we’re both in someone else’s business, right?” Bonding over a shared enemy was practically a hunter rite of passage. Even if enemy wasn’t the way she wanted to think about Owen just yet. 

“I added a camera that I can access to the broken one they have outside the building. Just gives me another viewpoint on the comings and goings around here,” She replied, like it was the most normal thing in the world to prioritise. Well, she wasn’t going to ask Emilio to put a camera in Owen’s home, was she? Owen might have called her a creepy stalker, that did not mean she had to be one. She smiled at Emilio’s reply, “This is radio FM, playing the top hits all night long.”

Bloody clothes. Great. How many more final nails in the coffin did they need? Eve slumped in her chair. “I think at this point we can stop trying to come up with alternative explanations, right?” Eve sounded a little defeated. How many of the people she hadn’t heard from over the past months were dead at his hands? Were any of the bodies she’d handled actually at his hands, and hidden in the way she did it herself? Owen didn’t hang around for cleans, but he was pretty goddamn smart. “It’d be nice if we found something conclusive, but this all just points to one way. I don’t know how much more evidence we need.” She rubbed her temples. If he was finding laundry, Eve figured he was probably in the bathroom, unless Owen really was letting himself go. “Have you been through the bedroom yet? We really need to find something about this woman.” There was an extra dimension to the idea of finding something in Owen’s bedroom that made her jaw tighten. “He often shoves random shit in his bedside drawers.” 

Eve crossed her arms, flicking back to the CCTV view of Owen, drinking, oblivious to the storm gathering around him. Or perhaps trying to drown himself before it reached them. “So, here’s the million dollar question. If he’s killing hunters, that are, I don’t know, a threat to this mystery woman. Like, for example, the private investigator who knows there’s a woman pulling at his strings, or the person who literally caught him red-handed. Maybe he figured he couldn’t fight you in a full bar, or didn’t feel confident he’d win,” Which felt even less in character for Owen than anything else, “But…. We were alone. I was patching his fucking wounds. Why the fuck didn’t he?” Of course, it was possible he was just biding his time, planning the right moment, although for now Eve couldn’t think why. She took a deep breath, steadying herself, and voiced something she had been thinking all evening. “If we can’t find the cause of all this, we’re going to need to treat the symptom. We can’t let him keep doing this.”

—

The oh she let out told him that she knew exactly why Owen had had Emilio in his apartment, and it took everything the slayer had not to let out a groan. So much for keeping that little tidbit on the DL. He scowled in the general direction of the mirror, though it was obvious that the expression was just for him. There was no way for her to see it. If she had any kind of cameras inside Owen’s apartment, she probably wouldn’t have needed him to break in. But, in any case, the scowl made him feel a little better about his dirty laundry being aired out, and that was enough for Emilio. 

It wasn’t the worst thing in the world, at least. This particular brand of irritation was something easier to swallow, something that was almost funny. It let him forget about the heavy shit. For a minute, Eve wasn’t someone who’d shown up in his hometown to mold the corpses of his friends and neighbors into stories easier for strangers to swallow, or one of a very small handful of people left alive who knew what he’d lost in that living room three years ago. For a moment, Eve was just someone who’d puzzled out that Emilio had slept with Owen fucking Lundkvist. She was someone who hummed to herself in his ear, and made a joke when he mentioned it. And that was better, even if it was temporary. He preferred that, even if he was the one who couldn’t let it last.

“Other people’s business is kind of what we both do, isn’t it?” His tone was dry, more clipped than it had been before. He wished it weren’t, wished he were capable of keeping up the lightness and avoiding the elephant in the room. But Emilio was so easily consumed by the dark shadows that lurked in the back of his mind. He’d never been able to outrun them entirely. “Camera’s a good idea. Might help us get eyes on this woman without her figuring it out.” It’d be better to see her in person, of course. Between the two of them, Emilio and Eve would be able to suss out pretty easily if she were undead or fae. If she was neither, it’d narrow things down a lot. But… at this stage, he got the feeling that secrecy was important. Owen already knew Emilio was snooping around, probably knew Eve was, too. Whatever they could keep from him would only work in their favor.

Right now, they knew plenty. Everything was mostly circumstantial — a missing woman’s wallet in your couch cushions and bloody clothes in your laundry might have convinced a human jury of your guilt, but hunters knew those things didn’t always mean anything — but coupled with what they’d known coming in, with the bodies Eve had photographed and the man Owen claimed died due to a vampire who was dust before Eve’s arrival to the scene? It spelled things out plainly. “Obvious answer is usually true, with shit like this,” he agreed. Part of him wanted to say I’m sorry, though he didn’t know why. This kind of behavior wasn’t something Emilio had expected from Owen, but he hated the guy enough to have no problem believing it. Was it different for Eve? Were she and Owen something closer to friends? He remembered how he’d felt when Rhett had crossed one too many lines, how his stomach churned and his chest ached. Was that what Eve was feeling now? Did he care? It wasn’t as if he and Eve were friends, either. They were allied due to a common enemy. How she felt about that — how she felt about anything — had no bearing on him.

But he wanted to say I’m sorry, and he couldn’t put a finger on why, so he didn’t say anything at all. He turned his jaw into a jail cell and locked the words behind his teeth, and he moved into the bedroom in silence. “There now,” he confirmed, snapping more pictures before beginning to dig. He dutifully opened the drawers, sifting through socks and underwear with little fanfare. Emilio was hardly one to care about digging through the underwear drawer of someone he used to fuck; it wasn’t as if he hadn’t seen most of these garments before in one way or another. 

He listened as Eve spoke, quietly rifling around. “Not sure he’d care much about getting caught in a bar full of vampires,” he commented. “Doubt anyone there would have given much of a shit. Could have been worried about transferring the body, I guess.” Some might find it strange, the casual nature with which Emilio spoke of his own potential death, or the way he referred to the body as if the corpse in this hypothetical wouldn’t have been his own. To Emilio, it was a simple way of laying out the facts. Why hadn’t Owen killed him? He doubted the other slayer was worried he wouldn’t win a fight, though he’d lost plenty against Emilio before. (Or… one. Which, in Emilio’s mind, was a substantial number.) Why hadn’t he killed Eve when her guard was down and they were alone? “Maybe he’s worried about blowback. You do cleanup. A lot of hunters call on you. You’re not on active hunts, so hard to sell that your death was related to that. Could be he just thought it’d be too much trouble. Or… he thinks he’s still got you fooled, and is hoping you’ll help him clean something up later.” But was Owen someone who planned ahead that much? He wasn’t exactly known for considering the consequences of his actions.

The obvious answer, then, was something more emotional, but that was difficult for Emilio to believe. It was easier to think of Owen as someone who felt nothing for anyone. It was easier to consider him a monster, to imagine him with sharp teeth and no remorse. The fact that he’d spared Emilio was something he could rationalize due to the public nature of their encounter, but sparing Eve? That was harder to explain away, and he hated it. He hated the way it made him pause for just a moment when Eve mentioned treating the symptom if they couldn’t uncover the disease, hated that Owen’s moment of pause gave him one of his own. He clenched his teeth together, silently chastising himself for that moment of hesitation. “We can’t let him keep this up,” he agreed. “You or me could be next.” Or Jade. Or Daiyu. It was lucky Kaden had left town and given him one less person to worry about, lucky Rhett had fucked off months ago. But there were still plenty of hunters in this town and, regardless of how often his morality set him apart from them, Emilio wasn’t sure he could sit back and let Owen keep killing them. 

Closing the drawer, he sighed. “Look… I can do what needs doing. I’ve got no problem with it. He’s not giving us a whole lot of choice here.” Eve seemed to give more of a shit about Owen than Emilio did. It shouldn’t be on her to kill someone she might still consider a friend when Emilio wanted to stab the guy half the time, anyway. Moving across the room to the garbage can, he rubbed his thumb absently against his ring. “It’s not like I haven’t tried it before. Stabbed him a few months back. Nothing fatal, but definitely pissed him off. Won’t pretend it didn’t feel good to…” He trailed off, bending down painfully to pick up a crumpled paper from beside the garbage and smoothing it out. Holding it up to the light, he furrowed his brow. “Huh.”

—

Eve exhaled. Fine, fun moment of banter over. She didn’t deign his sharp tone with a response. There was no point. This alliance would clearly end the moment Owen was dealt with, one way or the other, Emilio had made that perfectly clear. As he commented on her cameras, offered a tiny snippet of praise, she rolled her eyes. “I have those, sometimes.”

“If he’d left you dead in a vampire bar I can’t imagine he’d have needed to worry about your body,” Eve replied idly, as used to speaking about hunter death as the weather, because it only made the question bigger. There was no love lost between Emilio and Owen, their online presence had made that perfectly clear. If he was tasked with protecting a vampire, why not take out the obvious threat? She rolled the thought around in her head, twisting her laptop charging cable around her fingers as a nervous fidget while Emilio spoke. “No hunter will be surprised when I get killed on an interrupted clean, especially if it also killed the hunter who called me. You couldn’t have written a better explanation if you’d planned it.” Eve spoke of her own death in the way Emilio had spoken of his. She bit her lip, thinking of how she’d sat even closer to Owen as she’d made her realisations, kept up her flippant jokes, leant in instead of leant out. “I hope I have him fooled, but if I were him I wouldn’t want any loose ends.”

If Emilio’s hesitation phased her, she didn’t show it. What Eve was suggesting was radical even by her standards, it didn’t feel good, but it was also right. One dead hunter to save several more. The maths just made sense. When he finally agreed with her, she nodded. If little else, at least they had this in common. Curiosity, Etla, and pragmatism. 

Eve’s eyebrows drew close together, more than a little irked at Emilio’s chivalry. Like she’d have a problem with it. Like Eve didn’t lock up her heart behind carbon fibre hulls every single day to do what she did, what he couldn’t stomach. Like whatever affection she had ever felt for anyone had interfered in her work for ten years. Yes, perhaps it was easier to carve up dead humans than living ones, but it wouldn’t be hard. As he kept talking, her eyes widened slightly. Maybe she should consider herself lucky that Emilio hadn’t stabbed her in his living room. Before this, before Owen, hunter threats had been common as muck. Arguments about secrecy rarely went smoothly, and no matter how even keeled Eve could be, few hunters (especially those who weren’t wardens) regularly matched that. Knives held to her throat and even the occasional blows had all felt like bluster. Violence may be their native language, but hunters didn’t damage each other. Except Owen. And Emilio, apparently. “It’ll be whoever encounters him first, if it comes to it. As Owen has so neatly proven, it isn’t hard to kill someone who isn’t expecting it.”

Emilio had fallen quiet. Eve cocked her head, glancing down at the screen with Owen in the bar. His emptied glasses collection had grown absurdly large. “What?”

—

It was a good point, of course. Disposing of a body wasn’t exactly difficult for undead people to accomplish. Sure, Emilio’s blood was no good to them — he always got something of a kick out of watching one of them realize it, of biting into his skin expecting a meal and finding their mouth filled with acid instead — but there were other ways to deal with a corpse. There’d probably been a zombie or two in the crowd who would have gladly taken his body home in a doggy bag, or a vampire old enough to have the necessary contacts to make a corpse disappear in broad daylight without question. No, if Owen had wanted to kill him in that bar, there was little reason Emilio could see for him to avoid it. Just as the reasons he gave Eve to explain her continued heartbeat were flimsy at best. Owen had no problem killing hunters, and Eve and Emilio were both the sort who would almost certainly get in his way. So why leave them alive? 

(Why hadn’t Emilio driven that stake in deeper at the end of his last physical altercation with Owen? Why hadn’t he slit his throat when he’d been laying on the floor of that apartment? Why hadn’t he let the nymph Rhett carted them off on a joint hunt to take care of kill Owen in a way he could have pretended was impossible to prevent? Owen could have killed him in that bar, but he could have killed Owen plenty of times before that. He didn’t know what stopped him, so how could he possibly understand what stopped Owen?) 

“He’s a cocky bastard,” he said, trying to sound more certain than he felt. “Maybe he likes thinking he’s pulling one over on both of us. Maybe it just makes him feel smart.” It wasn’t even a good explanation, because while Eve might have made some attempt at convincing Owen that she was fooled, Emilio had done no such thing. Owen knew he was suspicious of him, knew he was already digging around and snooping in places Owen wanted him out of. Maybe he liked feeling smart at the idea of fooling Eve, but he knew he hadn’t fooled Emilio. There was no explanation that really made sense.

Just as there was no explanation that could fully allow him to understand the tightness in his chest, either. Hadn’t he wanted Owen dead since the moment he’d shoved him against that wall and delivered verbal blows that were impossible to dodge? Hadn’t he threatened it a thousand times now? Eve said that whoever ran into him next would have to do the deed, and Emilio wondered if he ought to make sure that that was him in spite of the way his heart stuttered at the concept. Was it the idea of killing another hunter that made him so uneasy? The concept hadn’t bothered him in the past. Not when Andy killed a ranger to protect her sister, not when he confronted Parker with the full intention of leaving him to rot in the woods. Why was Owen different? Emilio didn’t know. And, as most things did, the not knowing made him angry. “Yeah, well, I can’t say he won’t expect it from me. Doesn’t mean it’ll be any harder.” It was a lie, and he wished it wasn’t. It was a lie, and it shouldn’t have been.

He busied himself with the paper instead, with the feeling of it uncrumpling in his hand and the smudged writing on it. A list of names, both familiar and foreign. Emilio squinted at it, tilting his head to the side. Some seemed like people Owen might want kept safe. The surname Lundkvist appeared frequently enough in the beginning that, at first, he almost assumed it was just a list of family members. But the sixth name on the list broke the pattern. Wyatt Barlow. The lamia with the bad attitude? Emilio hadn’t even known Owen knew the guy. 

That name wasn’t anywhere near as puzzling as what followed. Emilio’s eye caught his own name, with Eve’s right beneath it. The remainder of the list — Jade, Rosemary, Bridie, Conor, the guy who owned the fucking blade shop, Rhett — all seemed secondary. His mind was spinning in circles with attempts to connect the names. A list of enemies? It was possible that Owen was on poor enough terms with his family to consider them as such, but he’d been uncomfortably friendly with Rhett. People who might take note of his recent behavior? He couldn’t imagine someone like Wyatt giving a shit about dead hunters, especially not when paired with the fact that Wyatt had seemed keen on eating him until they’d had something of a bonding experience. If not for his own name on the list, he might have considered the possibility that these were all people Owen cared about, but… Hadn’t Owen made it clear that Emilio was far from his favorite person?

Eve’s voice in his ear startled him from his thoughts. Embarrassingly, he’d almost forgotten she was on the line. He cleared his throat, smoothing out the list a little more and snapping a picture of it. “I found something,” he said. “A list of names. Sending it to you now. I know some of them. Different people from around town, or people who used to live here. Rhett Tangaroa, he’s a warden. Think you know Jade, she’s a slayer. None of the rest are hunters. Most of them aren’t even human. What do you make of this?” Maybe Eve would have more of a clue than he did. As much as he hated to admit it… Emilio was stumped. 

— 

“What, like a hit list?” Eve asked when he finally replied, clicking the notification the moment he sent it. The file opened on her laptop, crumpled paper in handwriting that even Eve knew couldn’t be Owen’s. She mouthed the names, one by one, like reading them would make them real. 

Benjamin Lundkvist

Katarina Lundkvist

Clark Lundkvist

Astrid Lundkvist

Felix Lundkvist

Wyatt Barlow

Emilio Cortez

Eve Farran

Jade Bloodworth

Rosemary Kane

Rhett Tangaroa 

Bridie Dougherty

Conor Kiernan

Chet

Eve sat in silence, letting it stretch between them, staring at her name on the list. Her mind wondered, just as Emilio’s had, if this was enemies, or threats, and dismissed them as out of hand. She looked at Jade’s, who was more playful than any hunter Eve had ever met, at Rosemary, who could brighten up a bloodied alley. People who were so easy to like and let yourself be liked by. And Eve, who tried to be as palatable as possible to everyone, who could pick a fight and sweep it under the rug at the next moment. Emilio didn’t fit in that mold, not in a million fucking years, but he was a a gasoline fire, warm right until it burned you. Eve looked at the other names on the list, the Lundkvists, and reached for her laptop again. It wouldn’t be a thorough search, and it wouldn’t be perfect - it wasn’t like Eve spoke Swedish, and translation apps only got you so far. Anything was better than the growing question in her chest. 

“Okay, at first glance, I can’t find Felix, Astrid or Clark of the Lundkvists online, but I’ve found Benjamin and Katarina. They look… old enough to be his parents. Or maybe aunts and uncles.” Both of them were on facebook, of all places. Katarina had an especially bloated friendslist. Eve idly scrolled through her profile as she sat there and thought. Her mind came back to the zombie, the basement, the fridge she’d locked herself in and the way Owen had held her later, checking for a bite he wouldn’t have been able to do anything about. 

“So, I hate to ask an incredibly awkward question for the both of us,” Eve began cautiously, as once again she had to reveal something about herself that neither of them wanted to know. “When the two of you went from slayers with benefits to threatening to kill each other on the regular, any chance you had that falling out winter of last year? Maybe an argument that he started, when he took every damn thing he knew about you and twisted it to throw it in your face? Where suddenly every teasing insult he’d ever said suddenly sounded like he’d always meant it? Any chance it was the kind of thing someone would say if they really wanted you to hate them?” Eve let the thought linger in the air, knowing how much it implicated her as much as him, how it reflected on both of them. Her joke, when it came, was not meant to be believable. “Hypothetically, obviously.”

It was only in the admitting that she might have the capacity to care that she gave herself the ability to lock that caring away so thoroughly. To hunt a fae, you had to be prepared to be emotionally compromised along the way. You had to be able to feel, and to finish the hunt either way. Not every hunter trained that way. How many humans’ bodies had she found, draped over another corpse as if to protect them? How many humans had she found dead with knives in their hands, ready to fight a threat they could barely understand? How many humans had let themselves become vampires, become werewolves, become monsters just to be strong enough to protect their community, only to be what destroyed it anyway? All the best and worst parts of Hunters were their humanity. Maybe that was true for Owen too.  “What I’m getting at is…. Any chance this is a blackmail list?”

It would be an absurd number of names. It was absurd for hers to be on there at all, yet as soon as she voiced it, it felt like it fit. Maybe just because Eve couldn’t picture having a family you’d want to kill. Maybe because it was on a piece of paper meant to be thrown away. Maybe because if it was, it answered the question they had just asked each other. 

As she spoke, Eve logged into one of her many fake facebook accounts, and sent Katarina a friend request. There were other ways to learn what she wanted to know, but sometimes the easiest was just to let people tell you. The accept came… worryingly quickly. Considering the time difference, but then again Slayers didn’t need to sleep the way Eve did. She scrolled the publicly available likes and groups Katarina was in, just to get some gleam of a hint of something, anything. She liked a lot of memes, apparently. In those Minion Mom groups, and elsewhere. You don’t know tired until you’re chasing a toddler at three am. Share this on your page if you love your kids. Like this if you’ll even go to your kid’s primary school graduation. 

It was kinda sweet, really. Not the vibe Eve expected from someone who was related to, well, Owen. The kind of thing she’d had given him shit for if the circumstances were different. Most of the memes were like that, but the children referenced in many of these memes were… young. Eve looked at the names on the lists again. 

“Emilio. I think Katarina Lundkvist has young children.” Maybe even ones called Astrid, Clark or Felix. 

—-

His eyes remained locked on his own name on that list. If he ignored everything around it, he could twist the situation into one that made more sense. Owen wanting to kill him wouldn’t be a surprise; if anything, Emilio might welcome the concept. If Owen wanted him dead, things could be simpler. He could do what needed doing, and he’d never have to think about it again. It would be as easy as staking a vampire, as simple as removing the head off a reanimated corpse. If this was a hit list, it meant that Owen was little more than another monster that needed to be taken out in order for Emilio to protect his friends.

But he was too good a detective to accept an assumption as fact just because he wanted it to be true. The truth was rarely ever what you wanted it to be. Emilio had learned that over and over and over again. It was a painfully complicated thing that changed with the wind, a shovel that hollowed you out and twisted you up. The truth was obvious, sometimes, like when all the evidence in Owen’s apartment pointed them in a very specific direction, but that didn’t make it simple. There was nothing simple about any of this.

“No,” he said, still staring at the list, “not a hit list.” He kept his voice even, neutral, but if someone knew him well enough… they might have been able to pick up on the hint of disappointment behind the words. There was a list, and it wasn’t a hit list. There was a list, and it wasn’t a hit list, and his name was on it. There was a list, and it wasn’t a hit list, and his name was on it, and he had no goddamn idea what to do with that. The truth was never simple; Emilio wished, just once, it would be.

Eve went quiet long enough to look up the names. Three came back with no results, but two proved more successful. Owen’s parents, maybe, or some other relatives. He tried to slot the information into place, tried to make it tie the story together a little better, but it still didn’t make a whole lot of sense. “All right, so… His parents, us, and a few locals. Plus the others with his last name. Relatives with no online presence?” In 2024? That was a hard sell. Maybe they were people who’d died before the internet became as ingrained in society as it was now, though that made little sense, either. Emilio had to assume that everyone on the list was alive, at least to Owen’s knowledge. But if Eve couldn’t find them…

Her voice pulled him from his thoughts again, asking questions it seemed she already knew the answer to. Emilio grimaced, trying not to remember the moment he and Owen had gone from, as Eve so delicately put it, slayer with benefits to threatening to kill each other on the regular. It was hard not to hear the echo of Owen’s voice in his mind, hard not to recall every syllable he’d flung in Emilio’s direction. You can barely keep yourself alive. Not just in a fight, no. You live like you’re already fucking dead and you’re just waiting for somebody to find your corpse. Except nobody will because you don’t have anyone. You can’t do shit because you’re fucking nothing. 

Hadn’t it done exactly what Eve was insinuating now? Hadn’t it been the only nail he’d ever needed to have driven into the coffin of whatever he and Owen had before? He disliked how familiar Eve’s story sounded, disliked the way it made him feel as if he’d been manipulated into reacting the way he did. If there was one thing Emilio hated, one thing he’d rage against until the end of fucking time, it was the perception of his agency being taken from him. The fact that Owen might have been able to accomplish it without him even being aware it was happening… 

“It was closer to autumn,” he replied, as if that made a difference at all. “Summer, even.” Did it matter if the encounter had taken place in August or October? The end result was the same either way. He scowled down at the list, glared at his own name on the page. He was angry Owen manipulated him; he was angry Owen might give a shit whether he lived or died. He was angry that he was angry, and wasn’t that a shitty way to be? “If it’s a blackmail list, it’s a weird one. Can’t imagine anyone using me as something to hold over his head. Can’t imagine it working.” Maybe Emilio’s name was there as an oversight, an incorrect assumption on the part of whoever had made the list. It was the easiest option to swallow.

(The truth was rarely easy.)

He was left to swallow the unsettling ramifications as Eve typed away on her keyboard, wishing he had something more to do than look at the note in his hands. The apartment had been thoroughly searched; there wasn’t anything more to find. They knew everything they could know. It wasn’t as if Owen would have photos of the mysterious woman pulling his strings laying around somewhere to be uncovered, after all. They’d been lucky he kept the damn list — though, from the looks of things, that was largely due to his lack of motivation when it came to doing simple household chores like taking out the garbage. By the time Eve’s voice chirped in his ear again, it was a relief. 

Until he digested what she said.

Young children. The names on Owen’s list, the ones who weren’t easily found online, were kids. Emilio felt a familiar buildup of rage, a quiet fury that threatened to turn the world red. He didn’t like Owen, no matter what the fucking list implied. He didn’t give a shit if the guy was miserable, didn’t even really care that someone was pulling his strings. (He’d been an ass before someone was pulling his strings, too, after all.) But if this person was threatening kids, if there were children involved in all this…

“We need to find a way to end this.” He crumpled the list back up, tossed it back towards the garbage can and let it fall where it had been before. “One way or another, we need to figure out how to stop him and whoever’s in charge of him.”

—

“Guess that doesn’t match up with a timeline for getting people out of his life if a threat was hanging over his head,” Eve replied as Emilio answered her definite hypothetical. Maybe it didn’t mean anything after all, it was just something Owen did. Maybe only some of the names on this list were right. She didn’t have any more speculation to offer, no answers for herself or for Emilio. But if she was right, that meant a little bit of the blood spilled lined her hands too. Fuck Owen for that part particularly. 

“I agree, and whatever we do, we need to act quickly.” Eve looked at the list. The maths had changed. If she could be certain that taking out Owen would keep other hunters safe and wouldn’t jeopardise the people on the list, it would be one thing. There were complications on that page that didn’t fit in an algorithm. That were more messy than simply closing off her heart. It was a tiny relief, that the only lesson from this was that the first call wasn’t murdering Owen. It was just a much heavier weight that came with it, that there was no easy answer. Like a game of Clue, they had the locations,  the motive, and the murder weapon: Owen. But they weren’t any fucking closer to whodunnit. It was so much easier to be the one making the mystery than solving it. Eve smacked the car dashboard hard enough to leave a dent in it. “I’m fine,” she said lightly but just as quickly into the mic, because Emilio would have heard it. 

“Someone’s been watching Owen enough to put this list together, we have to assume someone’s keeping tabs on us too. We’ll need to be careful.” The thought sent ice down her spine. For a watcher, Eve did not love to be watched. The question lingered: who did Owen fear so much that he genuinely believed could be a threat to everyone on this list. Six confirmed adult hunters, a spellcaster, whatever Emilio meant by some of the names on there being not human. Owen wasn’t one to overestimate a threat. “We have the camera and someone on that list might know something. We’ll find her.” The reassurance was more for herself than for him. 

Eve glanced at her screen, just in time to see Owen starting to argue with what looked to be the dingy bar’s bouncer. Which would likely only go one of a few ways. “Time’s up, he’ll be out of the bar soon. I’ll reset the flat. See you around, Emilio—”

—Unfortunately, for all three of them. 

[enthrallinglyeden]

TIMING: pre-finale LOCATION: wicked's rest public library PARTIES: eve @technowarden and eden @enthrallinglyeden SUMMARY: eve and eden are stuck in the library until the fog and lightning dies down. CONTENT WARNINGS: none!

In his few months in Wicked’s Rest, Eden had already developed an enemy. It wasn’t some strange creature lurking in the shadows or a powerful spellcaster that had it out for him. No, the supernatural had nothing on his real enemy. The ancient computers in the library haunted him daily, always making his life worse just for the sake of it. Sometimes they would turn off on their own, other days they’d refuse to turn off at all. No matter how many times Eden slammed his hand on the computer, it was like the piece of junk had a mind of its own. Simply put, it was mocking him, and he was done letting a computer be his downfall.

He had suggested a few times to his boss that they just replace the computers all together, Eden could’ve easily made a hefty donation that would’ve covered the complete cost anyways. However, he was turned down every time. According to his co-workers, the ghosts despised changes to the library, and Eden was not going to be the newcomer who pissed off the ghosts. 

His next best option was to call in reinforcements — at least the ghosts seemed to approve of tech support. Eden wasn’t sure if anyone was going to answer his initial call. After all, anyone with an understanding of technology would know that these computers were beyond saving. But then Eve by her own free will, and she managed to keep the computers alive from week to week. Sometimes, she even got them to work fast, and that was as big of a miracle that Eden could ever hope of seeing.

“Thank you again, really,” he said to the woman, resting his hand on the table as she worked on one of the computers. It was a late night for both of them today, with the library essentially deserted just minutes before closing time. A part of Eden felt bad that it took Eve until the evening to figure out the issues today, but she seemed to enjoy her work and it wasn’t like he was in much of a rush to go home either. “Seriously, we owe you big time. If there’s anything I can do for you, just say the word.”

—

The town was ending. Unfortunately, this was happening slowly, on a timeline only the demons could see. While Eve did what she could, sometimes her job involved just waiting, whether that was for a program to upload, or for someone to click on one of her promoted adverts, or for an email reply. Hers was a hunt of patience. Which meant Eve had time for her other unending pursuits, such as maintaining the library computer systems.  

Unlike most of Eve’s contract work, she didn’t ask for payment from the library. Maintaining the computers they had was fulfilling work, despite how decrepit they might be. 

The irony of it didn’t escape her. Here, the master of deceptions and suppressing information was helping ensure people could reach it. But libraries were so much more than their books and computers, genuine community hubs for people from every walk of life. That said, if playing nice with the library staff made it easier for her to occasionally modify a database or “misplace” a book if something looked like it might interfere with her core mission. It was also true that the company was nothing to sneeze at. While he was often busy, it was nice chatting to Eden when he wasn’t, about whichever books they might be reading. When he wasn’t around, Eve hummed quietly as she worked, updating drivers and replacing faulty fans.  Every hour or so, she’d pause to check through her phone, and set off any bot commands she needed to. But she didn’t suspect Eden minded all that much. 

“That’s alright. No need to thank me,” Eve replied, dropping the last fried fan that she had replaced from a computer tower into her bag. Or thank anyone, for that matter, but Eve couldn’t exactly tell him that. As he offered her a favour, Eve dropped a hand on her hip, tapping her chin with her other hand, as if seriously considering it. 

“You know, there is one thing you could do for me,” Eve said slowly, turning back to Eden with a slow smile. It was the same favour she asked every week, and every week Eden said no.  “You could upgrade this computers to something from this decade. For some of them, I’ll even just settle for something from this century.” She eyed a couple of the desktops in the corner that were almost as old as she was. “I just don’t get it. You can get computers second hand that wouldn’t need their drivers checked every month. I’m not sure how long we can keep doing this Sysiphus bit before the proverbial rock stops moving altogether.”

—

Eden shook his head while offering Eve an apologetic smile. He should’ve seen it coming as soon as he offered her a favour. After all, it had become a sort of running joke between the two of them over the weeks. “Haven’t you learned to save your breath by now?” He said with a glint in his eye. She knew very well that Eden would replace every computer in a blink of an eye if it were up to him. 

“Though I do look forward to the one week where I can finally give you a different answer, I wouldn’t get my hopes up. Unlike Sysiphus’ proverbial rock, ours is powered by the spirits of angry library ghosts, and I don’t think they have any plans of letting this piece of junk go anytime soon.” In truth, Eden had yet to really catch a ghost in action in the library, but it was an added amusement to his day when he got to spread the stories amongst the library’s patrons. Not that he didn’t believe they existed — they probably did, but after getting to know more about the supernatural happenings of Wicked’s Rest, grumpy old ghosts were the least of his worries.

“Of course if this commitment ever becomes too time-consuming, I can push harder with the staff to replace everything so you won’t have to make all these trips,” Eden said, furrowing his brow. Of course he was aware of the fact that Eve was offering her services for free, and he didn’t want to have to turn to her when she had other paying customers to tend to. The library would have to change with the times eventually, and if there was anyone who could convince the library ladies to do so, it would likely be him. 

Eden pulled his phone out of his pocket as Eve finished up with the last computer. 9:07 pm. Not considerably overtime, but late enough to be closing up. He proceeded to the nearby window to make sure it was shut all the way — who knew what wild creature he’d come back to in the morning otherwise. However, something else caught his attention as he put his hand on the latch. Standing by the window that would usually give Eden a clear view of the parking lot, neither his nor Eve’s vehicles were visible past a pitch-black fog. “Wow, it’s dark out. Do you know if they said anything about a storm tonight?” 

—

“You can’t blame a girl for trying,” Eve shook her head, looking up at him from her chair. “Uh huh. Just blame the imaginary ghosts, and definitely not your colleagues who are afraid of progress,” Eve teased, hoping he was joking about the ghosts, or that he had already picked up the Wicked’s Rest superstitions. “I don’t mind. Actually, I kinda like the challenge. Your computers have problems I’ve never seen before. But if you upgraded just a couple of them, you might have less of a headache during the part of the week where I can’t be here.”

“No. I guess the sun is setting earlier and earlier every day,” Eve replied. She stood up, frowning as she peered out of the windows. Even with the sun down, they should have been able to see the street lights, but there was a thick fog dimming the light. Her brow furrowed even deeper. The other problem with fall was that fog was a natural part of the weather. Was this fog or was it The Fog that a couple people had already mentioned to her? Eve wasn’t willing to risk it. She stepped back, turning to face Eden. “You’re right, the weather looks miserable out there. We should probably hole up here until it passes, just to be safe. At least I have good company.” 

It might be worth getting further away from the entrance too. “As I’m here, I noticed you had a bit of a dodgy-looking electrical socket on the far left back there. Wanna see if I can do something about that while the weather clears?”

—

“Hey, you try telling Helen that you’re replacing the only piece of technology she knows how to use in this town,” Eden said as he threw his hands up in the air. His co-workers were like the stereotypical elderly ladies he saw on TV, but on the rare occasion, he’d seen people get on their bad sides. If he knew what was good for him, he had no intention of being on the receiving end of their wrath. Eve did have a point though. The responsibility fell on him when things broke down on the days she wasn’t present, and it wasn’t like Eden even knew a damn thing about technology. “I’ll consider it. For both of our sakes.”

For now, Eden was going to focus on the more pressing issue at hand. The fog was darker and thicker than any fog he’d witnessed before, even more so than the occasional smog that would cover Shanghai. He hummed in agreement at Eve’s suggestion to stay put. “Hm, well how can I say no to being called good company?” Eden smirked, closing the window tight before heading back to where Eve stood. Inflated ego aside, there’d be no point in trying to navigate his way back home in this weather anyways. 

“Oh! Yeah, I forgot about that one. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t. Seems to be the running theme in this building,” Eden said as he started leading Eve to the back left of the room. “I’ve been meaning to ask, how did you become so skilled with tech anyways? You’re probably more efficient than any other electrician I’ve dealt with.” If they were going to be holed up in the library for now, the least Eden could do was try and get to know the woman. 

—

“Let me try. I’m so persuasive! I’ll take her out for a coffee, tell her how impressive it is to be the guardian of all knowledge as a librarian, and then I’ll hold her hand and assure her that computers are so much easier to use now, and she’s so smart she’ll figure it out right away.” Eve shook her head, smiling. “I think it would be good for everyone involved.”

“I wouldn’t say it if I didn’t mean it.” Well, Eve would, but for once it was reasonably truthful. Her brow stayed furrowed as she followed Eden through to the back. She couldn’t help but glance back at the window a few more times. It was a cloying fog. 

“Oh, I’m not an electrician! I can just about wire a socket, not a whole house. As for the computer stuff, well, I’m just a natural,” Eve replied, “I was born knowing how to do all this!”  

“I mean, the far less sexy answer is that I spend way too much time working on this stuff, both as a hobby and a job. But that would make me uncool, and we couldn’t have that!” Eve grinned up at him unconvincingly. She had been about to continue her joke, when a flash of light lit up the windows, followed immediately by an ear deafening crack of thunder. Tilting her head, Eve frowned at the window. For a moment, it had looked as if the lightning had travelled through the fog itself. Which wasn’t how that worked, right? 

Lightning flashed through the fog again, this time plunging the library into darkness. When the thunder crashed, so did a window. 

—

“As long as you’ve got a plan to wine and dine her, I won’t say no,” Eden smiled at Eve’s generosity. Accepting help was still something he was trying to work on, or rather, accepting help from others and not feeling like a burden. Though the fact that this was all for the sake of the library was a comfort to his conscience. 

“Hey, wiring a socket is already more than what I can do, so in my head you’re an electrician,” Eden joked as he guided them through the shelves to the socket in question. The library was notorious for being dim even with all of the overhead lights on, and he could only hope that it was enough light for Eve to work under. “Being so talented at anything is cool, whether it’s because of natural talent or years of practice. You can trust me on that. As a librarian, I am obviously a trusted authority on what’s cool,” Eden said, winking at the woman.

However, their banter was cut short by a sudden flash of light, followed by the loudest noise Eden had ever heard in his life. He instinctively brought his hands up to his ears, wincing at the thunder. Funny, he thought to himself as he peered out the closest window. It wasn’t raining when he last looked through the fog. Perhaps it was a sign of the weather to come. As if on cue, a bright flash blinded the library once again and Eden stopped in his tracks. This time, the lightning had taken the rest of the building’s lights with it. He wasn’t too worried about navigating the dark since he could still sense Eve’s presence at his side, but it was the following crack of thunder that officially sent things into chaos. 

Somewhere to his right, he heard glass shattering. “What the fuck,” he whispered under his breath, as if speaking normally would attract nature’s wrath once again. Eden cautiously turned out of the aisle they were in, glancing at the shards of glass on the floor below a completely destroyed window. “Oh my god, that’s going to be a pain in the ass to fix,” he said with a groan.  Eden turned to face Eve, about to open his mouth to say something, when the next flash of lightning hit. A crash of thunder predictably followed suit, but neither of them were prepared for the window overhead of where they stood to break with it. 

“Fuck!” Eden yelped as the glass started to fly, bringing his arm over his face to try and lessen the impact. He hissed at the sharp sting he felt on the back of his hand, but regardless reached down to grab Eve’s arm to pull her back to the aisle. “Get away from the windows. Now.”

—

Eden pulled Eve through the aisle, to the furthest wall from any windows. She kept her eye on the fog and the windows as they kept moving, hopping over shattered glass. More crashes of thunder followed flashes of lightning, but no windows shattered for now. The mist did not pour into the library, but instead clung to the edges of the windows forebodingly. Something wet ran down Eve’s wrist. She glanced down, and winced. “Eden, you’re bleeding.” She grabbed a flashlight from her backpack to see while they came to a standstill. 

“Let me see?” Eve asked. “Just to keep you going until you can get a professional to look at it. I’m trained in first aid, even have a little kit in my bag.” Not to mention second aid, or third… or fourth. Most hunters preferred to avoid the emergency room where possible, so were exceedingly well versed in patching themselves and each other back up, and keeping the wounds looked after. While the precautions and healing times for humans were different, the base principles were the same.

Eden offered his hand, and Eve took it in hers carefully, looking it over. “It’s not so bad.” A hunter probably wouldn’t even worry about it, but perhaps that spoke more to the callous disregard that most hunters showed their own bodies, having been taught to see them as little more than weapons. “You might even avoid the medical bill entirely.” She fished her first aid kit from her backpack, and found a counter to start setting up on. 

—

The storm was relentless, but they seemed to be spared from any more flying glass for now. Catching their breaths as they reached the furthest wall from any windows, Eden finally took a proper look at his hand. Probably not an incredibly deep cut, but still enough for a stream of blood to run down his wrist onto Eve’s. “Ew. I’m so sorry,” he said with a wrinkle of his nose. He was never really fond of blood, even back in the colony when he was still eating hearts. Ever since swearing off of them, his dislike of the metallic scent only grew.

A part of Eden wondered why an IT contractor like Eve would need to know first aid, but then again, it just seemed like a good skill to have in a town like Wicked’s Rest. Whenever he had gotten scrapped up in the past, whether it was in his human or siren form, he always had someone to patch him up. He was on his own now — perhaps it was time he learned to do so himself. 

Though deciding that now wasn’t the best time to ask Eve where she’d gotten her first aid training, Eden stuck out his hand for her when prompted. “That’s a relief,” he said after she thoroughly analyzed the cut. Not that a medical bill would’ve been much of a hassle for him, but he did like to avoid the hospital if possible. Eden watched as Eve pulled a first aid kit out of her bag, trying not to think about how much this would sting in a few moments. “It seems like I can’t stop owing you favors.”

In order to distract himself as Eve got to work on his hand, Eden let his gaze wander to the broken windows. With how thick the fog outside seemed to be, he was half-expecting it to trickle its way into the building. However, the mist seemed to stop right at the threshold of the library. “This weather is so ominous…” Eden said as he reached for the flashlight with his good hand, shining it for Eve so that he didn’t feel completely useless. “I’ve been in some pretty bad storms, seen lightning that has knocked the power out of entire blocks, but never something this…destructive.”

—

“Don’t worry about it. My siblings and I used to rough house as kids all the time, cleaning up scrapes was pretty much an every-day thing.” Eve smiled up at him. Rough-housing was a generous term, and so were scrapes. When she’d been very small and it had just been play, her old siblings had insisted on patching up every little thing, but as soon as her hunter training had begun, Eve was just as responsible for taking care of the hunting wounds on her adult siblings as they had been for her training scratches. 

“This’ll sting,” she warned, carefully wiping down his hand with disinfectant on gauze. The bleeding was already slowing, fortunately. There were no glass splinters in the wound either, but she opened a sachet of saline anyway, just to clear the wound. “You don’t owe me anything, Eden. Seriously. I don’t believe much in counting favours or tracking debts.” In the same way she didn’t often thank people. Just because she couldn’t feel a fae nearby didn’t mean you didn’t need to watch your words. “It’s just, you know, being part of the community.”

While she was focused in on carefully adding butterfly strips across the cut, Eve did occasionally glance up, watching the mist, and for what might emerge from it. Despite her gnawing concern, Eve’s tone stayed light. “The weather by the coast can be so unpredictable. I’ve never seen a thunderstorm without wind or rain,” — or clouds — “but I guess that can happen with the mixing weather fronts. We’ll have to get something to cover the broken windows, though.”

— 

Even with Eve’s warning, Eden couldn’t help but grimace when the disinfectant touched the cut. His pain tolerance used to be better but ever since settling himself behind the library desk, his body had become used to a life of plush office chairs. Perhaps he needed to take up sparring again, just as he used to do regularly with the other members of the colony in both his human and true forms. That was the closest he ever had to the sibling rough housing that Eve described, though of course he wouldn’t tell her that in such exact detail.

Community was such a meaningless word to Eden. It was always a sentiment that the colony pushed for, but never something he actually felt from them. He knew that was part of the reason why he came to Wicked’s Rest in the first place. He craved the supernatural community he never had, but it was hard to be open about his true identity when he still wasn’t quite sure who to trust. For now, maybe he’d just have to focus on his human community. Returning lost items, helping someone cross the street, or tending to a wound in Eve’s case. “Just being part of the community,” Eden repeated out loud with a small nod of acknowledgement, more so for his own sake rather than Eve’s. 

He let his eyes drift to the windows, or what was left of them anyways, as Eve continued her work. “Yeah, probably the mixing weather fronts…” Eden said with a hint of uncertainty. There was always the possibility that it was something else, something more, but believing that the destruction was purely caused by nature was the only thing keeping him sane. Eden pursued his lips as he began to think. “I cleared out some cardboard boxes earlier and they might be big enough to cover the windows. The only thing is they’re out back with the rest of the trash and recycling…like, outside.” 

— 

“Exactly,” Eve smiled, taping down the last bit of gauze and gently smoothing the tape over his skin with her thumb. “We take care of each other. Especially when the weather gets shit.” This was the duality of hunting. You were built to spill blood and to have your blood spilt, to give everything to a population who had forgotten how to do anything other than take. Their large communities were what kept humans safe, and they had forgotten how to treasure it. It drove Eve up the wall, sometimes. This was why she came to the library and fixed the computers. Libraries were community hubs, and not everything that helped humans had to be life or death. It was why she helped Eden. “There you go. Just ensure you'll see a medical professional if it becomes infected, okay?”

Her eyes followed his to the windows. She frowned, weighing her options. There were things in the fog, she knew. Cardboard wasn’t going to hold much out for long, but then neither did glass it might just hide that there was someone in here to hurt. Better than nothing. She tilted her head, considering. “Hmm. How lightning proof are you feeling? You know, they say it never hits twice in the same place.” She didn’t sound optimistic despite her cheery words, because she wasn’t. Eve did not fancy being hit by lightning, but she fancied a human doing it even less. “I guess no time like the present, right? How far is your recycling from out here?”

—

“Right. Duly noted, doc,” Eden replied with a click of his tongue, though he was hoping she wouldn’t notice how her words went through one ear and out the other. He preferred avoiding the doctor’s office for as long as he could — not because he distrusted them, but because of the possibility that they’d discover something that they shouldn’t. Back home, he had only ever seen doctors who were sirens themselves for that very reason. He didn’t have that much faith in human technology to be able to expose him like that, but it was always better to be safe than sorry. 

Though the possibilities of infection were probably slim with how solid Eve’s patchwork was. Quite impressive for an IT contractor, really. Eden admired the bandaging on his hand once more before turning his attention to the library’s back door. “No idea how lightning proof I am, but I feel like I’m about to find out,” he said, his humor faltering as much as Eve’s optimism did. 

“It’s at the corner of the back parking lot. Probably 30 seconds there, 30 seconds back. Of course, that’s if everything goes smoothly…” he trailed off, already trying to envision the most effective way for him to get the cardboard. There was no way he was letting a human go out there with the destructive lightning, let alone the risk of whatever was lurking in the fog. “Don’t worry though, I like to think I’m a pretty fast runner.”

—

“Oh, you’re so chivalrous, but I guarantee I’m faster,” Eve replied with a playful wink. Which… was technically true. In certain situations. Like when she was wearing her running leg instead of her walking leg. While her walking leg allowed for a brief brisk jog (faster than any human would manage on the same leg), it wasn’t Warden speed. It didn’t really matter, by the time she was out there, it would be too late for him to stop her. There was no way she was letting a human risk their life on her behalf. “The captain should stay with his ship, and this is your library. Anyway, I need someone ready to catch the cardboard when I throw it through.”

She didn’t give him time to argue, dashing out the door before he could reply. The momentary satisfaction of winning was quickly overturned with the threat of the thick fog. Squinting, Eve hurried over to where Eden had described, half running, half hopping on her good leg. 

—

Eden scoffed at Eve’s challenge, though he was admittedly grateful that she was able to bring some humor to their bleak circumstances. “I mean, I’m flattered that you think this is my ship. Nancy would heavily disagree. I swear she thinks she owns the pla–” His rambling came to a halt at the sound of the back door flinging open, Eve running past him in a blur of motion. 

“Eve! Damn it…” Eden scrambled to the door, only catching the slightest view of the top of her head before she disappeared into the fog completely. She is undoubtedly much faster than me, he couldn’t help but think to himself, though he was going to blame it on the fact that he had been distracted. Focus, Eden. There were clearly bigger issues at hand than his bruised ego. 

He took a step out the door, the thick fog quickly enveloping him. Practically clinging to his body, it was unlike any fog he’d ever experienced before. For a second, Eden thought back to Eve’s orders about staying put. However, he quickly wrote off the option. He was a siren after all — even if he lost sight of the library, he was confident he’d still be able to find his way back. Another reason why he needed to go help Eve, and one of the rare moments that he was grateful for his siren DNA. 

Continuing forward, Eden walked the direction to the recycling that he’d done day in and day out. “Eve? Where are you?” He called out, though he kept his voice low. If there really was something lurking in the blinding fog, the last thing he wanted to do was draw their attention. Eden furrowed his brow as he neared the recycling area. The pull back towards the library overwhelmed his body, but he was determined to finish what he’d started. “Eve, are you okay?”

—

Eve jogged, arms raised like she might fend off the lightning if it came for her. There was something desperately human about it, in the same way a human would try to claw uselessly at a vampire, Eve still raised her arms to fight nature itself. Even if the nature was far from natural. 

There were no waypoints visible through the fog, so she stretched her fingers out to run them along the side of the library walls, until she reached the fence of the car park and followed that. When she caught sight of the recycling bins, Eve hurried forward, grabbing the large cardboard pieces.

Something scuttled by in the corner of her eye. Eve spun, squinting into the fog. Nothing. But then again, she heard the crackling of something creeping nearby. There was something out here. 

There was something else, too, calling her name through the fog, like the foghorn on a lighthouse…. 

“Eden? What the hell are you doing out here?” Fucking humans. Always too damn eager to help. “We need to go, now!” If she grabbed his arm a little too tight, she did not notice. If she pulled him just an inch too fast, back towards where she remembered the library being, she didn’t care. There were ways to lie about the source of your superhuman-ness later, it was much harder to lie about a dead corpse. 

Eve had plenty of practice, of course, but she actually liked her little visits with the local librarian. It wasn’t a place she wanted to practice her duty. 

—

There was no immediate response, but Eden swore he sensed movement near him. His eyes darted around the area, as if he’d be able to catch anything through the fog. Silence washed over him for a second as he contemplated what to do next, but the sudden hand on his arm jerked him back to full attention. 

Though the fog still clung to them, Eve was standing close enough that Eden could identify her — close enough that he could make out the furrowed brow on her face. “I’m here to make sure you didn’t die after you recklessly ran out here,” he hissed. Humans were always too confident for their own good. Most of them didn’t even know half of what was lurking out there, only finding out when they took fangs or claws to the leg. Even if Eve thought her physical capabilities were above average, what good would a human do against a siren song or a banshee scream?

But now was not the time to be contemplating the existence of humans, and Eve seemed to think so too by the way her grip tightened on his arm. On another day, maybe he’d whine that she was pulling him too aggressively, but Eden wanted to get back inside as much as the next person. He even followed Eve’s lead considering she was moving with such certainty, not wanting to get in the way of whatever she was trying to prove to herself by running out here in the first place. He’d be ready in an instant if things went awry though, which they seemingly often did in this town. 

A few metres forward and the library building started coming into view, at least the silhouette of it that was visible through the fog. Before Eden could feel too relieved, a shattering clap of thunder boomed over their heads. Even though he knew what was going to come next, he didn’t want to stick around to make sure. “Hurry,” Eden said as if that wasn’t what they were already doing, but he instinctively shoved Eve through the door anyway. The following bolt of lightning felt close enough to make the hairs on neck stand, but he didn’t dare look back to see what the damage was. Slamming the door behind them, Eden had never felt more relieved to be standing in the library. 

“So…” Eden began, eyes darting between Eve’s face and the cardboard in her hand before he let out a nervous laugh. “I think that went pretty well.”

—

"How is you being here going to protect me from lightning?” Eve hissed back as they ran inside. "Who is being reckless now?" Fortunately, whatever else had been out there (or perhaps it had always been Eden), had decided not to take chase. Perhaps it had been as spooked by them as they were by it. Eve swung the door shut behind her. Not that much mattered, considering the state of the windows, but it gave her something to do, a way to look away from Eden as she tamed her tempest of frustrations. She did not flinch as thunder rumbled outside.

One, two, three. That was the number of heartbeats it took to calm the irritation out of her system. To remind herself that humans (especially human men) were also conditioned to protect each other. Just as she had said earlier, they were a community-driven species. She couldn't fault him for not knowing better. Eve turned back to him with a relieved smile. “Yeah! Neither of us got struck by lightning! That would have been a complete bummer.”

Eve looked at the ring of pink on his wrist where her hand had been, already starting to bloom purple spots, and her heart sank in her chest. She exhaled, deflating visibly. For as much as she was angry with him for taking such a foolish risk, the last thing she’d wanted to do was hurt him.  “Sorry. I got a real fright from you being out there.”

—

Eden huffed. “There could’ve been things lurking around. How could you have watched your own back when you couldn’t even see more than a metre in front of you?” He wanted to say more, but froze as he caught the genuine frustration in Eve’s voice. She turned her back to him with a furrowed brow, a pause, then faced him again with a smile. The quick shift in tone was jarring, but also something that he knew all too well. It was the switch he did when arguing with his mother, from complete anger to an empty smile. Anything to shut the conversation down and get her off his back.

Though Eve’s switch was different. There was actual emotion behind it, which Eden didn’t understand. Why did she care so much to the point of putting her own life on the line, and for his sake no less. However, as her smile faded into a look of concern, Eden felt a degree of guilt. To have someone actually give a shit about whether he lived or died? Not because of his money or reputation, but simply just because? It was odd, yet…refreshing — refreshing enough for him to put his ego aside for now. 

“I didn’t mean to scare you, and I apologize for acting rash. I thought I could handle myself out there, but clearly you could too,” Eden said, thinking back to how effortlessly she had sprinted out there. He wanted to meet her eye, but her gaze was fixated on something else. Looking down to where she was starring, Eden finally noticed the pink and purple spots on his wrist. “What the…” He was positive that hadn’t been there before —- at least, before their little trip outside. 

The reason was right in front of him, but Eden was having a hard time believing it. Sure, he remembered the sting of discomfort from Eve’s particularly tight grip, but it had only been minutes since then. It seemed impossible to even bruise that quickly, but perhaps the woman was truly stronger than he thought. “You…” Eden started to speak, but he was interrupted by a loud crack of thunder. The following gust of wind that blew through the glassless window reminded him of the task at hand. 

“Window first,” Eden said, quickly ducking behind the checkout desk to find the roll of duct tape in the drawers. “Don’t worry, it doesn’t even really hurt,” he said as he stood back up, shooting a brief glance at his wrist before flashing Eve a somewhat reassuring look. 

—

“No need to apologise! I suppose the likelihood of either of us being hit by lightning was very low to begin with,” Eve said lightly, which was true of regular lightning, if not this kind. “If nothing else, at least you’ve proven chivalry isn’t dead.” She winked at him coyly, letting the disagreement vaporise into thin air. It didn’t matter. Nothing had gone wrong. This wasn’t a situation where a human had followed her into the void and ended up dead. No limbs were lost, not injuries missed. It was fine. Even his wrist would heal. She could let the bygones be bygones. 

“Window first,” Eve agreed, smiling in acknowledgement of his reassurance. “Good.” She used her phone to change the settings on her prosthetic leg to ‘lifting heavy objects’, and then grabbed one of the chairs from a nearby desk to set by window. She pulled off her jacket, wrapping her hand in it to protect her skin as she pushed the last pieces of glass out of the window frame. Just because Eve would heal from a cut fast didn’t mean that she needed to. Once the last shards of glass had been cleared, Eve reached for the cardboard, and the two of them made quick work of covering the broken windows. “It’s not perfect, but it’ll keep you going until you can get proper plywood in there, and get the glass repaired.”

—

He emerged from behind the desk with a graceful bow, in what was Eden’s own attempt to lighten the mood. “Well, I’ve always been known as a gentleman,” he said in a joking tone, even if it wasn’t really a joke. That was usually the vibe he gave off to other people, all thanks to his extensive etiquette training rather than his own volition. He pulled up a chair alongside Eve’s, considering helping out with the glass but ultimately deciding against it. He already had one too many glass-related injuries for the night.

The two of them repaired the broken windows in relative silence, as if to catch their breaths from their short but intense journey into the fog. As Eden ripped the tape for the cardboard pieces that Eve held up, his gaze kept falling to his wrist. The colors were getting angrier and harder to ignore, even in the dark of the library. It wasn’t really bothering him — rather, he was intrigued at how Eve managed such strength. Perhaps on another night when he hadn’t spent the past hour dodging flying glass and lightning strikes, he would ask more questions. For now though, he couldn’t find it in him to overthink like he usually did.

“I personally think the cardboard is a look. Maybe we’ll keep it this way,” Eden said as he took a step back, looking over their handiwork as if he was actually considering that possibility. The sudden crunch of the glass under his shoe made him freeze in place, and he mentally groaned at the prospect of yet another task to do before he could leave. “Watch your step, I’ll be right back,” he called back to Eve, making haste to the nearby supply closet. He fumbled around in the dark for a moment before getting his hands on the broom and dustpan. 

“Hopefully by the time we’ve cleaned this up, the fog will be somewhat manageable for the ride home…” he said as he returned, though it wasn’t so much of a hope rather than a desperate plea to whoever was controlling the weather. 

—-

“I can believe that,” Eve teased back. Other than that brief moment outside, Eden was always perfectly poised. 

“Mmm, yes, I’ve always thought the library had too much sunlight. Without the windows it’s a whole lot more dark academia.” Eve teased back, eyeing the cardboard. It was a patch work job, barely thick enough to keep the fog out. The moment it rained, game over.  “I guess it’s lucky none of your computers in here are worth stealing.” She watched him run for a dustpan and brush, and began picking up the larger pieces to dump in a filing box while he brushed up the glass. 

Fortunately, it wasn’t long for the fog to thin, the lightning rumbling to a quiet for now. Whatever crept in the fog had stayed away. There was a distinct awkwardness in the air, despite Eden’s grace and Eve’s usual bubbles. No matter how they joked around it. She looked to his hands, one she had bandaged, and one she had bruised. She swallowed, and smiled at him. “Looks like we can finally get out of here.”

“Alright, I’m sure I’ll see you next time one of your computers starts acting up, so maybe next week,” Eve said teasingly, already packing up her things. “Don’t hesitate to call if you need anything!” And with that, she was out the door, away from the complicated mess of feelings. 

—

“Lucky indeed,” Eden said quietly with genuine relief. With all of the damage done tonight, the absolute last thing he wanted to worry about was someone using this as a chance to steal. He already had enough to explain to his boss tomorrow. They cleaned in relative silence, but not a comfortable one like when Eden would sit at his desk while Eve worked on the computers. This silence was awkward, interjected with quips every now and then that just didn’t land like they usually did. Perhaps it was their collective exhaustion, or maybe it was the fact that they had both seen a little more to each other tonight than their working relationship usually allowed. 

The moment that the fog parted and their vehicles became visible again, Eve was out the door before Eden could say another word. Guilt still gnawed in his gut from the scare he had given her. But maybe it would all be fine — like she said, she’d probably be back next week and they would both be well rested. His cut will have healed and his bruise will have faded. The windows would be fixed and the events of the night would largely be forgotten. 

[closingwaters]

TIMING: Current

PARTIES: @recoveringdreamer @closingwaters

SUMMARY: Teagan is on the lookout for the warden Nicole told her about, and gravely miscalculated. Felix arrives to her house in time to help, but not in the way she wants.

WARNINGS: Mentions of Parental Death and Sibling Death

The cold air bit harshly, gusts of wind slicing against skin with no regard to a person's comfort. As she breathed, slowly and with calculation, Teagan could see it puff and plume in front of her lips, as silent as her steps. She had to be careful, meticulous, even. Despite not quite being on a hunt. Not technically. No, she was surveying, gathering evidence before she pounced, unlike before.

No traps, no accusations, just observation. If everything led to the person Nicole described being a hunter, then Teagan would have to make a move. She had already spent the better part of her week methodically treading the trails of the national park, coming up with nothing. Not even the most active trails brought anything up. Save for the few hikers that littered. Teagan led them to their doom, almost positive that if they did that to the land, then they'd surely do it to the water. 

But that was it. No hunter. Just victims. She had come up with nothing. Part of her–no, most of her was disappointed. She knew she ought to be relieved that there wasn't a hunter milling about, but the anxiety that nagged at Teagan crept harshly up her spine as she lay covertly in a bush. 

When ten more minutes passed, that's when the nix decided to give up on her mission. She slowly gathered herself up and brushed away leaves from her clothes, pondering on what was going on. Perhaps Nicole scared off the bugger, and everything was fine. Perhaps Teagan reacted too quickly. As she always did. Or perhaps, the man was a far better hunter than the fae could ever be. 

A meaty hand tangled itself in her hair and yanked Teagan back violently. Her back hit a tree, and scraped at her skin as she gasped for air and attempted to gather herself. The world became a blur, but she could feel the man's gaze. Like a pressure building behind her eyes, coming to a head when he finally spoke. “You thought you were hunting me, huh? Nah, nah, nah. You're the prey. And now I'm gonna gut you like–fuck!” Teagan flung dirt in his eyes as best she could, rushing to wobbly legs and fighting through the pain in her lungs. Again, she flung dirt to the hunter's face, reeling slightly while she swayed herself into a sprint back home.

If she could get to the water, then she couldn't lose. 

When they felt overwhelmed at the Grit Pit — something that happened frequently, these days — it was a natural instinct to go somewhere else for a while, with people who could provide some comfort. Felix was lucky enough to have a few people like that now. (Less than they’d had before, though. Mona had left town, and they couldn’t bear the thought of seeking comfort from Monty knowing what they’d done on his farm.) They had more sources of comfort than they often thought they deserved to have, had options when it came to where to go. Today, they’d wound up at Teagan’s place almost without meaning to; as if their feet had pulled them there without any input from their mind.

That was why there had been no call ahead to warn Teagan that he was coming. It wasn’t unexpected, then, to find the cabin empty upon his arrival. Teagan had a busy life, Felix knew. She had friends, she had the lake to tend to. Felix understood that. They figured they could wait around for a little while, see if she came home. Waiting wasn’t something he minded so long as they were doing it here, and not at the Grit Pit. (They’d rather be anywhere than the Grit Pit.)

So they sat on Teagan’s porch, arms crossed over their chest as they leaned back in their chair, looking over the lake. It was beautiful, though Felix always made sure to keep a respectful distance. The last thing he wanted was to have their name added to the list of people who had hurt Teagan’s domain, after all. 

It was because they were looking out over the lake that they saw it right away — that flash of color bursting from the woods, that recognizable figure. It was Teagan, and she was running. Felix was on his feet right away, sprinting over to meet her. “Teagan? What’s going on? Are you okay?”

—

Teagan didn't stop running. Despite the way her lungs burned with desire, each heaving breath greedy, she didn't dare let her arms or legs take a moment. The hunter was catching up quickly, and there were no traps she could trigger to slow him down or stop him completely. 

Thinking as she ran, the fae felt for the blade on her belt. Perhaps a knife could work? Her aim was good enough, wasn't it? But could she afford to slow down? Likely not. And it was all her fault. Like an idiot, Teagan had greatly miscalculated, too fixated on fear and anger to have made a more suitable plan. She chided herself internally, only feeling a sliver of hope when she made her way through the trees. 

“You can run, you stupid fairy, but I'm still gonna gut you!” The hunter cackled, “It's just you and me!” His stride picked up in pace, and Teagan's hope quickly died when she craned her neck as she ran. She could see him catching up, but failed to see Felix closing the distance between them. So when she turned to find that familiar voice, her face was met with their chest, sending them both to the ground. 

If Teagan heard them, she showed no indication of it. Anxiety thrummed in Felix’s chest, eyes scanning the area around them. Teagan went on jogs, sure, but this wasn’t anything like that. There was clear desperation on her face, and her lungs were heaving. 

He was so focused on worrying that he didn’t see the collision coming. Teagan slammed into Felix, and they both fell backwards onto the ground. Felix started untangling themself from her carefully, ready to try to get a better idea of what was going on, but the sound of something else tearing out of the woods made it clear that this was not a moment for slow untanglings. Quickly, and with more urgency, they pulled away from her, scrambling to their feet just as a man tore out of the woods.

“You should probably go,” Felix said, forcing themself to stand with a straight back and a neutral expression despite their pounding heart. “I — I don’t want to hurt you, but I’m not gonna let you hurt her, either.” 

“Oh hey, friendo!” The hunter nervously rolled his shoulders and turned his sprint into a trot, slowly coming to a stop a few yards away from the pair. “No, no. This is a misunderstanding. Uh…” 

Looking above in thought, the hunter didn't know how to handle the way the situation went. It wasn't often that his hunt was interrupted, and from the outside, even if he wasn't hunting, him chasing a woman didn't look good. In the woods, no less.

“Felix, you have to go. Please. Please.” Pleading desperately, Teagan put herself between the hunter and her friend. The monster was creeping its way up, slipping into her skin and settling like it was home. As if it had longed to return to the place it felt like it belonged. Teagan's voice trembled, but she managed to be a little more firm, knowing she couldn't let her friend take on the guilt of hurting another. Her monster could do it. It always had. 

“He's after me. Not you. I'll take care of this. I'll–” She was interrupted with a venomous laugh. Turning around, Teagan could see the hunter sneering.  

“You? Take care of me? Ha! Okay. I'm done waiting.” Not caring to hold off any longer, the hunter swiveled his iron blade in his hand and threw it. Without hesitation, Teagan shoved Felix down, luckily only receiving a gash to her arm. Again she pleaded, with a little more desperation. “Felix, please! Go!”

Teagan was desperate, was begging them to go, but that was never going to happen. Felix wouldn’t leave her to fend for herself against this man, who they were now certain was a warden. Teagan could take care of herself, of course. Felix knew that. But that didn’t mean she should have to. 

“I’m not leaving,” he said, sounding uncharacteristically firm. Felix wasn’t what anyone would ever call decisive, but when it came to keeping their friends safe, that changed. They weren’t good at standing up for themself, but for other people? Felix would fight until his last breath. Especially now that there were so many amends to be made.

Teagan begged, and the hunter laughed, and Felix was on the ground before they registered the knife had been thrown at all. Seeing it, though, they felt a stirring in their chest. The jaguar woke from slumber, stretching in preparation, and Felix tried to swallow down the urge to shift. They could let the beast break free, and it would tear the hunter to shreds. But it would turn on Teagan after, too, and that was the last thing Felix wanted. The memory of Monty’s farm, of the taste of blood on his tongue, was still a little too fresh.

“I’m not leaving,” they repeated, getting to their feet. They stepped forward, planting themself firmly between Teagan and the hunter, anchoring themself to the ground so they couldn’t be moved. “And I’m not letting you hurt her. You can walk away. I want you to walk away. But if you don’t…” He trailed off, glancing back to Teagan. There was blood on her arm, and she looked afraid. Felix knew it was for their sake rather than her own, but that was okay. If Teagan wouldn’t think of herself, Felix would do it for her.

“If you don’t, I can promise you, this isn’t going to end how you want it to end. If you don’t walk away now, I don’t think you’ll be walking anywhere for a long time.” 

—

The air shifted sharply, biting down even harsher than before. In a blur, the fae stumbled to her feet and swiveled on her heel. Felix was tensed and speaking in a way she'd never heard from them before. They were adamant, with no sign of backing down. 

Teagan was mesmerized and a bit shaken, but the latter was due to the way the hunter primed his next weapon. His eyes were no longer just set on the nix. He was ready to take them both, and Teagan couldn't let that happen. No, she wouldn't let that happen. 

Letting her glamour fall, the nix tugged at the tide and breathed in deeply. She felt the connection rumble. It rushed her senses, crescendoing until it settled into a deadly stillness. Teagan let out a small gasp, smiling as she let her gaze fall back on the hunter, eyes peeking through the hair that had fallen across her face. She flexed her claws and snapped her teeth, readying herself to pounce. 

“And I'm not letting you hurt them either.” Teagan hissed, charging forward without another word. She swiped at the hunter's chest, cutting into flesh and fabric and just barely managing to weave away from the reactionary swipe of his next knife. After a second to refocus, Teagan continued her barrage, but was cut short with a vicious kick. She was sent backwards, left breathless when she hit the cold earth. Her heart was pounding, and colors were oversaturated, but Teagan had a purpose. Her monster had a purpose. After her own miscalculation of course, but a purpose no less. 

The hunter couldn’t have known Felix was anything other than human but, judging by the look in his eye, it no longer mattered. Felix was in the man’s way, and he was unwilling to let that slide. And Felix wondered, with no understanding at all, how someone could hate a stranger that much. He had very little experience with hunters himself, had lived isolated for so long that they were more horror stories than they were realities. They couldn’t fathom wanting someone dead because of the way they were born, because of the fact that they had gills or fur. It was jarring, seeing the look in this hunter’s eye and knowing that he would have been willing to kill what he must have assumed was another human just to take out a nix along with them. It wasn’t the kind of thing they wanted to understand.

Teagan had more experience with this sort of thing, and it showed in the way she fought. There was no hesitation from her, either, no pause as she lurched forward in a brutal barrage. It was luck that allowed the hunter to get that kick in more than anything else; it must have been difficult for him to even think, the way Teagan was going after him. But luck could make or break a fight. Felix knew that better than anyone. And they wouldn’t let bad luck be the thing that lost this one for Teagan.

This wasn’t a fight Felix could win if they stayed entirely in human form, and they knew it. This was the kind of thing that required something more animalistic, something sharp. It was risky, trying a partial shift when they were this worked up. The jaguar could pounce on the opportunity, could push forward further than Felix wanted to let it. But there was no real choice here, not with the hunter advancing on Teagan. Felix steeled themself, letting their hands shift and their teeth sharpen.

“Hey!” It sounded a little off, their teeth a little too big for their mouth. But it got the hunter’s attention, and that was all Felix really wanted. The moment the man’s eyes were on him, the balam surged forward, claws at the ready. They didn’t want to hurt anyone. They really didn’t. But… sometimes, everyone had to do things they didn’t want to do. And to help their friends, Felix would do anything. 

—

A pit in the nix's stomach formed watching the fight unfold. Felix fought enough as it is, and now they were doing so to protect their friend, and it was all Teagan's fault. “Felix, wait!” She wheezed, still unable to catch her breath and coughing. It was wrong to let them fight, let alone do it by themself, so mustering all her might, Teagan forced herself to take a deep breath and stand. Two against one were good odds, weren't they? Heightened strength and sharp weapons be damned. 

Teagan circled around the warden and positioned herself behind him. He looked back at her worriedly, likely unsure what his fate was considering he wasn't supposed to deal with shifters. Teagan liked that look on his face a little too much, eyes widening wildly and smile curling upwards, unbidden. 

Yeah, keep focused on me, the fae thought, charging toward him despite the way he brandished a bowie knife to her. It wouldn't make a difference either way. He retrieved it openly enough for both Teagan and Felix to see. No surprises there. Her smile persisted and she readied her claws to sink into him, but she was met with an iron baton before she could lay another slice into his skin. 

Shifty bugger wasn't being stupid after all, Teagan thought to herself as she felt something crack. “Water!” She rasped to Felix, stumbling back. If they could get to the water, everything would be okay. 

Teagan stood up, and part of Felix wished she wouldn’t. She was a capable fighter, to be sure, but the warden was trained specifically to deal with people like her rather than people like Felix. His weapons were all designed to hurt Teagan. And while an iron knife slicing the skin would hurt no matter who it found, Felix knew it would hurt her more. And, more than that, they knew that they were probably the better person to take the blow. Even if Felix wasn’t hurt here, they’d be hurt at work tomorrow, and the day after, and the day after. What did it matter if it was a warden’s knife or a shifter’s claws? Either way, Felix’s skin would be broken before the week was over. Wasn’t it better for it to happen here, for a cause they cared about? They’d rather be hurt protecting Teagan than be hurt making money for the cruel handlers in the Pit.

But, of course, Teagan wouldn’t see it that way. And even if she might, there was no time to explain their reasoning. She was up, was running towards the hunter, was taking another blow. She needed to get to the water; Felix needed to help her. 

They ran forward, head ducked down, and wrapped their arms around the hunter’s middle to tackle him to the ground. He hit with an oof as the air rushed from his lungs, and Felix hardly felt the knife slice at their midsection. They let their claws come out in earnest, drove them through the hunter’s hand so he’d drop the knife. Turning back towards Teagan, they called out in a voice still odd around the too-big teeth in their mouth, “Get into the lake! I’ll hold him down until you’re under!” They didn’t have to kill him. They didn’t. Teagan could get away, Felix could make sure the threat was eliminated in a different way, and everyone could walk away from this.

—

“That's not…!” But Felix was already making moves, determined to give their friend a way out. They didn't understand what Teagan had really meant, or they didn't want to. Taking lives wasn't as easy for them. While Teagan had grown callous and cruel, wishing to inflict the same pain hunters did to people onto them, Felix wanted–no, needed there to be another way. They needed to believe there was another way, even if it was to their detriment. 

Tears welled up in the fae's eyes, knowing Felix's hope was a calculated risk they took over and over again. They were chastised for it, for having a type of strength so few had the courage to attain. 

Sadly though, Teagan knew that wasn't the kind of power they needed in that moment. There was no other option than for someone to die. Because regardless of how much Teagan wanted to deny it, she was just like that hunter, and she knew neither of them would stop until they took out the danger in front of them. 

She was no better than them, but that didn't really matter anymore. 

Rushing to Felix as they struggled with the hunter, Teagan got on her hands and knees next to them. She helped Felix hold the man down as best she could, straining through the throbbing pain in her side. “Felix,” Teagan spoke firmly, her voice still a little soft around the edges. “He's not going to stop. He'll come back and it's not going to end until someone can't come back anymore.” It sounded like a genuine apology without Teagan uttering the phrase. She want no better than a hunter, but she was sorry Felix had to be a part of her monster's cravings. 

Adrenaline was no unfamiliar feeling to Felix. It lived in their chest, its fluttering wings stretching and touching every part of them each time they flapped. Those wings were desperate things on nights he found himself in the ring, straining against the confines of their body and doing whatever it took to keep them alive. And Felix hated the way it felt on those nights. They hated the feeling of adrenaline seeping through their veins when they knew it meant they’d hurt someone, hated knowing that their desperation to live often meant other people, people who only wanted the same thing as Felix themself, might not get to do the same. They’d never enjoyed the sickly sweet taste of it rushing through them, never liked the pounding of their heart.

But it didn’t feel so bad right now. Right now, as they held the hunter down so that Teagan could get to the water, the adrenaline felt good. It made them feel strong, made them feel powerful, made them feel worth something. Felix held down the writhing hunter, his back to Teagan, and it felt good. It felt like helping. They could save Teagan, and they could save the hunter, too. They could save their friend, and no one had to die to achieve it.

And then, Teagan’s presence appeared beside them, and their hope stuttered.

He’s not going to stop. But how could she know that? How could anyone? They thought of their father in the woods, killing anyone who came close enough to realize the cabin was there. They know we’re here, he used to say. They’ll tell someone else, and that person will tell another. It’s an endless cycle, Fe. You stop it in the beginning, or you won’t be able to stop it at all. Hadn’t Felix’s whole life been this? Wanting desperately to let people live and being told in no uncertain terms that they couldn’t? 

“You don’t know that,” they insisted, desperate. “He could change. People — People can still change.” They wanted it to be true, more than anything. They weren’t sure it was anymore.

—

But Teagan did know that. At least she felt like she did. People could certainly change, for better or worse, they could change. Teagan could see how desperately Felix needed this to go the same way it did the first time they got in between a hunter and the nix. The woman never came back, but Teagan wasn't sure if it was out of decency or because they had been in the woods and she was unable to find her target. 

An idea floated around in her head then, the better part of her winning out. The one Felix believed in so much. There was a reason they did, wasn't there? But what if it didn't work and she hurt her friend anyway? Was that hunter's death more important than Felix's desires? There was a way to find out. One that was solely up tk him. 

“Oi,” the fae's eyes went dark, the monster inside resigning to the fact that it would not be sated. “Promise me you'll forget–” The hunter interrupted Teagan and she clicked her tongue in frustration. “Ain't gonna promise you shit!” He spat out, “I don't make deals with evil.” 

Evil? Evil?

Teagan's breath shook with anticipation, her claws flexing with a desire for blood. “They're trying to save your life, are you a clod?” The hunter spat again, only this time it was literal, and Teagan had to bite down her anger. She couldn't let her simmer turn into a boil, even if him speaking irritated her further. “Promise you'll–” He interrupted again, “No! You'll have to kill me, and it looks like neither of you has the fuckin’ balls! I can't wait to flay you both and–fuck!” Claws sank deeply into his shoulders, sending him into a fit of screams. Teagan could handle being threatened, but she drew the line at her friends. She hardly felt the burn from his blood. Her anger ran hotter. 

“I'm sorry, calon.” And Teagan was sorry despite how the prospect of killing a hunter, ending his cycle, sent tremors of excitement throughout her body. “He knows where I live.”

Teagan seemed open to the idea of an alternative and, for a moment, Felix let themself believe it might work. They wanted it to work. They wanted to live in a world where the options weren’t so limited, wanted to be a better person than they were. In the Grit Pit, they could tell themself that there was no choice. They could pretend, sometimes, that none of it was their fault, even if they never fully believed the lie. But here? In this moment, with a hunter laying on the ground and bleeding from marks left by their own claws? There had to be a better way. They wanted, so badly, for there to be a better way.

Teagan tried, for her part. She offered an alternative that was refused, tried again even then. And Felix wanted to shake the man underneath him, wanted to grab him by the shirt and rattle him until he saw sense. Was a vendetta really more important than a continued existence? Was it so impossible to let go of the idea that someone was less than him just because they were different? 

It wasn’t entirely his fault; Felix knew that, too. That was what made it harder. People like this were raised to think the way they thought, had it drilled into them so early and by people they loved and trusted. In another world, one where Felix’s father had taken them away from human society a little earlier, couldn’t this have just as easily been him? Couldn’t they have wound up as someone who hated humans as much as this man hated the supernatural? The thought burned and ached. No one was really all that different from anyone else, when things got down to it.

They looked to Teagan, wanting to argue but knowing they couldn’t. They weren’t the one at risk here; not when it was Teagan’s house the man had found, not when it was her he could sense. But… “I’ll do it.” Because wasn’t this exactly what she was trying to get away from? Wasn’t this her bottle of booze, her burning anger? If there was no other way, there was no other way. But Felix couldn’t sit back and let Teagan give into an addiction she’d been trying so hard to fight against. They couldn’t save the hunter, but maybe they could still save something. Maybe they could still help someone. “You go into the water and heal, and I’ll do it. It’s not — I’m not asking. Okay?”

—

Felix protested in the last way they could. It wasn't unexpected, but it still stung all the same. Because Teagan couldn't let them have that kill. Not only did they dislike hurting people, but the hunter wasn't their kill. He hunted Teagan's kind and she was the one who caught his attention. It was only right that she took the responsibility. 

And the victory. 

“No.” She argued, fighting against the firm tone in Felix's voice. “No.” Swallowing, she flexed her hands and locked her eyes with Felix's. They were a bit wild and desperate, but they were adamant too. “I'm not asking either.” Teagan gritted her teeth together and began to pull the hunter toward herself. He struggled and screamed, frantically attempting to get anyone nearby to hear him, but there was no one. 

Teagan couldn't help but smile breathlessly, chuckling dryly as she moved her gaze to the warden. He was yelling obscenities at them, affirming his lifelong commitment to his cause. It was all coming to a beautiful, ironic end. 

Lost to it, enjoying the screams and angry pleas for the demons to let him go, Teagan gave him an exit. Her claws sank into his jugular, blood burning her skin viciously as it poured with no reprieve. In moments, he was gone, taken by death, pushed by the hands of the very thing he swore to kill. It was beautiful, and Teagan was free once again. Her monster was sated and free. 

They didn’t want to do it. That much was obvious not just to anyone who knew them, but to anyone who might have been looking on. Felix didn’t want to hurt anyone at all, didn’t want to be the kind of person who other people were afraid of. They wanted to be gentle, wanted to be kind, but how many people were allowed to be that in a world like this one? There was so much blood on their hands already. Fighters in the Grit Pit, farmhands they’d called friends, people who got in the way when they were too much of an animal to know the difference… the list of people Felix had hurt was long, and even they didn’t know every name that belonged on it. They didn’t want to hurt anyone. They didn’t want to do this. 

That was why it had to be them.

Teagan wanted it. They could see it in her eyes, could hear it in her protests. For a moment, they let themself believe that she’d listen anyway. For a moment, they let themself think that she’d do what they asked, that she’d let them be the one to end things because they didn’t want to and she did. And maybe it was asking too much. Maybe Felix always asked too much, at the end of the day. In any case, they felt their heart sink as Teagan’s claws dug into the hunter’s throat and his screams stopped. 

The hunter was dead, and Teagan had killed him. The hunter was dead, and Teagan was sliding back down the hopeless incline she’d tried so hard to claw herself up from. The hunter was dead, and Felix had failed. 

It hit them all at once, the heaviness of it. The exhaustion from the fight, the injuries they’d received, the grief at how it all ended. The adrenaline coursing through them died with the warden, and Felix felt empty and hollow and heavy. They wanted to protest. They wanted to berate her, wanted to ask her why, wanted to question everything. But Felix wasn’t good at that, were they? Not with their father, who hurt anyone who came close enough to be a risk. Not with Leo, who carved small pieces off of them until there was nothing left. Not with Wyatt and Zane, who had made their life harder with good intentions even when he’d begged them not to. Felix always wanted to do more, to be more, but they’d never been very good at achieving it. Instead, they were quiet. They were docile. They were so good at making themself smaller.

Leaning back away from the hunter, they swallowed. They wanted to say something, anything, but the idea of making Teagan feel bad ached like a physical weight on their chest. No matter how bad Felix felt, they couldn’t grapple with the idea of making someone else feel the same. 

“You should go to the water,” they said, sounding more tired than anything. “I’ll take care of the body.” After all, wasn’t that what they were good at? How many corpses had they buried for their father, their siblings? One more wouldn’t damn them any more than the rest.

Without waiting for a response, Felix slipped their hands under the dead warden’s arms and began dragging him back towards the woods. At least this way, they could be good for something.

—

“No.” A voice said, heavy and dark, and all around too vicious to sound like Teagan. But it had been her voice. It had come out so naturally. Was that her true form? Was that the monster’s voice? Or had they been one in the same all along? Teagan shuddered and grabbed a hold of the hunter’s dead body, claws latching in his leg like barbed wire. “He’s staying here. He’s going into the lake.” She blinked slowly, body trembling from the rage that had been so quiet until then. It filled her completely, and she was starting not to care who it burned. “He’s going to feed it.” And pay.

Tugging at the leg, Teagan attempted half-heartedly to bring the body toward the lake. By the tone and exhaustion in Felix’s voice, she was sure they’d protest further. Something tugged in her chest at the thought. Her grip wavered for just a moment, and then she tugged again, with a little more force. Not enough to rip the body away, but enough to show that Teagan would not let go.

Again, something yanked in her chest. It shot a sharp pain up her throat, seizing it shut as involuntary tears began to form. For what, she couldn’t quite decipher. It had to be the water. The waves beckoned her, calling for the body to be consumed. That had to be it, Teagan decided. Guilt had to be locked away for moments such as then, and she had to tell herself she was good at sealing that box. It had no place when it came to justice. It had no place when her family’s screams rang louder than all else.

“Let go.”

They were fifteen the first time someone wandered onto their father’s property. They remembered it well, remembered the way it didn’t yet feel like fear. For Felix, it had seemed a normal curiosity. They’d been a part of the world for fourteen years, after all, been ingrained in society and felt like an outsider only in the small ways that all teenagers tended to feel. When a human stumbled across the cabin, it had seemed normal. It had seemed expected. It hadn’t seemed dangerous or scary. It hadn’t been something that increased their anxiety and made their stomach churn.

Not until their father came outside, at least.

It had all happened remarkably quickly. Felix was greeting the stranger, preparing to offer directions back into town, and then a shape was shooting past him so quickly that it was difficult to process. They hadn’t even heard their father open the door before he was standing in front of them, claws out and bloody. The stranger’s body had dropped, and everything had changed in a heartbeat. 

Back then, Felix had done what they were told. Their father told them to get a shovel, sent them out into the woods to dig a shallow grave for a body whose name they’d never learned. Their hands had trembled, and they’d vomited in the dirt beside the corpse but they’d shoved it into the hole, anyway. They’d buried it, and their father told them not to mark the spot so they hadn’t, but they’d never forgotten where it was. They’d buried others beside it throughout the years, built a graveyard of strangers in their own backyard. Their hands stopped shaking eventually, and it got easier. They wished it hadn’t gotten easier.

It would have been simple now, too, to fall back into the old habit of doing what they were told. They could have dropped their hands from the hunter’s body, could have let Teagan carry him back to the lake and sink him to the bottom. They could have been an accomplice to her just as they’d been one to their father, but they didn’t want that. They wanted, more than anything, to be different. They weren’t fifteen anymore. They didn’t have to listen. 

So they tightened their grip on the corpse and dug their heels into the ground. They shook their head, and they were firm. They were never firm, never the kind of person who argued, but this — this wasn’t good for Teagan, and it wasn’t good for Felix. This was something that would hurt them both in the long run. Felix couldn’t let it happen.

“No.” They enunciated the word carefully, as if it was a new phrase in their vocabulary. In a lot of ways, it was. “You go in the water. I’m going to take care of the body. I’m not going to let go. If you drag him to the lake, you’re going to have to drag me, too. And we both know you’re not gonna do that, Teagan. So you let go. Just — God, you have to let go.” Not just of the body, but of all of it. 

—

They were at an impasse. Felix wasn't going to let go, and neither was Teagan. Her breath shuddered at their firm declarations. Their unfair demand that she let go of the last thing she had of her family. The rage and sorrow was all that was left.

There was no more laughter. No more familial hunts. No gups or tadpoles or larvae or hatchlings to be welcomed into their new home. No sleepy mornings waking up to fresh tea and pastries. That family was gone, and the remaining were just static and pixels filled with empty conversation fueled by the inability to reconnect. The only thing that had never left Teagan was the simmering beneath her skin and the bleeding surrounding her heart. 

For a while, she thought her and Felix were one in the same. Cut from the same cloth but sewn eons apart. Two quilts depicting wildly different outcomes. 

“You're not with me.” Arden had once said strings attached one another, and it looked like, to Teagan, another cut needed to be made. A new story, to be stitched. 

Breathing deeply, Teagan's eyes darkened and she croaked, “You're against justice. You're against me.” She called to the lake and pulled. The body moved with more ease, and she continued, Felix and it in tow. Teagan allowed for her instincts to take over, rage fueling her. The lapping water turned into building waves, crescendoing into violent crashes against the rocks surrounding the lake. 

Teagan kept dragging and dragging, hardly noticing when the water wad around her thighs. It was much easier to pull the bodies in by then, the lake answering almost greedily and sending both Felix and the body in the undertow when Teagan let go. It worked violently to separate the two, succeeding in moments, but keeping both bodies under water. Let them go. Teagan commanded quietly, and reluctantly, the lake shot Felix out, the nix standing resolutely amongst the waves. Her heart grieved while her eyes said goodbye. 

Felix had seen Teagan angry before. It was a thing that lived in her, they knew, the same way it lived in other people they loved. It was a snake curled around her ribcage, a fiery thing that they’d seen burn more than just the dead warden in their grip now. Felix had seen Teagan angry before, but they’d never seen that anger directed towards them. They’d never thought of it as something they needed to fear. 

Her voice was so cold when she spoke. It was unrecognizable, nothing at all like the warm tones and cheery exchanges they’d shared in the past. This was a side of Teagan usually reserved for enemies. Was that what Felix was now? Was the simple act of disagreeing with her about the disposal of a stranger’s corpse enough to undo a year of deep friendship? You’re against justice, she told them, but where was the justice in this, in any of it? They could accept the hunter’s death as a necessary act of protection; they couldn’t comprehend it as justice served. 

They wanted to say as much, wanted to point out that killing the hunter did nothing for the people already dead at his hands, or at the hands of other hunters. It did nothing for people dead at the hands of people not hunters, too, because weren’t there plenty of those? If justice required this warden’s death, then what of the blood on Teagan’s hands? What of Felix, who had killed friends on Monty’s farm, who had buried the bodies of people whose only crime had been a hike in the wrong part of the woods? This couldn’t be what justice was. It couldn’t be an endless barrage of corpses. It just couldn’t. 

They opened their mouth to speak, to plead, to find any part of the person they loved hidden beneath the anger that had their heart pounding in their chest, but Teagan interrupted any attempt they might have made. They were against her, she said, as if that was that. As if nothing mattered more than the corpse they didn’t want to see swallowed by her lake. They thought they must have been fooling themself here; they thought they should have seen this coming. Felix wasn’t the sort of person anyone loved enough to let go of the things that mattered more. They never had been. They were incapable, weren’t they? Inadequate. Leo had known it all along.

Their grip remained tight on the corpse, though it was less a conscious thing now and more a need to hold on to something to keep themself grounded. It felt as though gravity was working overtime to pull them to the ground; it took them a moment to realize that it wasn’t gravity, but Teagan, pulling the body in their grip towards the lake. 

Felix pulled back, though not with their full strength. Even now, it felt wrong to use their full ability against Teagan, against their friend. They were a powerful fighter, a formidable threat, but not to her. Never to her. And so, they were useless to stop themself from being pulled towards the lake, useless to keep the corpse from meeting the water, useless to stop their own body from being submerged shortly after. The waves snatched the hunter from their hands, and Felix couldn’t tell which way was up. Water assaulted their lungs and, for a moment, they thought Teagan might let them drown. For a moment, they wondered if they might deserve it, just a little.

(She killed hunters for hurting people, didn’t she? Felix hurt people, too. If that hunter’s death was justice, wouldn’t Felix’s be the same? How did someone decide which murderers deserved to die and which were given a free pass? Felix couldn’t imagine themself being granted the latter.) 

But, before the black spots could take over their vision, before they could be served whatever justice they must have deserved, water became air and the sharp knives of winter winds stabbed through their soaked clothing. The ground was a solid thing beneath them, though they hadn’t made any effort to swim towards it. The lake had spat them out. Teagan had freed them, or rejected them, or both. And the heaviness that clung to them had little to do with the water dripping from their hair.

Felix turned back to the lake. The corpse was long gone beneath the surface; it would never rise again, never be buried. How many more were with it down there? (Felix wondered, a little hysterically, if that made it less lonely. When corpses decayed side by side, did they come to know one another? Did the bodies they’d buried in that makeshift graveyard behind their father’s cabin become friends through the same worms that ate through them both? Would this hunter, whose name they didn’t know and who would have killed them given half a chance, find companionship in the others like him on the floor of this lake? Was Felix wrong to want that?)

They caught Teagan’s eye briefly, their throat tight. Their lungs ached, but they didn’t know if it was because of the water they’d inhaled or the heaviness in their heart. She didn’t speak, and Felix didn’t know how to. They’d always been a little too good at accepting defeat in silence, even when they wanted to scream. No was such a new word to their vocabulary. It hurt to have it flung back at them like this by someone they loved, even if it wasn’t enough to make them stop loving her. 

(That, too, was something they were bad at doing. If Teagan had drowned them in the lake, they would have died loving her all the same just as they loved Wyatt in spite of Samir’s death and the good intentions that locked them in the boiler room, just as they loved their father in spite of the blood he’d put on their hands, just as they loved Leo in spite of everything. Felix was good at loving; they were bad at knowing when to stop.) 

With a swallow, they took a step back, and then another. They were shivering, but they didn’t feel the cold. They didn’t feel much of anything beyond the crushing defeat that had settled on their shoulders. With one last mournful look in Teagan’s direction, and without a word to signify their departure, Felix turned away. If she thought they were against her, she wouldn’t want them to stay. If they weren’t wanted, it was better for them to go. What good was an animal that served as neither guard nor companion? 

They hardly remembered the trek back to the Grit Pit; they hated that their feet led them there naturally, hated that their mind had stopped rejecting the idea of it as home somewhere along the way. The door slammed behind them as they entered; someone commented on the water trailing behind them, but they couldn’t make out the words. They’d be punished for that later if it was a handler, they knew, but they couldn’t bring themself to care. They couldn’t bring themself to do much of anything beyond making the short walk to the boiler room and shutting themself inside, pressing their back against the wall and sliding down to the floor with a shudder. The floor rose up to meet them, the walls closed in around them just as the water in the lake had. 

If justice was a lethal thing, maybe Felix had gotten off easy all this time. If there was no hope for murderers to change, maybe this was always where they’d belonged.

[eldritchaccident]

TIMING: Current LOCATION: Mabel’s Maple Shoppe PARTIES: @chasseurdeloup and @eldritchaccident SUMMARY: Kaden gets a call about a "rotten egg" at the store Teddy's working at for the moment. There's definitely nothing weird about the egg at all. CONTENT WARNINGS: N/A

Another day, another strange call to animal control that Kaden was assigned to investigate. This particular call was about an egg and he was tempted to ignore it and do something a little more critical but the owner was insistent and so was Gary. The other officer told Kaden that the owner wouldn’t stop calling and making a stink (or was she saying there was a stench? He didn’t remember) and that he wasn’t going to fill out one damn line of Langley’s paperwork if he didn’t at least go by the place. A threat that the ranger couldn’t ignore. The shop in question was one he hadn’t been to before and one look at it, he could see why. Mabel’s Maple Shoppe. Seemed excessively niche, which wasn’t entirely out of place in Wicked’s Rest. But a place that “caters to all your maple needs” wasn’t going to be on the top of his list to stop by. Kaden didn’t know what maple needs consisted of but he was pretty sure he didn’t have any of those. 

The scent hit him as soon as he entered the store, before the bell above the door could finish ringing. It wasn’t the worst odor he’d been up against but it sure wasn’t pleasant. Kaden tugged the collar of his shirt up a little to try and help mask it at least a little. Didn’t help much. There was someone at the counter and he figured it was best to speak to them before rifling through the shop for the creature in question. “Hey, got a call from the owner, Ms. Maple, I’m assuming. Animal control,” he said, holding up his badge to the person at the counter. “Something about a rotten strange egg. She said she saw a strange worm slither away from it I think? Was worried about a nest.” He cleared his throat, trying to mask the slight gagging from the smell, “Pretty sure I can sniff it out but wouldn’t mind being pointed in the right direction.”

— 

Mabel’s Maple Shoppe was just another on a long long long long long long list of temporary jobs Teddy found themself enlisted to help with. Well, not so much enlisted by the establishment, but when an establishment found itself in need of a helping hand, the oft bored ex-demon was always just there to help. Just at the right time. It wasn’t spellwork, but it seemed almost magical in a way. Too quick on the draw, smiles too bright to ignore. 

Teddy wanted to do everything humanity had to offer. They’d been removed from it for so long that even the simplest things filled them with joy. Time and its monotony were generally the reason for most people’s malaise with the working industry, but Teddy found that hopping from one occupation to the next kept it fresh, kept it fun. It added ever more names to their roster of those that owed favors. Not in the way of the fey, but of jovial connection and well earned gregariousness. 

Of course, it was ever useful to have a handful of options to lean towards whenever a sudden task beyond their means reared its head. And Teddy had spent many of those good fortunes in readying the house for Emilio and Wynne. So they were back at it. Trying to find normalcy in their erratic work schedule after that… excursion into their past. In trying new jobs at new places, Ted could pretend they were someone else. A week at Mable’s and they would be off to somewhere else. Only, well, the egg happened. 

Teddy hadn’t seen it. Not yet. Mrs Mable was going off about it, and how it was driving away customers. But somewhere along the five hundredth maple flavored item Teds had gone a little noseblind. The animal control officer walked in, and they were more than happy to flip the sign to ‘We’ll be back soon.’ so they could take a moment to direct him. “Did she even actually explain what she saw? She was acting like it was radioactive I swear. Wouldn’t let me leave the counter.” Though, whether that was something due to the egg itself or her desire to keep sales rolling, that was beyond them. Curiosity had been burning, and Teddy wasn’t usually one for self-restraint. But patience won out. Whatever it was, they’d find it together now.          

— 

Kaden shook his head. “She didn’t say anything specific. Honestly, I was pretty sure this was a job for…” He paused. “I don’t know, anyone else. Not animal control necessarily. But Gar– Officer Miller insisted that we at least check it out. Mostly so he could stop taking her calls.” He probably shouldn’t be so honest with a civilian technically but it was hard to care one way or another. He wasn’t there to be a cop, he was there to get paid to do the shit he was going to do anyway: clean up supernatural messes and help animals. 

“I mean, if nothing else, it smells radioactive so good enough to reason to get it out of here. Just be careful,” Kaden warned. “If there’s a nest, the thing that made it could be nearby. And I’ve never encountered an animal that doesn’t protect its nest with everything it’s got.” Same with monsters. Putain, he hoped they weren’t dealing with something supernatural but he had a feeling he wouldn’t get that lucky.

— 

Strangers liked to tell Teddy things. Must’ve just had one of those faces. Open and welcoming enough that extra details just slipped through the cracks and filled the ex-demon up with sated wonder, then more questions. They caught the trip in words, and found an opening to slide inside of, stepping in time with the officer’s gait as they rounded the back of the shop. “Is that Gary or Garfeild? I know a couple Millers.” They chimed in, a cheshire smile sprouting upon their lips. “One of them is a doll, the other just loves to try and get everyone else to do his work.” C’mon officer, at least give up the hot goss. 

“Don’t actually know if radiation actually has a smell. I think it’d be a lot safer if it did, but I get what you mean. I’ve been dealing with this all morning. Do you want some Vick’s?” The mentholated vapor rub just under the nose was more than enough to block out the worst of it that morning. They didn’t really get much of a chance for an answer though, as the pair exited the old maple wood door and spilled out onto the patio.

—

“You do?” Kaden said, surprised to hear Gary’s name dropped by the employee. “The first one, yeah. Gary.” He sighed at the thought of the other officer. “Look, we have a pretty good set up. I do the field work, he does the office work. It’s a win-win.” The less time Kaden had to spend chained to a desk, the better. And Gary felt the same about getting scratched, bitten, and bruised on the job. Which would be fair enough anywhere but especially in this town. It was more dangerous than most so it was probably for the best that the only one trying to control the animals and monsters around town for the WRPD was a ranger.

—

Truthfully? No. Teddy didn't know the man. But those were the first two names to come to mind with a Gah- at the beginning, and Teds was always looking for a way to push themself into anyone else's life. A messy little habit, but a fun one. “Ahh, so you're more of a man of action then? That's a pretty good foil to old Gary. At least you like what you do.” They offered a smile. 

It was overgrown and blushed with flowers just starting to bloom, but beneath one of the larger bushes, sure enough the remains of a messy insectoid infestation littered the mossy stone floor. Teddy’s eyes scanned the debris, excitement growing as they realized this was so much more than mundane. Not enough to recognize the species or anything like that, only that it wasn’t any bug they’d find in a natural history museum. 

—

Kaden let the employee lead the way towards the back corner of the store, the musty smell growing more and more potent as they walked. It was almost enough to drown out the smell of maple – almost. 

His brows furrowed as he leaned down to examine the source of the stink. “I don’t get it,” he started, “it’s just a damn–” 

The words caught in his throat as the world shifted around Kaden, like he was seeing clearly for the first time in his entire life. It was as if he finally understood his purpose, what he was meant to be doing: his duty. 

It wasn’t just a damn egg, far from it. “It’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.”

—

The officer squatted and Teddy alongside him, carefully prying to get a clear look at whatever–Oh. Oh goodness. That same sweep of emotion infected the ex-demon gazed upon what must have been an egg, but, no- no that was– Well, of course it was their child.

—

Out there on the patio, one quick look at the employee next to him and it was clear to Kaden that they both felt the same way. That they were going to protect this egg — no, child — with their lives. Any worry of whatever the nest might belong to had faded away. It didn’t matter who or what made the nest or what made the egg, it didn’t belong to that creature. The egg belonged to them. Kaden reached out and carefully picked it up and cradled the egg in his arms. “We should get him some place safe,” he said to the employee.

Right. He just realized they hadn’t even exchanged names. “Kaden, by the way,” he said, glancing back at thm. “My name, that is. Don’t think I said it before.” His eyes didn’t stay away from the egg for long, practically glued to the miracle he was holding in his arms. “Speaking of, he needs one.” Once again, Kaden realized he wasn’t exactly being clear. “A name, I mean.”

—

The warm fuzzies spread throughout the caster, a total shift from the nosy ruse they had built up before. None of that really mattered anymore now did it? Who had time to poke anyone for information when they had precious cargo to care for. A warm hand came up to the officer– Kaden’s back. Teddy crept in closer, inspecting the egg, carefully reaching out to stroke its surface. Something deeply buried welled up in their chest. Somewhere between pride, determination, and devotion. They knew instantly they'd do anything for their little baby. That they'd make it work with– 

Teddy didn't remember having an egg with Kaden. 

But it was theirs. There was no doubt. The child was theirs. And they would care for it. “Oh–” a name, of course he needed a name. “What about…” The goat was already Levi jr, so that was out of the way. Maybe name it after Emilio? Shouldn't Teddy have had an egg with Emilio? Maybe Emilio just couldn't have eggs. Maybe that's why they had to have one with Kaden. Kaden was a perfect parent, just like they'd be. “Lio?” Teddy would figure out the mess in their mind later, it didn't matter that much, not compared to taking care of the baby. 

The apron was more than enough soft fabric to create a small swaddling sling, one that Teddy carefully hung around Kaden's neck, all the while softly gazing at their dear new addition. “That works if she's a girl too. Or whatever, y’know. It's so hard to tell when they're this young.” 

—

Kaden didn’t know how the egg got here or why he knew it was theirs or why— Wait, what was their name? The hunter squinted as he tried to read the name tag the other person was wearing. Telly? He was pretty sure that’s what it said. Anyway, he didn’t know how Telly and he ended up being the two destined to raise this egg and keep it safe but there was no doubt in his mind that it was anything other than a fact. 

“Lio?” Kaden repeated, glancing up at them for a second before his eyes zeroed back in on the child in his arms. The sling was a welcome addition, it would help him keep them close, keep them safe, and make it easier to protect them from anything in this fucked up town that so much as looked at them wrong. “That could work…” Something about the name sounded familiar. It did remind him of his home, of Lyon. That was sort of nice. Almost like a family name, then. 

Although he felt like Monty should be involved with this somehow. No, that was silly, of course Monty would help raise the egg. Even if he wasn’t the parent, he’d be a great stepdad. Or something like that. Kaden wasn’t sure what the right term for him was. Maybe they should name it after him? “If they’re a girl, we could call her Anya.” It was something like Montaña – close enough, at least. Not that it mattered much one way or another. “I’m sure they’re going to be perfect no matter what,” he practically cooed as he brushed a tender hand along the egg’s surface. 

“We should get them home, though.” He looked back at Telly when it struck him that he wasn’t sure what home meant at that point. “I mean, I have a cabin. It’s safe out there. But I’m sure your place is good, too. Wherever that is.” 

Hold on, wasn’t Kaden supposed to be on duty? No. He was supposed to take care of the egg. Or something like that. This was part of his job, he was sure of it. At least for now. Being a working parent was going to be difficult. And Telly was on the clock, too, weren’t they? They could both make it work. “I guess we should figure out work schedules, too,” he added. “You can leave the place closed for now, right? We should get supplies on our way. This petit ange deserves the best nest in the world.” If he could look at himself objectively, Kaden would have wondered where the grin spread across his face came from, but in the moment, it felt obvious — correct, even. 

—

“Anya and Lio. A shame it’s not twins.” Teddy effused maternal joy, cooing over their shared precious cargo. “Though… I guess you never know with these kinds of things. We could just go with Lianya, sort of a combo.” For the first time in a while, their eyes traveled up from the egg to the man holding it. The slightest touch of confusion wormed in, only at the strangeness of how little they knew him, and how important he obviously had to be. They both belonged to this egg, so in some way, they belonged to each other. Right? Even if just as caretakers. 

Home. Right, they should get it home. Needed a nest. Needed to bundle it up with joy and fluff and all the comforts of home. “A cabin? Aren’t the woods kinda…..” Fun to run around with a slayer and take care of the more monstrous mal-doers who would for sure try and hurt the people of Wicked’s Rest, and more than that, would hurt their little baby. “I’ve got a big house on World’s End Isle, lots of empty rooms. You could stay there too. Could bring all your stuff and there’d still be room. It’ll be safe there.” 

Teddy had completely forgotten about the maple goods store until Kaden brought it back up, and in all honesty, it was still the furthest thing from their mind right then. “Ah I barely work here.” Noncommittally and disaffected, Teds could not care less about the tiny too sweet smelling store. “Mostly I just temp for fun, don’t really need the money. I’ll close up while you figure out what this lil guy needs.” They curled in close while helping the man to his feet, scritching at the ‘head’ of the egg as if it were an actual humanoid infant. “We’re gonna be the best parents, no matter what.” 

—

“Lianya.” Kaden ran the name over his tongue before nodding. It was a solid compromise. “I like it. What about you?” he said, cooing to the egg. “Do you like that name, Lianya?” There was no actual response but he swore the egg grew a little warmer. Or brighter. Something like that, it was a good response. He could tell.

For a moment, Kaden was offended. What was wrong with his cabin? It was perfectly safe out there. All his weapons were out there. How was he going to protect this child if the weapons were in the cabin and he was on World’s End Isle with Telly? He sighed. He couldn’t argue that the island was more secluded and probably had better defenses. “Sure, we can do that. It means we’ll have to baby-proof more rooms, though.” Did he know what that entailed for Lianya specifically? Not really. They could figure it out. “After we pick up supplies in town, we can drop them off at your place and I’ll run to mine to grab what I need there.” And by that he meant weapons. 

Kaden followed behind as Telly closed up shop, gently cradling the egg and rocking it ever slightly. Nothing about this made a lot of sense if he paused to think about it but at the same time, it made all the sense in the world. The skies had cleared and his purpose was right there in front of him, right there in his arms. Kaden beamed at Telly’s words. They were going to be the best parents, no matter what. “We will be,” he assured them. “And nothing in the world will stand in our way.”

[maebys-delivery-service]

Timing: Current Location: Outside Maeby's "Apartment" Feat: @mortemoppetere & @maebys-delivery-service Warnings: None Summary: Emilio's newest case leads him to Maeby's.... fire escape?

Sometimes, people called him about strange occurrences. Emilio wasn’t sure if this was a typical expectation of private investigators or if Axis had gotten something of a reputation for their willingness to work strange cases — could have been either, or some mixture of both — but he didn’t really hate it. People asked interesting questions, and it could be almost fun to search for the answers. He’d never admit it, but it gave him something of a rush. These days, he was closest to happy when he had something worth figuring out.

This particular case seemed to be something in that vein. A client had gotten a package with what turned out to be a cursed artifact inside. They’d managed to remove the curse in question — they were a skilled spellcaster, and someone he hoped to keep in his back pocket as a potential contact if this case played out well — but they wanted to know where the package had come from. If someone was out to get them, they’d reasoned, it was better to know who that someone was. Emilio had been more than happy to take on the case, especially when the spellcaster offered to pay half up front. 

He’d done a bit of digging so far. A few shady business owners who’d been willing to let him take a look at their security cameras in exchange for favors later, a little old fashioned snooping, a couple of stops in the liquor store for mostly unrelated reasons, and here he was, standing outside an abandoned theater that seemed to be the residence of a courier who delivered shit like this. The job market in Wicked’s Rest was a strange one. Propping against the wall, he waited for the kid to appear. It didn’t take long. He’d been there a minute, maybe two when she slipped down a fire escape, package in hand. He approached her with a nod. “Maebelle Knot?” His accent curled uncertainly around the name. “Hoping to ask a few questions.”

— 

Maeby liked when the world was quiet. Hearing aids turned almost off, just the gentle hum of whatever music today felt like. It was a classical sort of day. All cellos and violins. Deep cascading rhythms, charging off and dancing along the melodies. The morning had thus far been a peaceful affair. One delivery, then a big wait until her next pickup. Maeby even had a chance to go home, stock up on road snacks and take a quick cat nap. 

(Lord knows she wasn't sleeping well at night anymore. What with all visions of great monsters, gnashing teeth, hard scales, and terrible things she was to become.) 

It was only on the return, going back from her restful little nest that some stranger broke the placid pleasantness. Maeby scowled at the words she couldn't quite hear, but the lips that looked an awful lot like they were saying their name. She did not know this man. He had not earned the right to call her by her full name. But the fact that he knew it at all wasn't a good one. (Unless he was saying something else entirely, perhaps Bay Hell Nod?) Maeby glanced sidelong towards the end of the alley, a quick consideration on how hard it would be to bolt past a guy like this. 

Why was he here? Who the hell was he? 

She opted for something else, feigned ignorance. “Sorry–” she pointed towards her ears and the matte plastic that stuck out even amongst the piercings and whatnot. “Don't know directions to any sable pond.” Maeby embodied a rather lackluster approximation of apologeticness and stepped to the side, gripping her longboard tighter as she made for the exit. 

—

She was younger than he thought she’d be. He hadn’t been able to get an exact age in his research — given the state of where she was living, he doubted she’d signed a lease for him to pull — but she looked around Nora or Wynne’s age, give or take a few years. She looked about ready to bolt, too, and Emilio really hoped she wouldn’t. There was no way in hell he’d be able to keep up with her. His bad leg flared up with a brief flash of pain at the mere thought of it, like the limb itself was warning him against the concept of anything more intense than a casual stride. If she ran, he’d have to come back another day, stake out the theater over and over and over again until she grew tired enough of his presence to speak to her. 

Luckily, she didn’t run right away. Instead, she pointed to her ear — he didn’t know what the plastic was — and said something that didn’t make sense. It took a moment for him to put two and two together, to connect the thing in her ear to the nonsensical response to his question. He thought of Jonas, who required Emilio to look directly at him and speak slowly, enunciating in ways that often felt unnatural with his accent. He could do that for this kid, too. The problem was, he got the feeling she was intentionally misunderstanding him.

Gritting his teeth, he stepped in front of her again, fishing his phone from his pocket and typing on the screen. Need to talk to you about something. He flipped it around so the words were facing her, expression neutral. “I can talk,” he looked her in the eyes as he would Jonas, spoke slowly and carefully, “or I can type. Typing will take longer. I have plenty of time. Something tells me you have less.”

—

Man, this would have been a wonderful time to turn into a great big man eating monster. Maeby itched at the back of her neck. Shifting uncomfortably as the rough patch there seemed to spread with her unease. More scales, but not enough to do anything with. Still it was kind of dumb to think like that, the kid chastised herself. The monster she was turning into was the one that ruined her life. It was the reason guys like this were probably looking for her. 

He didn't look like a cop. Maybe he was… the guy who owned the theater? Or worse, maybe her parents had somehow figured out where she was. Sent someone to drag her back. And she'd never get a cure before the worst happened. Before she turned into a monster and ate them all. 

Mr. Whoever was talking slowly. Over enunciating and pulling out his phone to type on. Great. Maeby’s scowl turned farther south. Souring more and more as it looked like this was a conversation she might actually have to have. A long sigh rolled from her chest and up and out. She carefully twisted the dial on her aid till the volume of the world matched something like ‘normal’ and the music all but faded away. “What.” Not exactly a question, not an invitation, either. If he had something to say, he better spit it out. 

—

She looked uncomfortable, and Emilio forced himself not to give a shit. If she was out here delivering cursed objects to people, he needed to get to the bottom of it for her sake as much as for the sake of the people who her deliveries were affecting. He knew firsthand what a cursed object could do to someone; memories of the cursed necklace that sent him to the roof of his apartment building gripped him by the throat, reminded him of where he might be now if Teddy hadn’t shown up to drag his drunk ass to their shitty houseboat. Shit like this was no joke. Uncomfortable or no, he needed to make her face it.

Her expression shifted, stormy look clear on her face. She seemed to recognize that Emilio wasn’t going anywhere, and that was good. That would save him a lot of time. He was a stubborn piece of shit, but his life was a lot easier when he didn’t have to be. He preferred being able to get things done without resorting to a shouting match outside an abandoned theater, especially when said shouting match was with a fucking kid. 

So it was a relief, really, when the kid reached up to the hunk of plastic in her ear and did something that seemed to make her hear him a little better. It was a relief when she demanded to know what he wanted. Even her clear irritation came as a relief in its familiarity; Emilio knew what to do with that far better than he did with most other emotions. He pocketed his phone and crossed his arms over his chest, tilting his head slightly with a nod. “You deliver things.” He tried to speak clearly, even though he thought whatever she’d done with her ears meant she could hear him now. He didn’t want to give her an excuse to drag this shit out. “Yes? You delivered one to a guy a few blocks from here. A, uh…” He struggled to find the word, fingers tapping against his arm uncertainly. “Box. With uh, dancers.” Hopefully, she’d know what he meant.

—

Mr. Sinclair was going to get a sternly worded letter at this rate. Some kind of big complaint. Possibly even a condemnation. The not-cop was asking about her deliveries, and that sent her mind from concerned to cranky. It was bad enough that the old vampire bossed her around and made her run halfway across the city just to turn around and go to the other side for these special deliveries, now Maeby had to deal with some angry customer or whatever. 

“Don't know what's in them. Not my job. I just put them where the package says. All complaints can go–” Quite suddenly the kid shifted in demeanor. Stopping short of outing her employer. Something she'd promised not to do. 

(Weirdly to Mr. Sinclair's strange assistant, not to him, though. Maeby didn't really understand why that was such a specific distinction he had, or why it was an…exceptionally well kept promise. But then again, she hardly understood half the shit going on since she got to town.) 

“Up your butt and around the corner.” She deflected, crossing her arms and taking up a post leaning against the brick wall behind her. A wrinkle tilted her nose up, like she'd caught a whiff of something rank. “Why do you even care?”

—

Now that was interesting. He caught it, the moment she almost gave away more than she meant to. The way her body stiffened, the way she faltered. It meant there was something more to tell, meant she wasn’t the top of the food chain here. Emilio wasn’t particularly surprised by that; he doubted a kid was the one running an operation sending out cursed objects to people, especially when the kid in question didn’t set off any ‘undead and probably a lot older than they look’ alarm bells in his head. She was hiding something; that meant there was something to hide.

He studied her for a moment, brows raised. She was standoffish, she clearly didn’t want to talk to him. He’d run into kids like her a thousand times in this town, knew most of her act probably was an act. He didn’t think she wanted to hurt anyone. In his experience, most kids didn’t. (On some level, he knew that was a biased way of thinking. There were kids who were shitty, kids who reveled in causing others pain, kids who wanted nothing more than to hurt people. But Emilio had a hard time seeing that, had a hard time accepting it. To him, kids were the only ones ever awarded the benefit of the doubt. Everyone else got the full dose of his paranoia.)

“It hurt somebody,” he commented, idly pulling out a pack of cigarettes and putting one in his mouth. He held it between his teeth as he continued. “The person who wound up with it. They were lucky — they knew how to fix it before it got bad. But the next person might not. Or the one after that, or the one after that. More stuff like this gets delivered, someone could end up real hurt. I don’t think you want that.” He lit the cigarette, taking a long drag. “Or maybe you do. But I don’t.”

—

Maeby bristled. Her heart picked up and she tried to look anywhere that wasn’t at this stranger. Her face felt hot, but it remained in that tight scowl. Trying to look unaffected, and failing quite spectacularly. The cool of the bricks behind her was the only thing grounding her well enough to keep tears from forming. She hated confrontation. The first sign of it usually meant shutting down in one way or another, but this was different. Much much more at stake than someone who potentially might maybe get hurt. 

Exactly what she worried about was true? So what? More people would get hurt, she reminded herself, if she didn’t get the cure. If she followed in the steps of every monster on the silver screen and destroyed whole towns, cities, states. Catastrophizing? Maybe. But Maeby was still a kid. Pretty sheltered one at that. With a mind that tended to take things literally. So when a scary witch tells you quite cryptically that ‘you will destroy everything you care about’ then a week later the first scale appears, well. Maeby believed it. 

“Not my fault.” She lied. Or at least, deflected again. “Maybe they ordered it like that. I’m just delivering them.” Maeby had to keep delivering them. She had to find out everything there was to know about Lamia, and how to stop being one before it got bad. “Why not go bother someone else. I don’t have to talk to you.” 

—

He’d rattled her. She was trying not to show it, but she wasn’t as skilled in keeping a straight face as he was in seeing past them. He took note of the way she leaned back, the way she looked shaken by the bluntness of his words. He’d meant to make her lose her cool, but he still felt a stab of guilt at the success. Emilio took no real pleasure in questioning kids like this, didn’t find it nearly as fun or rewarding as interrogating people a little older, who tended to deserve rougher handling. 

It’d be easier if she just told him what he needed to know. He wasn’t lying about his intentions; his client had managed to break the curse easily enough, but not everyone who got a delivery from this kid would be a powerful spellcaster. Sooner or later, someone was going to get hurt. Irreparably so. Emilio wanted to prevent that for the kid as much as he wanted to prevent it for the potential victim of the next curse she dropped off someplace. Hurting people wasn’t an easy thing to deal with, to stomach. It wasn’t the kind of thing most people came back from. Emilio would know better than most; he was one of the ones who never made it back.

“Maybe it’s not your fault,” he agreed with a shrug. “You didn’t know what it’d do. But I’m telling you now. You know now. So the next one you drop off, if it hurts somebody… Harder to say that’s not your fault. One after that, too. And after that.” He took another drag from the cigarette, turning his head away from her to exhale with a sigh. “You don’t have to talk to me,” he agreed. “But I’m going to find out what I need to know. Could find it out from you. Could find it out from someone else. Doesn’t matter much to me, but might make you feel better if you’re the one helping. Feels better than hurting, sometimes.”

—

“Yeah, well– some of them are good too.” She shot back. Face red hot and steaming. “Life-saving even.” The only other time Maeby had been approached after delivering something, it was pretty much the opposite of this. And only because the person was there when she dropped the package off. And they insisted she stay for its opening. 

Maeby didn't know why but the person was really compelling. Like they couldn't leave if they wanted to. Something about them just pulled her right inside. It all turned out okay, even if it was odd. The package had some great thing the woman had been looking for for ages and she said that she'd just die without it. So, life-saving. Right? Then she just gave Maeby a cookie and sent her on her way. Weird, but she never really thought about it much after. 

“You aren't going around and fucking up regular postman’s days. They deliver shit that could be good or bad or neutral.” The young courier defended her position. It wasn't exactly perfect and she knew that, but it was necessary if she didn't want things to get worse. “Why don't you go find the people sending the packages then huh?? They're the ones who—who– who” She fumbled, tripping over her words as her frustration grew. “who are actually doing the bad things, Mister Tough Guy??” 

—-

“You willing to roll the dice like that?” It was a genuine question. Was she okay with delivering packages that might hurt people if the tradeoff was packages that might help them? There was give and take with everything; Emilio knew that better than most. It was the same with what he did, sometimes. You hurt some people to help others. But how much control did she have? She seemed uncertain, seemed like maybe she didn’t know what was in those packages before she dropped them off. What was the ratio of ones that hurt versus ones that helped? Did she know? Did she want to?

He snorted at her defense, leveling her with a deadpan expression. “If I got a call about a postman’s package nearly killing someone then, yeah, I’d go fuck up their days. But I didn’t. I got a call about yours.” He couldn’t solve every goddamn problem in the world, and there were days when he hated himself for that. There were days when he read about ‘animal attacks’ in cemeteries and figured they were his fault, days when the weight of the world fit pretty snugly on top of his shoulders. He was learning to accept that he needed to do what he could, to save who he could save. This case was one someone had brought to him. This courier was standing in front of him. He could investigate this one. Maybe it’d make up for the ones he couldn’t.

“That’s what I’m trying to do, kid. How do you think this shit works? You start at the bottom, you work your way up. You’re on the bottom. I talk to you, figure out who you work for. Then I talk to them, figure out who paid them to have the package delivered. Then I go to that person, figure out why. If I could start at the top, I’d do it. But people like that are pretty goddamn good at hiding. Easier to find the people who are doing the bad things if the ones who don’t want bad things to happen will help you.”

—

It weighed on her. Of course it did. How could it not? As much as Maeby Knott wanted to pretend she was the aloof unaffected punk who could take the hard knocks and still be cool, she was more the sheepish kid who was scared shitless over all the sudden changes to her life. They had moved out for the first time, had to rig together every scrap to make some manner of home here in Wicked's Rest. 

Part of that was the job. 

Trickling information down from someone who, as the stranger put it, was at the top. Mr. Sinclair was smart and ancient. He was a fucking vampire for real real and he wasn't afraid to flex the strength that gave him even for small bouts of ire. Maeby shuddered to think of what it might look like if he got properly angry. 

Even if that wasn't a problem, Mr. Sinclair was the only hope for a cure. Maeby couldn't jeopardize that. Not even for someone trying to do the right thing. 

“Well, better figure all that out then, huh?” She barked, the heat rising behind her cheeks. She couldn't look at him anymore. Couldn't stand to be here, or anywhere that people's eyes could cast upon her. Whenever things got like this, it felt like the world could read her every thought. Felt like her heartbeat gave away every secret. Almost frantically, she turned to her board. Realizing then she'd been gripping it so tight her knuckles had gone white. Maeby dropped it to the ground and brushed past the man in the leather jacket. Escaping before the tears threatened to well, or god forbid, fall. 

—

It was clear he’d gotten to her, but it was just as clear that she wasn’t going to tell him what he needed to know. It would have been easier for the both of them if she would have, would have meant less trouble in the long run, but it was what it was. Maybe she was afraid of her boss, he reasoned; whoever was in charge of sending cursed objects out to people doubtlessly carried some power, and she was just a kid. Maybe whoever was over her head had her locked into something tight, and her fear clamped her jaw shut tighter than anything else could ever hope. 

Or maybe she believed what she was spouting. Emilio thought of himself at that age, defending the Cortez code so vehemently that anyone who questioned it for a second saw him spitting venom in their direction. It had taken a kid of his own for him to figure out the things he’d been taught hadn’t been entirely true, and even now he sometimes found himself defending the person he didn’t want to be anymore. 

Whatever the reason, though, it was clear that Maebelle Knott was a dead end, that Emilio would need to take the investigation in another direction if he ever hoped to solve it. If she’d been someone else, he might have pushed more. Someone a few years older might have found themselves shoved against the wall, might have felt a blade against their chest in a quiet warning. But this was a kid, and Emilio couldn’t bring himself to threaten her. Instead, he nodded as she dropped her board and brushed by him.

“Probably be seeing you around,” he called after her. This client wouldn’t be the only one who came to him with some kind of problem that led back to her. He was sure of that. “Hope I’m not telling you about someone one of your deliveries killed next time.”

—

Maeby’s mind was a staticky mess. Pushing out and in, in all directions. Fighting a losing war against morals and judgment and whatever the hell the greater good was in this situation. There was no other greater good for her, than stopping this tide of destruction that was heading her way. Who knows how fast. Could be tomorrow, could be a week from now. But whenever that reptilian curse reared its ugly scaly head, the greater good was in more danger than receiving mystery packages from a mildly magical source. 

As the young soon-to-be-monster sped off, away enough that she only barely caught the stranger’s final jab, but it was enough to seal the coffin on her most current breakdown. The guy already knew where she lived, so she didn’t have to go skate around the neighborhood before circling back to the one place she shouldn’t be disturbed. But maybe it helped get out some excess energy. Maybe it took their mind off of the obvious long enough for her to calm down. Maybe it was all an escape, in a way. 

All she knew was tomorrow there would be another package. And she’d have to deliver it. 

[fearhims3lf]

TIMING: Morning After Pretenders

PARTIES: @loftylockjaw @fearhims3lf

SUMMARY: Mateo picks Wyatt up, and the two have a heartfelt conversation on the way home.

WARNINGS: None

Wyatt hadn’t slept well, of course, and his body still ached from the beating it’d taken from those demonic, feathered fuckers. The night with Caleb had been a gentle reminder of all the things they still needed to talk about, and the anxiety that stemmed from having that conversation looming on the horizon had kept him up better than any threats of nightmares could have. Caleb didn’t sleep, just like Mateo, so they’d just spent the night talking about anything other than what had happened, filling the silence between conversations with whatever was on the television. It’d been nice, in its way, even if he was exhausted. And come morning, he’d excused himself to go deal with his disaster of a life — there was no way he was fighting tonight, so he’d need to see if Agnes or someone else could move things around. 

Wandering through the streets of Deersprings and stopping at the first coffee house he passed, Wyatt texted Mateo to let him know where he could find him. He looked tired when the mare arrived, despite the finished coffee he tossed in the garbage bin on the sidewalk before climbing into the passenger’s side seat. Huffing out a weary breath, he leaned his head back against the headrest and closed his eyes, brows furrowed. 

“Fuck,” he muttered for no reason in particular other than how shitty he felt. But he wasn’t the only one feeling like crap, so he did roll his head to the side to look at Mateo, flashing him a brief, weak smile before reaching across the console between them to put a hand on his thigh. “Hey.” He felt compelled to apologize, which was stupid — they’d both gone through last night together, and were both hurting in similar ways. There was nothing to apologize for. So he didn’t, instead just giving the man’s leg a squeeze.“Good to see you.”

—

The old truck's engine rumbled and revved under the pressure of the mare's foot. He could smell the small hint of exhaust while he was stopped at a light. The window was down and he could feel the breeze dance on his skin as his arm dangled out the window. Mateo didn't know what to make of everything, but he at least found some comfort in the way Wyatt squeezed his leg and muttered a reassurance. He needed that more than he'd ever admit, though he was sure they way he slid his hand into Wyatt's said it all. 

“Fuck, indeed. You look like shit.” The mare said blatantly, with a hint of humor in his tone. “Still nice to see you too, though.” He offered a languid smile in return, shifting gears as they went up a small hill. They weren't too far from Mateo's place, but the drive felt much longer than it needed to. All the mare wanted to do was get in bed and forget how pathetic he'd been in the last fourteen hours as he moped around his apartment with Angel pacing right behind him. 

He wasn't sure why he'd been so jealous, why Wyatt wouldn't just let him pick him up or visit. Did that Caleb guy matter more? Was…Ah, shit, Mateo thought. He was being pathetic again. It needed to stop, he knew that. But before he could hold his tongue, he asked, “You dating that Caleb guy?”

—

Scoffing at Mateo’s astute observation, Wyatt closed his eyes again and settled in for the ride. The question that broke the silence was one he should have expected, but it made his throat close up all the same. There was no good reason for it — Mateo knew Wyatt had been at least messing around with people outside of their throuple situation, and had expressed to him that it was fine, and yet… well, maybe it was mostly just the guilt of not having had this conversation with Caleb yet. Caleb never really thought they were dating, but then Wyatt used the b-word. Caleb had said more than once now that he wanted to be in Wyatt’s life, no matter what that looked like, but Wyatt still hadn’t been forthcoming with those details. He wanted to, it just seemed like there was never a good fucking time for it. Which was maybe an excuse, but he knew he had to get it over with. He was just afraid that it would be too much for Caleb, which was why he hadn’t wanted Mateo to pop over with hardly any kind of explanation or formal introduction. 

“I… think so,” he answered honestly. “There’s still a lot of things to talk about, you know? Uh. We didn’t really… start off on the most honest footin’. Met about this time last year. Didn’t tell him ‘bout my night job. Didn’t tell ‘im ‘bout the nightmares, when they started. Separated for a while, when he…” Well, that wasn’t exactly Wyatt’s story to tell, at least not without Caleb’s permission. “Anyway. Weren’t his fault. I went off the deep end, n’ we only just reconnected ‘bout a month ago.” The lamia shifted himself in his seat, lifting his head away from the headrest and staring at the road in front of them. “I care ‘bout him, though. A lot. He’s got baggage, same as you n’ me, but he’s a good person.” Probably too good for me, even with that baggage, Wyatt thought. But he didn’t want to insinuate that Mateo was any different by leaving him out of the statement, so it remained in his head. 

—

Mateo gripped the steering wheel tighter, and he chided himself internally for it. He had no right to be jealous, but there was something that felt uncomfortable about not being told about Caleb. Because it likely meant Wyatt hadn't mentioned Mateo either. The very thought made his stomach sink, and he squeezed the steering wheel even harder. 

Why would Wyatt want to mention the mare anyway? All the money in the world couldn't hide the fact that Mateo wasn't good to keep around. He was a lost cause to a life he wasn't even supposed to be living. He was foolish to think he would ever be worthy of long lasting connections. Xóchitl was the first to realize, and it was only a matter of time before Wyatt did too. Mateo figured it would be in his best interest to just rip off the bandaid sooner rather than later, but he was too selfish and weak to do so. 

“That's…nice. Good for you.” He spoke flatly, a bit dejected but he tried his best to sound a little more himself as he continued. “You just can't help yourself, can you, slut?”

—

Wyatt didn’t miss the tone of Mateo’s voice, or… lack thereof. It made his skin prickle uncomfortably and he shifted in his seat, drawing his arms back to himself to scrub his palms over his face, groaning as he leaned forward in his seat. “No, I can’t,” he answered Mateo, though his own inflection wasn’t quite as carefree as he would’ve liked. “... I don’t know what I’m doin’, man. I feel like I gotta fight fuckin’ tooth and nail to get people to stay. And when things seem good, I… I don’t wanna do nothin’ that’ll disrupt that.” But that wasn’t an excuse, and it didn’t mean he could keep Mateo a secret. Not that he was trying to keep him secret, necessarily, but that was a big conversation, and… “I ain’t good with words, in case you hadn’t noticed. Even worse with… everythin’ else. Actions speak louder, or whatever, and I keep screwin’ the pooch.” And to add injury to insult, the world seemed out to target him specifically. First it was the legs, then the beak, and now the birdlike monsters that had attacked them last night. His greatest fears were manifesting outside his nightmares and trying to rip him apart, and it made him jump at every shadow, tense at every squawk and screech and chirp he heard. It made him worry that he might start seeing his mother next, and if something as innocuous as birds had become such a pain point for him, he couldn’t imagine being confronted with some twisted version of his mother that was trying to rip his throat out. That might send him to a place he wouldn’t be able to come back from. 

“Anyway. Gonna talk to him about it. All of it. All of…” Wyatt gestured at Mateo, keeping his tired eyes facing forward. “Maybe when I ain’t bangin’ down death’s door, though.”

—

Whatever was going through Wyatt's head had to be hard for him, and it wasn't fair to him that Mateo was acting like a clingy asshole. The mare couldn't get people to stay either, but there was a good reason for that. Whatever Mateo wanted in life, when he practiced an ounce of selfishness, it always cost him. Always led to tons of regret and disapproval. Not that Wyatt disapproved, but Mateo had experienced that elsewhere. He could hear his father right then. 

You have responsibilities, Mateo. Family is family. People don't love selfish men. 

Filipe wasn't a selfish man, and look at him. A loving wife and five children that respected him and adored him. Sometimes even feared him. But that was a secret Mateo kept to himself. It felt ridiculous to be scared of a man that he could thrust terror onto, and he wasn't going to subject himself to that sort of joke. He'd had enough of that growing up, but it looked like he was a joke again anyway, and the punchline was his own doing. 

“You're doing fine.” Mateo finally managed to say, only just realizing tears were starting to muddy his vision. He quickly blinked them away, ensuring to keep his gaze forward so Wyatt couldn't see. It was probably time to set the man free from deadweight. Mateo knew that's all he was now. Had been for about five years. “Nothing practice can't help, y'know?” He paused for a moment, adding, “And you don't have to say anything. If you wanna be done, be done. I'd get it. Really.” With a languid shrug, Mateo turned at a corner and watched his apartment building grow closer with each roll of his truck’s tires.

—

Well that wasn’t what he’d been expecting to hear. Wyatt lifted his gaze, sitting up straighter as he stared over at Mateo. Be done? “That’s the last thing I want,” he choked out. “No, Mateo — I’m gonna tell him. And if he doesn’t like it, well, then that’s… that’s it, you know?” The truck rolled to a stop at the curb, and the two men sat quietly while the engine still rumbled and filled the silence between them. Only for a few seconds, though, before Wyatt was speaking again. “I can’t go back to… I’d just hurt him eventually, if he ain’t okay with it. That’s all I been doin’ all my life — hurtin’ people. I can’t do that no more. You… you were the first to…” 

He swallowed hard, dropping his gaze to his lap. “You showed me that it’s okay to be the way that I am. That it can work. That’s… that’s huge. I know it probably don’t seem like much to you, but I…” I might not have been this lonely for this long if I’d known I could just lead with that, and find people who were like me. Like us. “Whatever happens with Xó, or with Caleb, I don’t wanna lose you too. You’re important to me. You matter.” He shook his head, glancing back up at Mateo. “Don’t ask me to be done.”

—

It was all so unexpected, the way Wyatt fought for the man next to him. He'd always been expendable, easily tossed aside if he wasn't any use. On days that he felt too tired to function on the farm, Junior was once again the favorite, or Estela skidded into first, or really any one of the Lara children could steal the spot. It wasn't enough to just be for Mateo or his siblings to be. Work gave him value, and if he couldn't provide that, what use was there for him to be around? What use was there in putting in the effort to love him?

You were born for one thing and if you can't do that, what's the point? You're an asshole and you have no right to be. I gave you this life. I sacrificed to get you here. Where is your effort?

Mateo shut his eyes tightly and clung firmly onto the steering wheel, hoping to hold onto some fragment of composure. Because he never needed anyone to be more than they were. No one ever needed to work for his love. He was dumbfounded to find that someone wanted to provide that for him too. “I…I…” Mateo trailed off with a sniffled, croaking, “I love you the way you are. Don't be done. I need you to not be done.” Keeping his eyes shut, he felt his tears trail down his cheeks, sharp and cold. “It does seem like much to me. It's like…everything to me. You and Xó have been everything to me for a while.”

— “Hey. Hey,” he muttered, leaning over the console between them and reaching for Mateo, one hand landing on his neck while the other turned the mare’s head toward him. “I’m not done. I’m here.” His gaze jumped between Mateo’s eyes, thumb wiping away part of the streak of tears on his face. “I’m here. And I love you the way you are, okay? So cut the crap. Stop tellin’ me you ain’t enough. You are.” Wyatt’s lips were pressed into a thin frown as he struggled to keep his own composure, the emotions from the last couple of days feeling absolutely overwhelming in that moment. “Whoever’s been tellin’ you the opposite is a fuckin’ liar and a moron.” His neck felt hot and his vision seemed oddly blurred, making him blink hard a few times as he looked at Mateo, refusing to move away just yet. “You’re enough, and you’re not gettin’ rid of me so easy,” he reiterated with a shaky voice, nodding definitively. And, as if to seal the affirming statement, Wyatt then leaned even closer, his injuries shouting in protest at the strain from this awkward angle, catching Mateo in a careful kiss.

[vengeancedemon]

TIMING: the night of april 9th, late. LOCATION: worm row. SUMMARY: a client fails to meet emilio at the bar where they were scheduled to link up. luckily, they're waiting to meet him outside instead! CONTENT WARNINGS: suicidal ideation tw, alcoholism tw

It was a call he’d gotten a dozen times since opening Axis, the kind of thing that was to be expected. I want to hire you, the person on the other end of the line always said, but I can’t come to your office. There was always some kind of excuse for it, some kind of explanation. It boiled down to the same thing, of course: people didn’t always want anyone figuring out they’d hired a PI. 

For some of them, it was about reputation. That was usually the housewives who were worried their husbands were stepping out, the ones who wanted to know the truth but only so they could make sure no one else figured it out. They didn’t want to be the person everyone else in the neighborhood whispered about, didn’t want Kathy from next door to tell Brenda from the HOA because she might tell Sharon down the street. There were politics involved, even more confusing than the ones that sent people to polling places in election season. Emilio didn’t understand any of it. He’d never cared to try. Those housewives’ money spent the same as anyone else's, so he met them in restaurants and bookstores and coffeeshops, and he told them facts they didn’t like very much. Those were simple enough.

For others, though, it was about fear. In a town like Wicked’s Rest, there were a lot of people who hired PIs for things more complicated than a spouse’s suspicious behavior. Some of the cases he took on were things that probably should have been handled by the police, but the police were busy, or the people who hired him didn’t want them involved. For those people, there was a paranoia Emilio understood intimately. They worried that if someone saw them hanging around a PI’s office, they’d take action. They worried that the second the person they were onto knew that they were onto them, things would escalate. Those clients asked to meet in neutral, public spots, where they could pretend they were meeting a friend. 

This guy asked to meet him at a bar. Emilio figured that put him in the fear category, and his foot tapped against the ground in anxious anticipation. He’d never met the guy face to face. He’d been dodgy on the phone, nervous. He was in trouble. That was all he’d said. He was in trouble, and it wasn’t something he wanted to talk about over a phone line. The Wormhole was a better bet, he’d claimed; Emilio wasn’t sure if he’d chosen it because it was seedy enough for a suspicious conversation to become background noise, or because it was near the location still listed for Axis’s office on half his advertisements. Either way, he didn’t mind it. The Wormhole was familiar territory. He liked it there.

He liked being stood up a little less, though. He’d accepted the first drink the bartender poured for him when he came in, figuring the alcohol would stop his hands from shaking and ease his nerves. He’d said no to the second, offered soon after the first was gulped down, because his client was supposed to arrive any moment. Half an hour after the meeting time, when the client was still nowhere to be found, he’d had that second drink. Then he’d said yes to a third, then a fourth. 

By the time he lost count of the drinks, he’d also lost track of how late his client was. The bartender tapped the bar in front of him as Emilio held out his glass, shaking his head. “I’ve seen you drink enough to know your limits, Milio,” he scoffed, pulling the bottle back. “And I’m pretty sure you’re past ‘em. Guy never showed, did he?”

Emilio sighed, rolling his eyes. “Look like he did? Still sitting alone.”

“Sure are. Go sleep it off, yeah? You can settle your tab in the morning, when you can actually manage to count the bills in your wallet.” 

“Ah, vete a la chingada. Not even that drunk.” But he stumbled as he stood, and his vision swam uncomfortably. Judging by the snort the bartender gave him, he was swaying, too. He slapped the bar once, then headed for the door. He figured the bartender knew he wasn’t going to pay his tab. It was the guy’s own fault for kicking him out, he thought to himself, rolling his eyes as he yanked at the door, then paused and pushed it open instead. 

The cool air hit him, and he mumbled his dissatisfaction as he pulled out his cigarettes. He ducked into an alley and out of the wind, digging around in his pocket for a lighter. He felt an undead presence in the alley and tensed, but didn’t react otherwise. It could be fine. It could be nothing. It could be…

“Need a light?” The voice came from the darkness. He paused, looking over. A figure stood in the shadows, not as well hidden as he would have been without the slayer’s night vision assisting him. At the sight of him, Emilio faltered. 

There were few faces that stuck with a man forever. Fewer still that were granted a permanent place in memory after being seen only on a monitor. But this face…

He’d seen a video, after. It was covered up before it could reach anyone who might spread the word, erased from public view to keep the supernatural factors that had played into the massacre of San Agustín Etla a secret. But Emilio had been allowed to watch it… after making it less of a request, more of a demand. It was a short video, with shaky camerawork and fear pouring off the screen. A teenager behind the camera, screaming out as she ran. Her death hadn't quite been captured. The camera shook and dropped, showed feet instead of a throat torn out, and then a corpse had fallen into frame before it was picked up again. The killer had looked into the lens for half a second before the video ended, but his face was ingrained in Emilio’s memory all the same.

And now, that same face stared back at him from an alley in Wicked’s Rest, Maine, years after that video was shot. 

He moved quickly. The cigarette fell from between his lips, the pack dropped to the concrete beneath his feet. His hands shot into his pockets, one wrapping around a stake while the other found a vial of holy water. He was going to kill this vampire. He was going to make it hurt. The thought was a quiet, matter-of-fact thing, something that wasn’t quite a question. He was going to kill this vampire, and he was going to make it hurt, and it wouldn’t do anything for the dead girl in the video or the one who’d died in Emilio’s living room, but Emilio could pretend it’d do something for him. He was going to kill this vampire, and he was going to make it hurt, and his town would still be destroyed and his daughter would still be dead but maybe he could look himself in the eyes the next time he walked by a mirror. 

It was a split-second thing. His hands wrapped around the weapons and whipped them out, and if he’d jumped then and there, if he’d attacked swiftly, he probably would have killed the vampire right away. But that wasn’t enough for Emilio. Not with this vampire. Because he was going to kill this vampire, and he was going to make it hurt. He was going to take it slow. That meant a moment’s thought as he decided where to splash the holy water and where to stick the stake.

And the moment was just long enough.

Hands wrapped around him from behind. Someone grabbed one arm, someone else grabbed the other. Another arm locked around his throat. This wasn’t one vampire in an alley; this was an ambush.

“Sorry I couldn’t make our meeting.” One of the ones behind him sneered, and he recognized the voice. It had sounded different on the phone; tinny and shaky and scared. The guy was a decent actor; Emilio had to give him that. “But I think we can do it just as well out here.” 

Emilio grunted in response, throwing his head back and grinning sharply when he felt it make contact with someone’s nose. That was the thing with guys who liked to boast: they always got just a little too close to do it. A string of curses came with a slightly loosened grip on one of his arms, and he seized the opportunity to yank himself free and pull out the stake. Backwards first, he thought; he needed to take out the ones behind him so he could deal with the main event. Because he still wanted to make it hurt, still wanted to make the monster pay. 

He thrust the stake back with only a quick glance to pinpoint the nearest chest, shoving it through dead flesh until it found a still heart and the body around it turned to dust. One down. He spun around to see how many were left, the pain in his bad leg dulled by adrenaline. He was expecting the other two who’d had a hold on him.

There were more than that.

The odds were bad. He knew it right away, knew it the moment he caught sight of how outnumbered he was and took stock of how much he’d had to drink. He couldn’t let himself think about it. Another stake exploded one to dust, a splash of holy water sent another tumbling back. But one of them kicked at his bad leg, and the adrenaline covered the pain but the limb was still half-useless when it came to holding his weight, especially when he was intoxicated, so he stumbled. His stake sunk into someone’s shoulder instead of their chest, and he couldn’t get leverage to pull it free. Hands were all around him, shoving him back until he was against the wall, pinning him to it and holding him still. He was strong, but he was so outnumbered. He was angry, but it was more of a hindrance than a help. 

His chest heaved as the one who’d spoken first, the one from San Agustín Etla, the one who must have been in charge stepped forward. He sneered at Emilio, and Emilio snarled back. Like this, with his teeth bared and his eyes wild, it might have been hard to tell which of them was the monster.

Emilio was never quite sure himself.

“I was surprised to learn you made it out,” the vampire said, speaking clipped Spanish. Emilio tried to surge forward, but hands held him back, kept his back against the wall. “I thought the Cortezes were all dead.” 

“You thought wrong,” Emilio spat back, falling into his native tongue with ease. Only the good ones died, he added silently. Only the ones worth keeping. It was the worst of them who’d walked away. Wasn’t that always how it went?

“Well,” the vampire hummed, reaching forward. Emilio bucked and thrashed against the grip holding him down, but the hands held tight as the vampire slipped a hand into the slayer’s jacket and came back holding a blade. “I guess I won’t be wrong for much longer.” He held the blade up to the dull light, as if inspecting it. Emilio’s eyes never left his face, in spite of the obvious threat.

“I’m going to kill you,” he said plainly. Then again in Spanish, “I’m going to kill you. I’m going to make it hurt. Your friends, too. Every asshole in this alley, everyone you give a shit about. I’m going to take them apart piece by fucking piece. You’re going to wish you’d never come here.” He wasn’t sure it was a threat he could follow through with. Not with the hands pinning him down, not with the knife gleaming in the dull streetlight. 

The vampire knew it, too. He smiled, all sharp teeth and red eyes. “No,” he said. “You’re really not.” 

There was no more preamble; somehow, Emilio had thought there would be. He’d expected a long speech, a monologue that he could interrupt with snide remarks until he finally managed to catch one of the people holding him down off guard. He’d been in a thousand situations like this one, been up against a million walls. He was never the one who died, even when he wanted to be. It was never his blood staining the floor.

At least, not until tonight.

This villain wasn’t one for speeches. This monster wasn’t interested in playing with his food. He smiled, and the knife gleamed, and that was the only prelude Emilio got. It was quick, like a bullet from a gun. The knife shot forward, and he felt the pressure before the pain. He thought, damn, getting stabbed is always a fucking ordeal. He thought, shit, that bartender’s going to make me pay my tab if I go back in for stitches. 

And then, the pain hit, and thinking became a little harder.

His head dropped, eyes locking onto the knife sticking out of his chest. He’d never been stabbed in the chest before, had he? He was usually able to twist it to a better angle, usually able to move with whoever he was fighting to control it. He knew the best places to get stabbed, knew that you wanted, ideally, to take the knife in a meaty part of your body without any major arteries. Shoulder wasn’t as good as people thought it was — there were a lot of nerve endings there, a few arteries — and thigh risked knicking the femoral. Lower abdomen wasn’t so bad, if it was below the belly button. Missed the big shit, even if it hurt like hell. Bleeding was something to watch out for, but if you could get somewhere to get patched up, it wasn’t a death sentence. If he could have moved, he might have tried to redirect the blade there. But he was pinned to a fucking wall, because this wasn’t a fight. This was an ambush, something a coward had set up. 

He knew the best places to get stabbed. He also knew the worst. This was the latter.

He coughed, tasting iron on his tongue as the blood painted his lips. His eyes were fiery as they rose up to meet the vampire’s, rage burning through him. The hands pinning him to the wall let him go, and he took a step forward, but a step was all he could manage before his legs gave out. He collapsed to the ground like a puppet whose strings had been cut. Slowly, the vampire lowered himself to his level.

“I thought this would be harder,” he admitted, reaching for the knife. He twisted it, pulled it out, and wiped it on Emilio’s shirt. “Guess I overestimated you.” 

“Gonna… kill you…” Emilio struggled to force the words out. Each syllable tasted like blood. The vampire only laughed.

There was no way he’d be able to follow through on the threat now; he knew it with absolute certainty. There were black spots dancing on the edge of his vision, growing larger and larger with each blink of his heavy eyelids. The pain felt far away; he knew this wasn’t a good thing. 

(This wasn’t what he’d thought dying would feel like. He’d always imagined something more honorable. He’d pictured a battlefield, a grand rescue, his life laid down for someone else’s. He’d wanted to die a martyr. Instead, he was bleeding out in an alley. It might have been funny if he could have mustered up the energy to laugh.)

Distantly, he was aware of someone picking him up. It jostled him, sent the pain that had distanced itself rolling through him again, but he didn’t make a noise. Already, he was fading. He wanted to speak, but his tongue was too heavy to move. His vision went next, those black spots overtaking him until the world was a vast, endless nothingness. He could still feel hands on his body, but they felt separate, somehow, like his body wasn’t quite his own. There was a weightlessness to it as he was carried and then thrown, crumpling into a space small enough that he would have panicked if he’d been more aware of it. 

And then he was floating, was nothing, was capable only of listening to the last hints of the world. The voices were far away, and he couldn’t make out what they were saying, couldn’t even fathom what language they were speaking. Something slammed and echoed, and then there was silence. 

(Anyone who knew him would be unsurprised to learn that Emilio Cortez’s corpse wound up in a dumpster behind a dive bar, his own blood staining his teeth. Anyone who knew him wouldn’t need to ask to know that he’d taken out more than one of his murderers, even if it hadn’t saved him in the end. Anyone who knew him would understand that this was inevitable, that this was always how it was going to end. His story was written the day he was born, the end spelled out with fangs and blood and senseless tragedy. Anyone who knew him knew that, too.

But no one who knew him could have predicted what happened next. Emilio knew, better than most, that what died didn’t always stay dead.

He’d just never thought he’d end up counting himself among the things that didn’t.)

[recoveringdreamer]

TIMING: current LOCATION: felix's boiler room PARTIES: @zombiebabysitter, @gossipsnake, @ariadnewhitlock, @notstinky, & @recoveringdreamer SUMMARY: a group of rhyming allies come together to break a curse. CONTENT WARNINGS: descriptions and discussion of snakes eating

The rhyming had become… almost fun, if Felix was being entirely honest with themself. There was something kind of entertaining about it, even if it was technically a curse. It didn’t seem to be hurting anything and, as a bonus, it seemed to annoy Leo enough that he’d been avoiding conversation with them. If it were only Felix cursed, they might have just… let it continue for a while. But they were pretty sure some of their friends were getting tired of it, and it didn’t seem fair to subject all of them to a life of rhyming just because Felix didn’t mind it. 

So, they’d called together a strategy session. A few of the people who were cursed — and no one who wasn’t. The last thing they wanted was to spread this thing even further, so it seemed way safer to only include people already involved. It wasn’t like someone could be cursed twice, right? 

The boiler room was a little cramped, not really meant to house this many people at once, but that was okay. They wouldn’t be in here long, hopefully. Felix had set the glass orange in the center of the room, like they all might need a reminder about why they were gathered here today. He squinted at it suspiciously from where he sat on the single office chair, elbows on his knees and hands folded and propping up their chin. 

“We need a plan of action,” Felix announced. “So far, nothing we’ve tried has had any real reaction. It can’t be broken. And once you’ve touched it, rhymes must be spoken. But every curse has to have an out. I think we all know that without a doubt. So, what should we do? I want to hear from all of you.”

—

As far as Charlie was concerned, rhyming kinda fucking rocked. He had been a lyric-writing machine as of late, speaking the words aloud and then writing them on paper if they sounded good. Yeah, Finn was annoyed any time Charlie opened his mouth to speak to him, seeing as how everything that came out of his mouth was a fucking rhyme, but that wasn’t his fault. How was he supposed to know that ugly as sin Faberge egg was cursed with a rhyme scheme curse?

So that’s how he’d ended up in Felix’s boiler room apartment after a shift at the pit, tired and a little out of sorts. Charlie looked around at the others in the room, then let out a sigh. “Well as far as I’m concerned, there’s nothing that we’ve learned. We’re stuck in a rhyme which is, as far as I’m concerned? A total fucking crime. But also, I’ve been writing a lot and I feel kinda like a robot. So I can go either way, I write music by day.” He shrugged his shoulders.

As far as Charlie was concerned, this was a gift. He was able to write his music and not have to wrack his brain for rhyme schemes when he was cursed to do it automatically. It was great! He’d written so many songs in such a short amount of time that he was allotting himself a break after all this was cleared up. 

__

Thea had found a nice patch of damp for herself, tucked against the wall of Felix’s possibly still rat-infested boiler room. For hundreds of years, humans had been rhyming (probably, Thea had done no real research regarding the topic). But the couplet itself dates back to like, the medieval era, right? (She really should’ve googled) Regardless, Thea felt connected to her poetry slinging ancestors in that she was certain she had poetry slinging ancestors. Really, could anyone confirm that she wasn’t related to William Shakespeare? The rhymes said otherwise. There was a history of art she was connected to; a history of verse and meter and kids teasing each other on the playground rhyming ‘fart’ with ‘smart’. It was all really normal, when she thought about it. 

Still, her ability to hold conversations was severely impaired and that ability was struggling before the rhyming. “What if the answer is a visual enhancer? Perhaps the answer is…more advancer than basic thinking?” Thea had been testing the bounds of the rhymes; as long as they existed—slant, couplet, alternate, ballade, enclosed, triplet, limerick, villanelle—the form didn’t matter. ‘Hickory Dickory Dock’ was as valid to her tongue as ‘I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead; I lift my lids and all is born again (I think I made you up inside my head)’. She wasn’t surprised that this had led to creativity for Charlie. “I’m pinking.” Thea brought her cold hands to her hot face; it was hard to say what she was about to but the truth was clear to her. 

“I-It might be that state of head clear, so-called.” Thea gestured to her hair (which was growing in nicely!). “That state of bald to which I was once appalled; in case any here recalled. That is to say, to our problem enthralled, perhaps we all must go bald?” 

—

The English language was complex and often confusing as a non-native speaker; and that was without being cursed to rhyme anytime one opened their mouth. Of course, as Anita had learned, the rhyming wasn’t limited to speaking in English. Spanish was a much more beautiful language and lent itself better to forced rhyming in her opinion. But in this strange grouping of Felix’s friends, Spanish was not a realistic option. Despite her usual propensity to yap she had resigned to being slightly more silent to try and avoid having to rhyme. Being forced to do anything, even something as simple as rhyming, was not something she had interest in. It had grown old and at least in silence Anita felt like she was in control. 

Both people who had spoken so far seemed strange and Anita didn’t know them much at all. When the one sitting against the wall suggested they all go bald, Anita’s face scrunched into a disgusted frown as her eyes rolled to the side in the direction of the woman. “No, we are not entertaining that for one moment; and I surely hope I am not that suggestion’s only opponent.” 

Moving somewhat suddenly from where she was standing near Felix, Anita picked up the orange egg from the table and threw it against a wall on the other side of the small boiler room with all her strength. It, of course, didn’t break. They’d tried that many times before. She sighed, walked over to pick it up in defeat and then placed it back in the center of the room where it had been. “It doesn’t break. And nothing happens when you feed it to a very large snake. I don’t know much about curses and I’m sure there are some exceptions, but the ones I do know of can last for generations.” 

—

Rhyming wasn’t the worst, but Ariadne had never been a big fan of Dr. Seuss. That was too much, and she preferred an occasional rhyme rather than constant ones. Which was probably rude to say and think, but she couldn’t help it. At least rhyming didn’t seen to cause her or anybody around her any actual harm. That would’ve been too much, and wouldn’t have been something that she could so easily deal with. Some of the nightmares she’d had to cause even wound up rhyming, which was a bit of a headache and had made for some less effective nightmares – something she’d have normally been thrilled about, because less effective meant less harm, but it also meant she wasn’t as quickly satiated, which meant she had to do more, which ended up meaning more harm.

But right now she was here to help Felix. Not to make things about herself and have some sort of a pity party about all of it.

“You’ve all got good thoughts.” Ariadne began. “I guess we’ve just gotta figure out how to connect the dots.” She winched. “I’d rather not go bald, if it’s all the same to you. I bet there’s something else that we can do!”

—

Okay, so some of the suggestions so far weren’t the best. Felix wasn’t really sure how going bald would help anything, and they rubbed a hand absently over their hair at the thought. Their mother used to shave their hair in the summers, but it had never looked quite right. Their brother always insisted it was because they had a lumpy head. Felix wasn’t sure if that was true. They hoped it wasn’t. “I’m not sure going bald is the best solution,” they said hesitantly, flashing Thea an apologetic smile. “I’m sure, between all of us, we can find another resolution!”

But, of course, throwing the orange wasn’t helping much, either. Felix winced as it hit the wall uselessly, falling back onto the ground without breaking the same way it always did. They weren’t even sure if breaking it would actually lift the curse. For all any of them knew, that would make things permanent. “We can’t afford to be pessimistic! How many of those generational curses are linguistic? I know we can find a good way out. There are some really smart people here, so I have no doubt. We know trying to break it won’t work. If we keep trying the same thing, we’ll all end up going beserk. Let’s try to think of things we haven’t done yet! I’ll start up a list so we don’t forget.” They pulled out their phone, typing in the notes app. Breaking the orange was at the top of the does not work list. They added a last resort list and typed bald beneath the heading. “Has anyone tried anything on their own? Let me know so I can put it into my phone!”

—

There was a brief moment that Charlie considered the bald thing, a hand shooting up to his hair, and then thought better of it. “I’d rather rhyme forever than be bald.” He decided, pulling a face. He fell silent for a long moment, wracking his brain for ideas of how to be free of the curse. Sure, it was useful to get songwriting done, but it was a nightmare when trying to have a serious conversation with someone and you’re acting like fucking Dr. Seuss. 

He frowned at the mention of generational curses and large snakes, looking at Anita a little funny before shaking his head and going back to the task at hand. Breaking the curse. “What happens if we dull its shine?” He asked, staring at the tacky object. “Surely if we find a way to tarnish it, we’ll all be fine.” Charlie scratched at his head, unsure if that was a solution to anything or just a way to take his frustrations out on the orange.

Had he tried something on his own to break the curse? He thought about it for a minute, looking over to Felix’s phone. “I tried rhyming all the words I could think of that would rhyme with red. Took a while, but… it didn’t work and I was filled with dread.”

__

Having an idea rejected was not a good feeling; having it rejected in rhyme was somehow worse. Thea slumped against her moldy pitch of wall. Yes, she’d also rather rhyme forever than be bald and yet, she couldn’t stop thinking that ever since her hair started coming back, her life was weird. Mostly that was because of the strange hair serum she insisted on but what if it was because she angered some baldness god by not respecting the bald? What if this curse was yet another warning from the bald man above? Thea sighed; probably not. Wait… Thea shot up, waving her arm in the air as though this were a classroom, but spoke despite anyone calling on her. She pointed to the older, very attractive woman. “Snickity snackity make, what’s this about a snake?” Thea leaned back again. “We’ve gone through it, if a snake can’t do it, maybe we quit?” But Felix was trying so hard, and no one wanted to rhyme, or be bald. 

“Yes.” Thea shrugged at Charlie’s red rhyming plight. “What a mess. Technically everything rhymes. I don’t have lactose digesting enzymes.” Thea shook her head. “No, what I mean to say—not to play—is that rhymes slant, are still rhymes you can grant. Words imaginary are not a rhyming scary. It is true, though it makes me blue, that the English language has…” She paused. “Words known as…” She paused again. “Unrhymable.” She sighed. “I thought I was able…to break rhyme with these words fabled…instead I became unstable.” Thea lifted a finger up. “Listen: purple. What rhymes with purple? Purple rhymes with purple. Circle is not a perfect rhyme for purple. Jimminy jemminy nurple, I still rhyme with purple.” Thea hugged herself, trying to soothe the pain of purple rhyming. “My point is that rhymes imperfect, are still rhymes you can perfect. And so what does it matter? What’s the point of all this chatter? For a curse that will never shatter?” 

—

Anita didn’t care for being pointed at, but she did grin softly at the suggestion that if a snake couldn’t solve this that it was perhaps unsolvable. A sentiment she, as the snake in question, wanted to agree with but also one she knew had to be untrue - because she knew that there had to be a way to stop this awful rhyming even if she wasn’t the one who was able to figure it out. “Why are you both trying to rhyme colors? Red, purple … and all the others. You seem to be making this harder on yourselves than this all needs to be. Don’t you see? You don’t need to be Shakeperian with the words that you say. They just need to rhyme at the end of the day. It is harder in English that is no doubt, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t a solution we can’t scout out.”

It wasn’t something that she would admit aloud, but there was part of Anita that wondered if this was a permanent curse. Her ability to transform into a snake, the gift of the lamia, was technically a curse. An unbreakable one that traveled through a family for generations. She didn’t really want to have a second curse upon her forcing her to rhyme until the end of time. “Maybe if we source this orange back to its origin we’ll find a solution before we become permanent jesters. Preferably before the start of the new semester. It’s one thing to have to rhyme, but I don’t wish to feel like the lorax trying to find words that rhyme with antenna, glands, and thorax.” 

_ 

Ariadne did her best to stay mostly silent. All the rhyming was giving her more than a bit of a headache, and she wasn’t always great with words to start, so suddenly rhyming perfectly was a bit unsettling. Which, again, was maybe a rude way of looking at things, but she couldn’t quite help herself. It was important to try and think of ideas though, and she scrunched her face up, trying to think of more ideas – Thea and Felix and Anita and the dude called Charlie were all having really interesting ideas, and she wanted to do her best to at least try and contribute something.

“Maybe if we ask it to stop? I don’t know if that idea’s a flop.” But it couldn’t hurt to suggest. Ariadne was always down to ask people, animals, or – objects, in this case, to do their very best. Give them the choice, even though she wasn’t sure if this orange had a thought process – conscious – but if she could come back from the dead then maybe decorative oranges could think for themselves.

“Thankfully if I have to rhyme when I do ballet – I shouldn’t have to think all day.” Ariadne nodded, “Plié rhymes at least mostly with chassé, and so on.” So that much was a relief, that she wouldn’t sound too weird during class. Though she was sure that some way would come about to make things sound weirder than they should’ve. “Uh, we could also leave it be? Go away and come back and maybe offer another plea?”

—

This really was a mess, wasn’t it? Everyone was going back and forth about their experiences, and Felix’s feelings towards the curse were souring the more they realized that their friends were probably having less fun than they were. Charlie was full of dread, Thea was rambling about unrhymable words and baldness, Anita had classes to teach, Ariadne had ballet… but that was why they were all here, weren’t they? If they banded together, they’d surely find a way to break the curse. 

Glancing up at Ariadne, they offered a small smile. “Talking to it was one of the first things I tried,” they admitted. “I asked it to let us stop rhyming, but it never replied.” They’d tried that tactic for longer than they’d like to admit, in various different ways. Begging, pleading, making empty promises to the reflective glass… nothing had really done what they were hoping for. “I’m not sure making it dirty would do much, either. It’d probably work as well as breaking it, and we tried that for so long that I had to stop to take a breather!” Breaking it seemed mean, anyway, and Felix didn’t want to be mean. They squinted at the egg, inspecting it carefully.

“Maybe it wants us to make a specific kind of rhyme,” they suggested. “Something to do with the thing itself this time? There could be some kind of secret password. Or maybe something we need to try to say backwards? Or it could just have to do with the egg. Or maybe we have to take it to the leg!” Could the leg be related? Leg did rhyme with egg, didn’t it? Except… “I guess it doesn’t look much like an egg, when you really look at it. The shape isn’t quite right, so the word doesn’t really fit.” They turned it over in their hands with a sigh. “I guess… it’s really more of an orange. I didn’t even know they sold glass oranges, but apparently they do. Isn’t that weird to think about?” They were rambling now… and unaware that those rambles no longer rhymed. Still turning the egg over, still perplexed, and just as clueless as always.

—

There were a lot of ideas being thrown around, and Charlie wasn’t sure which one would make sense. Well, the orange egg thing wasn’t lonely, so appeasing it seemed to be out. Rhyming words with difficult words to rhyme made sense. He was so lost in thought that he tuned out most of what was going on, only coming to when Felix began speaking again, going on and on about different rhymes.

Charlie stared at Felix as he rambled on, noticing that his words slipped from rhyme to just regular speech. “Wait.” Charlie pointed at Felix, shaking his head. “Nothing rhymes with Orange! Which means…” He paused a moment. “Felix, you fucking genius!” Charlie surged forward and shook his friend by the shoulders, grinning brightly. “That’s it, nothing rhymes with orange! We’re fucking free!” He placed his hands on either side of Felix’s face and nodding his head excitedly before letting go and doing a little dance now that he wasn’t stuck rhyming everything. Now Finn wouldn’t be reduced to murdering him for his rhymes! Amazing!

__

“No, technically things do rhyme with orange.” Thea said quickly, ignoring the more celebratory aspect of Charlie’s words. “There just aren’t perfect rhymes. But what’s a perfect rhyme even mean? What does it—I mean—what I was saying was…” Thea paused, staring at the group. She wasn’t rhyming. Felix wasn’t rhyming. Charlie wasn’t rhyming. Their problem was solved! And yet, watching Charlie celebrate made her feel decidedly empty. “I guess we’re free?” Her words were back to being bland; her cadence was clumsy again. She was Thea. She frowned. What rhymed with free? “Uh, I guess we have knees? Uh, tree?” It wasn’t the same—she had to think about her words, she had to bear the ugly sound of her voice echoing in her ears. She was Thea, as she had been before all this. Rhyming wasn’t so bad, when the alternative was this. Thea forced herself to perk up. “Hey! Good job, Felix!” 

Pushing herself off the ground, she swiped dirt off her legs. “Now, what do we do about the orange?” Thea pointed at it. “It is really nice, and I think it matches with the Garfield posters, but maybe we should, like, break it or something? Or put it in a case that says ‘don’t touch unless you want to rhyme’? Or, uh, something?” Thea winced at herself; she’d gotten used to the more eloquent rhyming. 

—

For as much as Anita cared for Felix, she did not much care for this group of their friends and she cared even less for their ramblings and ideas regarding fixing this curse. Clearly there were no solutions down in this boiler room. Mentally planning a swift exit before things devolved into listening to the girl suggesting they go bald, Anita had not even noticed that people stopped rhyming until the excitable one burst across the room (not that it took much to burst across a room that size) and was exclaiming that they were free. She frowned, a bit annoyed that everyone was still talking about rhyming with colors. Hadn’t they gotten past this. 

“Tons of words rhyme with orange in Spanish,” Anita muttered, mostly to herself and whomever else in the room spoke Spanish. “Naranja. Toronja. Corrija. Esponja. Puta.”  As she listed of Spanish orange rhymes the realization of what the others were talking about settled in. Had the ridiculousness of the English language just saved them from this rhyming hell? Gross. She’d cogradulate Felix on the success later, maybe, it was their fault everyone was rhyming to begin with anyone. She certainly wasn’t going to do it in front of these strangers, though. “Did you not see what happened earlier? How do you expect to break this thing? No, no. This thing must be locked away in a box of some kind, taken to a remote location, and buried a minimum of 12 feet underground. And then the key must be destroyed.” 

_ 

“Aw, well…” but it did make Ariadne smile that Felix had already tried her idea. They were really great, and the fact that they didn’t just immediately brush her idea off. Because there were plenty of people who might’ve done that. She wouldn’t judge any of them for brushing it off, because that was just how things worked, sometimes, and there wasn’t a reason to be judgmental about it right back to them. That wasn’t kind, and she wanted to be kind whenever she could.

“That’s – we’ll think of something, I know it. We’ll figure stuff out.” Except she did a double-take, listening to everyone else. They weren’t rhyming anymore. “I sort of like blue. It’s a nice color.” Ariadne shook her head. “Sorry, was – I just wanted to try it out, to see if I’d –” she smiled. “If there was still rhyming going on. “That’s true, orange is a tricky thing – word – to rhyme with.” She signed, but nodded to Thea’s idea, and Anita’s. “We could lock it up. Just to be safe?”

—

The rhyming curse was broken, it seemed, as easily as it had been cast in the first place. Touch an orange and rhyme. Speak the word ‘orange’ at the end of your sentence and free yourself. It didn’t make a lot of sense but, then, curses rarely did, did they? Felix felt a rush of… pride, maybe, as Charlie called them a genius, even though they’d had no idea what they were doing when they broke the curse. They hadn’t meant to free anyone any more than they’d meant to curse them in the first place, but maybe intentions didn’t mean much here. Maybe it was enough that they’d broken the curse at all.

There were other matters to attend to, anyway. Felix looked to the orange skeptically, shifting their weight uncertainly between their feet. If Anita wanted to bury it, maybe they could bury it. But… “I’m not sure I can dig a hole that’s 12 feet deep. Maybe we should just, um, chuck it into the ocean or something?” Did it still have its power? If they touched it again now, would the curse start anew? It was hard to say. “I can take care of it. Um, one way or another. I can make sure no one else gets cursed.”

—

Staring at the orange with a look of hesitation, Charlie frowned and crossed his arms over his chest. “Maybe you should handle it with a pair of tongs, yeah?” He suggested, looking over to Felix with a raised brow. “I mean, can’t risk touching it again, you know?” He looked to Anita, nodding his head. “I definitely think the deeper the hole the better off we are, bury that shit away and hope no one digs it back up. The ocean is an idea too, throw it off the side of a boat Titanic style.” Charlie wiggled his brows, remembering the scene where she threw the necklace into the ocean. 

“Just don’t get yourself cursed in the process of getting rid of it. Because if you curse yourself and then throw it into the ocean, you’re fucking screwed, you know?” Charlie decided it was important enough to point that out, god forbid that poor Felix be stuck rhyming for the rest of his life.

__

“What if the fish start rhyming?” Thea asked with complete and honest seriousness. “When you throw it into the ocean? I mean, and, you gotta think about—like…” She hated not rhyming. Everything sounded harsh and wrong. “…like, pollution. There’s a lot of garbage in the ocean already, it’s not nice to dump things in it.” She frowned; maybe none of them really cared about the environment. And yes the ocean was vast, but that thing totally looked like it would just float and then what? “It’s like, you know in Oops, I did it again? They have that whole part in the music video. Which, um, yeah—“ Thea gestured to Charlie. “Yeah, like Titanic. I know that’s not your point but people find things in the ocean eventually. Someone could find it.” The attractive woman was sure that it couldn’t be broken—even if Thea thought they just needed to try harder—and Thea couldn’t argue with an attractive person. It wasn’t much better to bury it either; there would be rhyming worms. 

Thea shrugged; rhyming wasn’t the worst thing to her. “I trust you, Felix. Whatever you want to do with it, that’d be good.” She agreed more with Ariadne, and the idea of locking it up. “Even if it slightly contributes to the declining environmental state of our planet.” Felix was allowed a little climate crime, she thought. They were owed that. 

—

“Oh my god!” Anita finally exclaimed, astonished and exhausted by all of the talking and discussion about what to do and how it might make the fish start rhyming. It was like the curse was lingering, trapping them into a cycle of hypotheticals and hesitations on how to destroy the stupid orange thing. She had given a perfect solution but its feasibility was questioned. Fine. But she was not going to sit around in this room any longer and have a philosophical discussion about how throwing the orange in the ocean may impact the environmental state of the planet. 

Walking up to the egg again, Anita allowed her neck, jaw, and inner digestive tract to shift into the mojave rattlesnake. She did not know these people, and typically would not have exposed herself so obviously, but none of the questioned an orange figurine making the rhyme and they were all friends of Felix’s, in the boiler room of the Grit Pit - if there were ever a space safe from hunters this was it. Opening her mouth wide, she inhaled the orange and allowed it to travel through her body where it would hopefully, finally, meet its end. 

Anita whipped her mouth after shifting back to her human appearance, scanned the room, making eye contact with each of the individuals present. “Now that that is settled, let us never speak of this again.” She paused, waiting to see if the orange in her stomach was going to make her rhyme again, “And look at that, no compulsion for poetry.” She grabbed her bag and made her way to the exit, seeing no need for her to stick around for even a second longer. 

_ 

Ariadne found herself distracted by her relief, up until a lady partially turned into a snake? Or snake-like? Which caused her to do a fairly significant double take. “Or… that. That works too.” It did work, so long as it didn’t hurt the woman who’d eaten the orange and didn’t hurt the orange, either. Even if it had caused all of them to just keep rhyming non-stop. Wynne had found it cute, maybe even charming, but it had been a bit dizzying.

“I won’t say anything about that, I promise.” Ariadne held up her hand, Girl Scout salute and all.

“I know I could use a rootbeer float, if anybody wants to come along?” She turned to leave. “Felix, if you want, we can go shopping for decor together sometime.” Ariadne nervously shifted from the ball of one foot to the other, wishing she had on shoes that were more flexible, desperately wishing to go by her dance studio. “But we did it. That – good job, everyone!” She winced at herself.

—

Thea made a very good point. What about the environmental impact of a cursed glass orange sitting on the bottom of the ocean floor? Felix grappled with the lack of a perfect solution, heart stuttering uncertainly as they tried to come up with some magical answer that might resolve the issue with no kind of negative impact. Burying it in the dirt might find someone else digging it up, keeping it locked away always ran the risk of it being found. What options were available to them? How could they get rid of a thing that didn’t seem to be able to be destroyed without risking someone, somewhere finding it and using it for some kind of poetic evil? 

Their heart was pounding with the pressure, panic threatening to suffocate them, when Anita stepped forward. She made a quick beeline for the orange, and — she ate it. Felix blinked, watching it disappear down her throat. She spoke, not in rhyme, and Felix blinked again. The orange was gone. No one was cursed. This was the closest thing to a best-case scenario they’d gotten in a while, wasn’t it?

Their eyes scanned the group, wide and maybe a little confused, but no longer quite as stressed. Ariadne spoke up with offers of root beer floats and shopping, and Felix nodded. “Yeah,” they agreed. “Yeah! Okay! Root beer floats. I’ll pay for everyone. Um, as an apology. For the curse.” Wow, it still felt weird to not speak in rhymes. A slow smile spread over Felix’s face, in spite of everything. They sighed, content, and walked towards the door. “Next time,” they mused, leading everyone out into the hall and closing the door behind them, “I think I’ll buy a glass apple.”

[vanoincidence]

I Still Remain // Solo

TIMING: current. SUMMARY: van reads cass's letter for her. CONTENT WARNINGS: emotional manipulation, parental death.

You are my brightest star, but you've been burning out. I am too late, and you're too far.

Van,

It guts her like a fish, and she thinks that for a moment, she can smell the salt in the air. But it dissipates after a moment as her eyes move to the next few lines.

I didn’t really want things to go this way. You know? I think I held onto the idea that things could be different for, like, a really long time. I think that’s what made everything suck so much. I’m sorry for that. I’m sorry for a lot of things, really. I’m sorry I was so cagey when you came by the cave way back when. My dad was inside, which you probably figured out later. He’d, like, just gotten there, and he said he wasn’t ready to meet anyone else yet, and I didn’t want to lose him. I just wanted him to like me. I was worried if you came in, if I went against his request not to tell people about him yet, he’d get mad. I thought he’d leave. I didn’t want him to leave.

There's something to be said about the love a child has for their parent, even if that parent is undeserving of it. Even if she hated Makaio on Cass's behalf, she knew of her friend's desire to be loved; to be held within arm's reach and chosen. So even though anger blooms from a seed that was since pushed beneath the ground at her feet, it is not directed at her friend. Instead, it's at the world and how it failed her. How Cass could've allowed herself to fall prey to the words he spoke. In the end, his promises, or lack-thereof, got Cass killed, and that's where the anger embeds itself into Van as she stares down at the notebook, already stained with the tears as she flipped through the pages to write out the letters from Cass to the others in the notebook.

But I don’t think that’s a good excuse. You’re my friend, and I was super rude and just… all around weird when all you wanted to do was spend time with me. That was shitty of me! Like, super shitty. You brought me comics! You were trying to be nice! I should have given you a better explanation.

I should have had more faith in you, too. That day when you came by after… what happened with the viewing station, I should have had more faith in you. I think I just hated myself a lot in that moment, so I figured everyone else would hate me, too. I didn’t even, like, give you time to not hate me. And that sucked! That really sucked. I’m sorry I did that. You’re my friend. You’ve always been there for me. I know it wasn’t just because of the promise. I know you care about me, too.

Maybe she should have pushed harder. Maybe she should have dug the dagger of her love in a little hard, hilt pressed to Cass's beating heart. Had looked her in the eye and told her that no matter what, she'd always be there. But Cass knew, right? Based on this letter-- based on the look in Cass's eyes before she was taken out of the cave, she knew that even despite the frustration, despite the falsified anger, Cass knew that Van loved her. She had to hold onto that, had to cling to it in order breathe.

That makes all of this so much harder. I love you. I don’t want you to think I don’t. I love you, and you’re one of my favorite people. But… I don’t think this town is what I need right now. I can’t leave my dad, and I don’t want him to leave me, either, but I don’t think it’s good for me to be here. And I’m sorry that I don’t know if I’ll see you again. I know my dad needs time to adjust, to learn how to be, like, a person again, but I don’t know how much time he’ll need. It could be just a few months, and then I’ll be back and we’ll be totally laughing about this. Or… it could be a hundred years, and you’ll be gone. And if it is, if that’s what happens, I guess I just want you to know how much I care about you.

The moment Cass had walked into Wicked's Rest, it had decided to take her. It took her from all of them-- from Ariadne, Nora, Thea, Metzli. From others, it plunged its fist into her chest, pulling out every small part of her that could have ever allowed her to leave this place alive. Van thought about the anger she would have felt had this letter been left behind for her after Cass's departure. She could feel it even now, trailing along, brushing against her skin. It was Cass who was gone. Those hundreds of years she was supposed to have were now gone, body left to decay against the very thing she had tried to protect. Van was angry now, because what life would she have had had she been able to leave? Would she have succumbed to Makaio's anger, fueling it on his behalf? Bringing down any of those who opposed him? But that thought was cut down the moment it came to her, because Cass had proven she was stronger than his persuasion.

Van just wished it had happened later, to where Cass could come back to them. Where her smile would warm the room, and Van would lay across from her on the ground as they stared up at the ceiling, a bag of chips between them. Instead of this, they would speak of Cass's forever, or as close as she could get. They would guess what the future had in store, and Van would hate that she wouldn't be a part of it, but she would ask Cass to always remember her. Now, Van was the one to remember her-- to put every moment they had together in some kind of flashing reel of memories. She could see Cass's face so clearly, even now. The bright smile, the dark eyes-- the laughter that cut through the air. Van hated that Makaio had taken her laughter, her breath-- everything.

But Cass in turn had sacrificed it for them. The three of them-- her, Metzli, and Ariadne. And so Van knew that she wouldn't give up on Cass, even if she were gone.

It wasn’t your fault. None of it. Not what happened in the supermarket, and not anything that happened after. You were always a good friend, even when you were melting stuff. (Side note: the melting is actually kind of badass. Like, next level comic book hero stuff. You should call yourself Meltdown, tbh.) I’m super lucky to have you. And if I never see you again, I guess I just want to make sure that comes across. I love you. I’m never going to stop thinking about you, and I’m never going to forget you. I hope you don’t forget about me, either.

I hope we see each other again someday, Van. But no matter what, take care of yourself. 

Love, Cass

Van couldn't help but laugh at the superhero name, even if the laughter hurt. It coiled in her chest, weaving around the hurt she felt in response to Cass's untimely demise. Cass's pulse continued even after the end of the letter. It continued with the love that she had for those mentioned on the other pages, and the love she had for those not written in. She thought of the love she had for her cave, for life in general-- for her father, even in the end. How Cass's acceptance had in turn caused Van to live another day.

Van continued to stare down at the letter, the edges of the paper crumpling in her hands as she dented the notebook. Her magic did not lash out in the way she hoped it would, anger blindingly painful. Instead, it soothed her. Because she would find a way to pay Cass back.

She had to, for her friend-- for the memory, for her sacrifice. The only reason any of the three of them were standing here was because of Cass, and Van couldn't let that go.

"I'm sorry," Van whispered as she continued reading over the letter addressed to her, committing the words to memory like she had done with her friend's frame.

[nicsalazar]

Helping Paw || Felix & Nicole

TIMING: Current LOCATION: Somewhere in Gatlin Fields PARTIES: @recoveringdreamer & @nicsalazar SUMMARY: Amidst the chaos, Nicole finds Felix's jaguar. WARNINGS: Mentions of parental and sibling death.

The columns of fire and smoke rose above tree canopies, tinting the sky with the bright shade of destruction. Preview of what Nicole was to encounter when she reached her destination: An avoidable tragedy, she could only assume. Most times, this was the case. 

When she received the message, Nicole couldn’t stay home. Not while others lost everything. She knew what that felt like all too well. Perhaps, it was why adrenaline ran in her veins as she grabbed her keys and rushed out the door. This time she didn’t have to run, this time she was brave enough to help. Some of her training would have to come in handy, no? 

Her knuckles turned white over the wheel, attempting to maneuver her pickup truck with both speed and caution. Too aware of the wildlife that must be scattered around due to the emergency. With scarce details about the magnitude of the event, it was impossible to know the consequences it could have in the surrounding areas.

She parked where she could find, too far away to get a glimpse of the state of the farm, but picking up on the sirens blaring in the distance. First responders, surely. Or reinforcement, depending on how unrelenting the flames were. Nicole wasn’t an optimist, experience suggested everything but a happy ending for the people who were caught in the fire. 

Nicole trudged through the forest, following the trail of the smoky scent burning her nose, the protective scarf she wore over her face didn't do much. Amidst the chaos, a yowl broke the blaring of distant sirens. At the time, with her senses on high alert, she had no time to pick up on the familiarity. Assumptions were quickly made; Some type of wildcat was running from danger. Nicole froze, reconsidering her path. She knew better than to face a scared feline in her human form. But she could take a detour to the detour she was already taking. Though she couldn’t pinpoint where the sounds were coming from. Between the animal sounds, the sirens, and something else Nicole registered as human screams, she became disoriented. 

—

It had been almost enjoyable, at first. The jaguar was rarely allowed to roam free, especially outside of the strange, uncomfortable building that Felix often trapped them inside, the one filled with little more than violence and pain. The jaguar had enjoyed stretching his legs, enjoyed sinking his teeth into things either not capable of or unwilling to cause damage to him in return. But as the fire raged and the sound of something shrill and unfamiliar filled the air, the feeling of freedom was quickly replaced by an old panic and an instinct to run. 

And so that was what the jaguar did. He turned on his heel, taking off towards the woods, towards the familiarity of the trees. He could find a place to regroup, find a way to get far from all the danger this town had to offer. It hadn’t worked in the past, but perhaps now whatever it was that held him here would disappear. Perhaps now, he’d be allowed his freedom. 

Dirt kicked up behind him as he sprinted away, feeling more and more at ease the further into the trees he retreated. He slowed a little, not quite to a trot but to something below a run. It was difficult to pick up on individual scents; the overwhelming aroma of smoke was overpowering on his sharp senses. He needed to get away from that, too. But… there was something familiar beneath it. Faint, almost hidden, but undeniably present all the same.

Jaguar. 

Not just that, but a jaguar he recognized. The woman, the one he’d met in the woods with the insects. Was she at the farm, too? The jaguar let out a low, uncertain yowl — either a warning or a greeting, depending on who might have been listening.

—

Fuck. She expected the smoke, the flames, the sirens— The echoes of distress too, but adding a feral cat was more than her ears could handle. Logically, Nicole knew how imperative it was to tune out the array of noises attacking her eardrums if she wanted to be able to locate a wild animal ambling around the forest searching for its next meal. In reality, it was a lot fucking harder said than done. She pressed herself against the biggest tree she could find, taking advantage of the low visibility the smoke created to hide herself from what she assumed was a predator. Because she wasn’t the only one being ambushed by stimuli left and right. The sirens became a distant ringing, but the new problem was the blood pounding in her ears. She held her breath, trying to get out of her head, listening for footsteps or the sweep of the animals against the underbrush a snapping twig. Nothing was more unnerving than understanding something was on the prowl without knowing where. 

The spirit within lent a hand. The muscles in her eyes twitched, and Nicole was suddenly capable of taking on the night with supernatural clarity. Thanks, she thought briefly, unsure if that sort of communication worked at all. She looked behind the tree in search of the yowling beast. Amber eyes landed on a shadow, and a familiar cold struck her chest, shutting down the wave of panic oscillating in her chest. The jaguar. Her jaguar. Nicole froze, waiting for a second sign. What did it want? She wasn’t in a situation where she needed to be bailed out yet, she knew her limits. She could handle this. “I got it,” she grunted in annoyance. It probably wasn’t a good excuse to the jaguar, she doubted it was satisfied, but it was hard to sound anything but overwhelmed with the smoke drifting close to the trees, rendering her scarf pointless. 

The inner struggle with the spirit prevented her from focusing on the shadow that brought up her initial reaction. It was there, enveloped in a mist different from the smoke. A second jaguar. Two sets of amber eyes stared at each other and the shoe dropped. It was hard to get any hint of his scent, but… could it be—  “Felix?” She tried, voice muffled. Maybe it was better for her if the jaguar didn’t hear her, though the staring made it obvious that he spotted her as well. She regretted making her presence known. Wasn’t the time to have a conversation with either a hungry jaguar or a scared jaguar. But why was Felix in the woods? Was he hurt? She looked up to the orange sky. Was he involved in the fire? They could be injured— She peeled herself away from the tree and did another stupid, yet brave thing. She faced the jaguar, raising her hands slowly. Cold wrapped around her ribcage again, squeezing air out of her lungs. But this time Nicole understood. Should it become a necessity, the jaguar was ready to come out. No second guessing, they were in agreement.  

—

She said Felix’s name, and the jaguar yowled again, a quiet confirmation. His heart was pounding in his chest, anger and fear forming a dangerous cocktail deep within the belly of the beast. He was… uneasy with the events back at the farm, uncertain what to do now that he was away from them. Certainly, the people there had been a danger to Felix. The jaguar wasn’t sure if they still were. He didn’t know if they were a danger to this other jaguar, either, though he wasn’t sure that that was a thing that concerned him much. If she wanted to run into danger, he didn’t think he’d stop her. But she seemed more interested in him, for the moment.

Cautiously, the jaguar circled her. His eyes scanned the trees around them for threats, searching for anything he might need to dispatch. No one had followed him as he’d fled; he liked to believe it was because they feared them, as they ought to, but perhaps it was a simpler thing. Most people remaining had been wholly concerned with getting themselves free and away from danger. The jaguar wasn’t sure how many were left. He wondered if there was some way to communicate this to the woman before him, to warn her that she’d be walking towards a graveyard if she left here. 

Still seeming uncertain, the animal sat on his haunches, tail curling around his legs as he stared at the woman. Were she human, he would have attacked already, would have torn limb from torso just to see the marvelous explosion of blood as the flesh separated. But the jaguar had been raised among others like himself. He’d played with other cubs at the feet of their mother, protected his siblings when the world stormed the gates of their fortress. Jaguars were solitary creatures, but this one felt some kinship towards others like himself. He wouldn’t attack this balam unless she gave him some reason to do so.

Tilting his head ever so slightly to one side, the jaguar yowled again. Communicating with humans was a difficult plight. The jaguar had never much cared for it.

—

She never liked cats very much. It was somewhat—no, fully ironic, Nicole was aware, given her lineage. But it was no competition, when it came to animals for her: Dogs were vastly superior creatures. Nacho was easy to understand, it wasn’t an exaggeration to say that sometimes, it felt like he understood the world he lived in better than she did. But she was certain, even if she didn’t have the best dog in the world, her feelings on the matter would remain unchanged. Cats, in comparison, were too temperamental for her liking. She appreciated their need for boundaries, but that was it. They were incompatible in every other possible aspect. 

She could never communicate with a cat the way she did with Nacho. Least of all, the balam spirit she carried within. Of course, her shitty luck would have her in the middle of the forest, trying to reach an understanding not with one, but with two at the same time, when everything around them burned to a crisp. She should’ve walked toward the first responders. But she had no time to beat herself up for it when the ground crunched beneath as the jaguar stepped closer. 

The spirit pulsed near her heart, while Nicole didn’t take her eyes off the jaguar circling her. Studying her. Fuck. Despite everything she was confident it wouldn’t attack. Balam were already so rare, she knew the other’s spirit wouldn’t want to bring them closer to extinction. Whether Felix would become a threat or not, there was a more pressing issue; She couldn’t communicate with them like this. She shivered, the scorching heat enveloping the forest contrasting with the cold wrapping around her ribcage. The spirit would know what to do.

Okay. She agreed to this. Right. And with the fire out of control and the flames that threatened to jump in their direction at any moment, the jaguar was the quickest way to safety for her too. 

The jaguar. Would it keep its end of the deal? Just to bring both of them to safety? Or would it seize the opportunity to rip away everything from her again once more? Her body tensed in resistance to the shift. It would only lead to a more painful transformation but— Why would she trust it? She didn’t want to lose four years of her life again. And what if the jaguar released control, but she woke up to a sighting in the news tomorrow? It was an emergency, there would be plenty of witnesses that could come in contact with a tailless jaguar. Rescuers searching for people or animals. Onlookers with morbid curiosity. Would it look to be caught? Did it miss the Zoo? So much for no second-guessing. She should have known it was hard to escape one’s nature. 

It was a matter of communication. And how could Nicole, already painfully flawed at communicating with humans, be any luckier with an animal? She couldn’t do this on her own. She had no time to sit down and decide on the most rational solution. All she felt was the blood pounding in her ears and the cold overtaking her torso. If the jaguar got caught, then at least— It— her friend would be safe from this fire. At least she did something brave before the spirit trapped her in its body again.

She undressed fast, shoving what could be shoved into her backpack. Jacket and pants. On the off chance she was able to return and retrieve it. She needed to come up with a system for the jaguar to carry her shit during shift. Another time—if… if she got one. Her amber gaze focused on Felix, reminding herself why this would be worth it. Through the snap of bones, the tear of flesh and the mist of the spirit seeping past the cracks, Nicole’s jaguar lept to the forest ground. A warming roar cut through the night, conveying what the human counterpart couldn’t: Fire encircled most of the ground, south was the path to safety.

—

This was exactly what he’d wanted. In a sense, the jaguar didn’t realize it until she began to undress, until the faint memory of Felix sometimes doing the same before choosing to shift allowed him to understand the purpose of the woman removing the strange, thin layer of not-quite-fur that humans seemed so fond of. He fell back onto his haunches, sitting and allowing his tail to curl around his body. With the pair of him, he thought, they would be far safer than either individual alone. There were still enemies about, still threats not yet vanquished. The two balam would stand a better chance together. The jaguar knew that.

He lacked the understanding to know that this woman might want him to shift back; in his agitated state, the jaguar had yet to even consider relinquishing control back to Felix. Felix had nearly gotten the pair of them killed, had been on the ground with a knife at their throat when the jaguar took over. If left to their own devices, Felix would likely run back into the fire instead of away from it, their desire to help their friends far greater than any sense of self preservation. The jaguar, for his part, was interested only in saving his skin. Wild animals rarely cared for much else.

The familiar sound of bones snapping filled the air, cutting through sounds of screams and sirens and crackling flames. The jaguar got to his feet once more, the yowl he let loose almost a celebratory thing. One jaguar became two in the clearing, and the one that was Felix’s was pleased with the results.

—

The orange of the night sky reflected on the jaguar’s glimmering gaze as it sprang free. The beast surveyed its unfamiliar surroundings, recognizing it wasn’t back in the zoo, as it longed for. Instead, it found itself in the middle of the forest, where nature welcomed the jaguar back. It wasn’t the comfort of its confinement, but the beast came alive as it felt the wind brush against its fur, ruffling orange and black hues. As it sensed the subtle energy thrumming beneath the ground. As it listened for the sound of birds soaring overhead or the shuffling feet of smaller wildlife. The animal was finally where it always belonged.

The air, however, crackled with a new, ominous energy, and the beast's primal drive kicked in. A threat loomed, cutting its appreciation for nature short. Although not a threat with razor sharp teeth and vicious claws. But with a blaring screech that went on forever, unprecedented lung capacity on display. The scent of smoke filled its senses, and the hot temperature against its fur made Nicole’s jaguar snarl. It was a new kind of danger, but one that would be be unsustainable in the long run. It needed to flee again. The jaguar’s head tilted with curiosity, tail low as its sense of imminent danger declined, because amid the daunting scene, there was Felix’s jaguar. The jaguar let out a small chuff, a greeting for an old friend.

His scent was familiar, even with the burnt foliage around them. The jaguar’s human counterpart cared for them. Her fondness for the other spread warm along its ivory belly. It felt also Nicole’s influence, not yet lulled into dormancy. A fight to get back in control stirring inside, searing hot into its sternum. It wasn’t enough to revert the shift. They had an agreement. 

Feral gaze took on the other jaguar, uncertain despite their familiarity. Nicole was a later bloomer. Never managed a full shift until the fateful night her family was ambushed. The Salazars maintained secrecy regarding their true nature, stifling most of their lineage. She couldn’t recall ever coexisting with the other jaguars in her family out in the open. In hindsight it was all precaution to avoid slaughter. In hindsight, she should’ve fucking asked more questions. Nicole’s jaguar sauntered toward Felix’s without fear of being attacked. Both proud beasts by nature, yet unwilling to harm each other. The zoo was a haven when the world threatened both the human and the beast, but it was missing other balams. It was missing the innate connection between spirits. Kindred despite not sharing the same bloodline. Kindred through a millennia of ancient magic.  

A connection that demanded both remained alive. It demanded the spirit to persevere. Nicole’s jaguar urged the other to run along with it, making it a chase, a playful thing. The jaguar never played with another before. But soon the other beast was roped into the scheme. They ran, past the trees and away from flames, smoke and destruction. Muscles rippling in a blur of dapled colors as they bolted toward safety. 

A creek appeared on their way, and the beast descended toward it. The scent of charred wood barely reached its nostrils anymore. It approached the body of water slowly, vying for the other jaguar’s attention. With the run and the high temperatures, they were parched. Nicole’s jaguar observed, ears pinned back for potential threats lurking, then took the initiative and drank from it. 

—

Woman gave way to beast, and Felix’s jaguar felt some strange relief as it happened. He hadn’t the capacity to recognize his own loneliness in the chaos that befell the farm around him, hadn’t understood the complex emotions swirling within him. He liked to believe that such things were remnants of Felix, the human’s mind still lurking somewhere in the back and causing undue complications. The reality wasn’t quite so simple. The jaguar felt fear, felt doubt, felt anger and loneliness the same way his human host did. 

And he felt comfort, too. It was a quiet thing, not nearly as familiar as the rage, but it was soft and warm and he ached for it. He felt comfort in the presence of another balam, felt better with her here and shifted than he had moments before, when he ran through the woods free and terrified. She approached him, and the warmth that washed over him wasn’t dissimilar to what he’d felt with his siblings as a child. This balam had less experience with shifting than Felix’s jaguar, but it didn’t matter much in the moment. What mattered to the jaguar was that he was no longer alone.

She urged him to run, and he did. He chased her just as he had chased his brother and sisters as a cub, the danger of the burning farm behind them a forgotten thing. The flames couldn’t touch them here, the enemies Felix’s jaguar had torn through a faraway thought. The creek stretched out before them, and he approached it for a much needed drink, calm settling over him as he eased the aching caused by the smoke in his throat.

Felix continued to fight for control from within and, as the adrenaline died down, their jaguar had less and less inclination to fight back. The chaos was far behind, and he was safe with an ally now. The desire to maintain control, to run was still there, but it was a flatter thing now. Another day, perhaps, he’d have clung to it more readily. But right now, he felt tired enough to let it go. The shift was a slow one all the same, a fight from both sides even if the jaguar fought with less passion than he normally might have. Bones snapped into a new form, fur disappeared beneath skin, and Felix took the place of the jaguar once more, terror still gripping their throat.

“Thank you,” they murmured to the other jaguar — to Nicole. They glanced back in the direction of the farm, the smoke still billowing into the sky. The jaguar spirit within them seemed to move around, offering a silent warning against going back.

—

Nicole’s jaguar wouldn’t have known tragedy struck a mile away if it hadn’t run from the danger itself. The creek was the picture of peace and quiet, the stark difference allowing the beast to slowly lower its defenses. Its insistent sniffing ceased, its ears relaxed.  It couldn’t hear the blaring monsters anymore. Only the wind rustling the leaves. An owl, crickets. A croak somewhere distant. It was peace like it hadn’t experienced in a decade. Long before the Zoo. The jaguar turned to observe its companion following, mirroring its action and drinking from the creek. After the smoke and the flames, it was a necessity. 

The other jaguar sensed the lack of threat similarly, and as a result, he looked content to step back and allow the human to come to the surface. Nicole’s jaguar retreated, apprehensive, tail whipping in the air again. A snarl tumbling past sharp teeth. Being in the presence of the human wasn’t what it wanted. It was the other animal who shared its nature. The other jaguar who felt the importance of the spirit. 

And if he turned human—

It was time to relinquish control. As a naked figure appeared on the forest floor, Nicole’s jaguar began its internal battle. The creature deemed it too short of an outing. It needed more time. The agreement was unbalanced, why should the human have the final word? But amber eyes set on them, the human friend —Felix— and it knew it would be a battle hard to win. The sounds Felix made meant nothing to the jaguar, but their tone reached deep. The human within, her presence— her will, it was stronger than before. Pulsing along its ribcage, fighting to free herself with purpose. Was she learning better control? That couldn’t be good for its future. For its survival. The jaguar didn’t let fear show. Too proud for it, and thought it would keep the agreement they reached for the night, the spirit wasn’t pleased. It would demand retribution, at the right time. 

The spirit loosened its hold, but Nicole’s mind, however, struggled to rise to the surface. Escaping from the lifeless void of slumber to settle back into reality she was desperate to cling to. It felt out of reach for moments, a pull tried to drag her back, before she finally seized it. She swam toward conscience. 

Her body fell forward, and she heard the splash before she understood what was happening. She scrambled to stop from diving into the water. Panting, she tried sitting up, absorbing the world around her once more. Eyes widened in terror, darting around, desperately seeking confirmation that time hadn’t jumped. That her last memories — the farm, Felix— were recent. She couldn’t— another leap would end her.    

But Felix was there, by her side, their expression resonating with Nicole. The sky behind them bled orange in the distance. They were by her side— so that meant— The jaguar didn’t cage her for long. Her skin erupted in goosebumps. “Felix—” she rasped, lifting her arm, deciding against the comfort she wished to give her friend. Only to beat herself up for the decision a second later. Indecision paralyzed her movements, but her thoughts swarmed her head. What—How—Why? More importantly, Felix next to her, safe from the fire. “Are you hurt? Why were you in the woods?”

—

Nicole began to shift, the sounds of bones snapping and reforming a familiar one. Felix brought their knees to their chest, wrapping an arm around them and settling into a waiting position. Their throat ached, even after the jaguar’s attempt to soothe it with the water from the stream. Their heart was pounding, even miles away from that billowing smoke. And dread pooled in their stomach, swirling and churning at the thought of what they’d left behind. 

What had the jaguar done to get them out of there? They couldn’t help but wonder. The spirit was fiercely protective, but it never seemed to understand the difference between friends and foes. It clung to violence, doled it out so readily with a rage Felix had never been able to match. The man who’d attacked them was likely dead; the idea of the jaguar letting him live was a far-fetched, impossible thing. But what about Daisy? What about Monty, what about Wynne? What about all the other people who’d been at that party? How much blood was in their mouth? How much visceral would they have to scrub from beneath their nails? 

The panic gripped them, a quiet sob rising from their throat. They tried to push it down, tried not to fall apart, but it was a difficult thing to manage. Something bad had happened, and maybe Felix was a part of it. There was blood in their mouth, and they couldn’t blame it on the Grit Pit or on Leo or on anyone besides themself. They hugged their knees tighter, burying their face against them as the sounds of shuffling beside them became a little more human.

She said their name, and they took a shuddering breath, shaking their head. “I don’t…” Were they hurt? They weren’t sure. Everything always felt so raw after a shift; like every nerve ending was exposed to the world. Adrenaline made it all the more difficult to tell, but they didn’t think it mattered. Their well being wasn’t nearly as important as what the jaguar might have done. “There was — We were at a party. We were at a party. It wasn’t — People came, and — There was a fire, and I don’t — I think —” It was hard to get words to work the way they wanted them to. It was a party. A party. It wasn’t supposed to be like this, wasn’t supposed to end like this. A sob wracked Felix’s frame, rising up and trembling in their shoulders.

—

Felix’s face was coated in blood from the jaguar’s preys. The water stream washed away some of it, but Nicole knew what it was like, to wake up tasting somebody’s blood. To be aware that the beast within sated its hunger by taking a life. The guilt of an act she had no part in eased over the years, perhaps she grew numb to it, but there were remnants. The metallic taste in her mouth as she gained consciousness was one example. Felix grappled with it too. And they tried to get the story out despite their frazzled state. Sympathy pulsed in her chest, the spirit stirring faintly.

“Hey, you’re—” fine, she wanted to say. Okay. But Felix wasn’t fine, they weren’t okay. Their words were fragmented by shock and fear. Sorrow heavy between each breath. Something protected Nicole from locking herself away as Felix recalled the facts, but there was— the familiarity of it left her cold. Felix was at a party too, it was supposed to be safe. Who would think of storming a party? Details were missing, but it was clear Felix watched everything go up in flames, they likely sought their loved desperately, they—

She no longer felt the grass prickling on her knees, nor the gentle splash of the creek near. Her eyes locked far away. Trying to reach the past. She was above her, or— behind, separate from herself, watching, incapable of reacting to Felix’s distress. She was back in Vermont, where the plates crashed against the kitchen floor as the first intruder struck, where her mother’s frenzied screams echoed, gutting Nicole better than a hunter’s knife could, where she didn’t reciprocate her father’s last ‘I love you’, where the blade tore her shoulder blade, where her sister’s grasp slip away despite her best efforts. Where the jaguar stole her youth.

The forest disappeared, it stopped existing. Felix disappeared. She was back in the place where she last left her soul. 

In the aftermath, there was no one. Only the vast wilderness and herself. She never found the clues to uncover what transpired that night. She had no one yet many, too, at the same time. Strangers in a hazy gas station in the middle of nowhere. The old woman who offered a roof and a warm meal. A guy who fixed up a pickup truck for her. The curious kid who talked to her tirelessly, until words were finally comfortable in her tongue again after years exiled from her body and mind. 

A sob came from somewhere— from the backyard—no, next to her. Nicole was dragged back to the present. Felix had someone. But a someone who wasn’t doing fucking shit for them. “I’m here,” she whispered tearfully. It didn’t mean much. It felt empty. A dreadful lie, she was never here. Nicole knew Felix would have been better with somebody else by their side. They’d would’ve preferred it, surely. Someone with a comforting touch and nurturing words and— She wasn't that. Fuck, she was so much less than that. Most days she was nothing. An entity with far less presence than the spirit stirring inside her. Not a day went by when Nicole didn’t wish to be someone else. Someone warmer, wiser, anybody but her. But what else could she do?

If things had been different, if her father didn’t sacrifice himself to give her and her siblings a chance, or if she didn’t let that chance go to waste, if her grip on her sister was stronger as the hunters chased them. If they never came to begin with. Then she would be the big sister who wrangled Yadiel and told him to get his shit together. Would've been the person Nayeli came to share her secrets with. The person who would’ve known how to comfort a friend in need without hesitance.

Perhaps there was still time to be some version of that. Slightly mangled by the past, by the jaguar, by her coping skills. With steep disadvantage, but— She shifted her body, sitting by Felix’s side, shoulder to shoulder. “I’m here,” she repeated, spoken like an apology, because Felix deserved a better somebody. She leaned to touch her temple to theirs, her hand resting on their forearm. It wasn’t much, but it would have to be enough. Felix was terrified, but they weren’t alone. No one deserved to be. 

She let them sob for a moment, forcing herself not to dive into her memories again. There was enough tragedy in front of her. As Felix’s breath slowed down, Nicole had already thought of a few things to say. “What went down over there… will be on the news. We’ll know—you’ll know what happened to your friends soon.” It wasn’t comfort. Casualties would come. Some of which Felix would have a hand on. But answers too would come, and answers would cushion their fall.

—    

Nicole went quiet and, in a better state, Felix might have recognized the faraway look in her eyes. Everyone in this town seemed to have something haunting them, some quiet tragedy that carved empty spaces into their lives. Most people didn’t talk about it. Felix, for their part, mentioned their own past rarely, and only to people they thought they could trust with it. The details of their mother’s death were locked behind their ribcage like a prison cell, separate from the rest of them so that they could grow into something softer than what that event demanded of them. Their father’s attitude — towards them, towards humanity, towards everything — lived beside it like a cellmate, knocking against the bars with every beat of their heart.

Later, they might wonder if what happened at that farm would be stuffed into the same cage. Could they swallow the smoke and flames that had burned their lungs, could they separate themself from the blood in their mouth? Was it a disservice to do so? They didn’t know how to live with the things that must have happened, the things they must have done, but they weren’t sure it was fair to ignore them, either. What did you owe to the people you’d hurt when you were not yourself? What did Felix owe to whoever’s blood was on their tongue, or to the fighters in the Grit Pit who probably saw a jaguar in their nightmare? Did he owe it to all of them to remember, to let it suffocate him? Or… was it better to move on, to grow from it? 

There didn’t seem to be a good answer. Nor was there an answer to the question of what they now owed to Nicole for finding them, for bringing them back to themself. They might have been better off in their shifted form, without the pressing weight on their chest or the way their lungs couldn’t seem to draw a full breath, but they were glad to be themself in spite of it. The jaguar was stronger, was faster, was better at both eliminating danger and living with the consequences of it, but Felix wanted to be Felix. More than anything in the world, Felix wanted only to be allowed to be themself the way they couldn’t in their father’s house, the way they couldn’t in the Grit Pit. Maybe this heaving, sobbing thing in the woods was the closest they’d come to it in a long time. Maybe there was nothing good about being who you were when who you were was this. 

“I hurt people,” they gasped quietly, trembling with fear or with grief or with both. (Weren’t the two always interchangeable?) “I think I hurt people.” They leaned into her, feeling guilty for the selfishness of it. This wasn’t her weight to carry, but it was too heavy for Felix to lift on their own. And she was here. She was here, and they were afraid enough to allow themself to believe that that was a good thing, that they deserved to have someone here even with blood on their tongue and a fire raging close enough to smell. 

It would be on the news, she told them. They’d know what happened soon. And Felix wondered, with a desperate gulp, if they wanted to. They thought of all the things they might have been better off not knowing, all the questions they didn’t ask after a shift at the Grit Pit because sometimes, ignorance was the closest thing to bliss that they could manage. Soon, they’d have more answers. It felt more like a gallows they were marching towards than any kind of salvation.

“I’m sorry,” they said quietly, unsure if they were apologizing for whatever had happened at the farm or for leaning on her or for making her carry the weight with them or for all of it. For everything, maybe; for what they were, for what they did with it, for the way they knew she understood the feeling. “I’m sorry. I think — I think we should go. I think we should run. I don’t think we should be here anymore.”

—

Her hand barely grazed Felix’s arm, yet it was all Nicole could pay attention to. All her brain decided she needed to focus on. The gesture was uncomfortable, alien for her in spite of how much she was growing to care for Felix. She wasn’t used to it anymore, the jaguar ripped it from her year by year in the wilderness, then in the zoo. Though she didn’t want to take it back either. That felt plain wrong. She had to settle for the all-encompassing anxiety,  remaining still right where Felix needed her. What would it be like, not to question every action, every word, every feeling? She would’ve liked to comfort Felix in a manner that mattered. A manner that helped. Make sure they were supported through it, but it was too big a weight to pick up. 

Felix admitted to hurting people, rather, they believed it happened. Nicole didn’t flinch. She already assumed something along those lines must’ve occurred. When the jaguar was at large, lives were always at risk. They carried a natural predator within, they carried a monster capable of destruction. “Okay—” she replied, awkwardly. Didn’t everybody hurt others? Intentionally or unintentionally. Didn’t she have jaguar kills to answer for as well? She didn’t know if sinking into her own self-hatred would do them any good. She never thought she would be one to defend what they were, when for the longest time she would’ve loved to be rid of the spirit. “I have too. The jaguar— It…it hurts people. Has to. Needs it to survive,” the beast didn’t see it like that, Nicole mused. The jaguar killed and feasted on its prey till its belly was full and there wasn’t rationale in the act. It was the way of nature. And— it was expected of them to understand how important it was for the jaguar to survive. How blessed they were, chosen to carry such a unique spirit. 

Sitting on the grass, one of them sobbing in uncertainty and fear, the other too stunted to comfort them, Nicole was affronted by all the tales she grew up hearing about. They were not special. Only two unlucky people, there was nothing to be proud of. 

Felix didn’t look relieved to hear answers would soon come, and she cursed herself mentally for what she said. They didn’t need the logical answer, they needed—  Perhaps it would be better for both of them if Nicole didn’t speak again. The air was too heavy with grief for her words to cut through it. Felix continued to sob, a trail of tears dampening her hair. All she did was stay there, as promised. Until the apology made her pull away, confusion etched on her features. What were they sorry for? She didn’t have to understand, she only had to listen to their voice, feel the emotion. It used to be so much easier before she was stripped form her humanity. She nodded curtly, accepting their words.

 A shiver ran down her spine as Felix suggested they go. They meant the forest, of course, she was conscious, but she would be lying if Felix wasn’t voicing a desire she felt during her darkest days. And some days after too, when the rays of sun began warming up her skin again. Wasn’t her only talent to run? Why did she stop? “That’s smart,” she rasped, giving Felix another small nod of encouragement. “Fire’s unpredictable,” and they were far from where it ignited, but flames jumped and the wind could twist its path. The forest wasn't as safe for them as she would like it to be. 

Nicole kneeled, gaze sweeping their surroundings. Though the creek offered a much needed stop, they were supposed to face the world again. She rose from the ground, extending her hand for Felix. “Truck should still be— somewhere,” fuck, she was quite proficient at tracking but without knowing the jaguar’s route— “Won’t risk it, though,” if they couldn’t find it, they would— fuck they were naked. Couldn’t ask for a ride. They… the way home would be by foot. Felix could borrow some of her clothes.

—

She’d hurt people, too. Most of their friends had, hadn’t they? Monty, Anita, Wyatt, Teagan… It was so much easier to forgive their crimes than it was for Felix to absolve himself of his own. Lockjaw killed Razor, and Felix told Wyatt that it wasn’t his fault, that the Pit was the one to blame. Monty spoke of his dark past, and Felix assured him that because he was different now, because he was apologetic, none of it mattered. Samir used to talk about how he hurt people during his shifts, and Felix would remind him that the wolf wasn’t him, that there was a difference between himself and the animal inside of him. Teagan bloodied her hands, and Felix helped her clean them with quiet reassurances. Anita felt no remorse for what she did, and Felix thought she must have been right for it.

Those same certainties were absent when they looked inward. They hurt people in the Grit Pit, but the grace they offered Wyatt felt wrong when they tried to apply it to themself because they should have known better, because they signed up for the Pit knowing what it was and were so blinded by their love for Leo that they hadn’t let it stop them. They were sorry for the terrible things they’d done in their past, but sorry didn’t seem like a strong enough word when it fell from their lips. The jaguar wasn’t Felix, but they took the fall for his crimes all the same, wrapped them around their own throat like a noose waiting to tighten and begged the world to hang them for what the beast had done. Their hands were red and stayed red, no matter how they scrubbed beneath their nails. They’d never once felt they were right for the people they’d hurt, even if some of them might have deserved hurting.

Even now, they wanted to push their feelings aside and reassure Nicole, tell her it was okay that she had hurt people despite not believing the same of themself. The jaguar needed to hurt people to survive, but it felt more true of Nicole than it did of Felix. It felt wrong to try and pretend that the things he’d done needed doing. It felt irredeemable to make excuses when they had no idea whose blood was on their tongue. 

So they said nothing at all. They curled in on themself a little tighter, they registered the quiet aches of injuries they hadn’t yet had time to catalog. There was so much blood sticking to their skin; what did it matter if some of it was their own? Wouldn’t it have been better if all of it was? They wished they were still on the farm, and they wished they were anywhere else in the world. Guilt and grief, when it was this heavy, was always a mess of contradiction. 

Nicole spoke of the fire and its unpredictability; Felix had almost forgotten that anything was burning at all. It wasn’t the fire they wanted to flee, but what was inside of it. They couldn’t run from it forever, they knew; sooner or later, whatever had happened during the jaguar’s run would become clearer than they wanted it to be. Sooner or later, they’d know exactly whose blood they tasted on their tongue. And they couldn’t unknow it once it was clear, couldn’t unburn the barn. That had always been the problem, hadn’t it? 

They shifted their position, straightening themself out and swallowing tightly. Even after the water from the stream, everything tasted like blood. Felix thought it probably would for a very long time. “We can walk,” they said quietly, forcing themself painfully to their feet. “I’m okay to walk. I — It would be better, I think.” After all, when they were finished here, all that was waiting for them was the boiler room at the Grit Pit, where they’d be as alone as they’d ever been. Maybe they could be with Nicole for a little while, but not for long. They wouldn’t be permitted to be away from the Pit for long. But… glancing towards the still rising smoke, Felix thought that this might be exactly what they deserved. 

“Come on,” they said quietly, offering Nicole a hand to help her to her feet. The movement pulled at something that the still-raging adrenaline kept them from feeling in its entirety; they figured that was for the best, too. “Let’s — Let’s get out of here. Please.”

[muertarte]

TIMING: Halloween

PARTIES: @amonstrousdream @bookofbolden @muertarte

SUMMARY: Leila, Eleanor, and Metzli celebrate their first Halloween together and dress up as the Scooby-Doo gang!

WARNINGS: None!

“Do I have to wear this?” Metzli slouched petulantly as they grumbled in their Scooby-Doo costume. The head bounced forward and nudged Leila in the face while she was busy finishing up the zipper. “I can just be vampire. See?” Letting their vampiric features fade into their face, Metzli snapped their teeth playfully. “No one will know.” 

A small smile tugged at their face, bigger than usual. Because despite how ridiculous they felt, there was a warm and pleasant sensation enveloping their chest at the sight of Leila and Eleanor wearing costumes too. Metzli had never had the opportunity to celebrate silly things like Halloween, and never saw themself as the type to participate even if they had the chance, but there was something about being a part of a celebration with people you loved. They even got Fluffy in on it. He was somewhere in the house, dressed up as Scrappy-Doo. 

“So…” Their eyes scanned over to the giant bowls of candy by the door, along with three drinks Metzli had prepared for everyone to sip on. Hot chocolate with a dash of this creamy alcohol. They could have treats too, couldn't they? “I just…give this candy?”

The Scooby Doo head was certainly something.

If Leila was being completely honest, she had only been vaguely familiar with the cartoon about meddling kids and a talking dog that solved mysteries. But Ellie had suggested the costume idea, she had damn near cackled with laughter, and now there she was, zipping her fiancée into Scooby Dooby Doo while she stood on tiptoe in the perfectly purple pumps she’s managed to find for her own Daphne ensemble. 

“You could, but then it would just be Ellie and I that match…” The mare hummed as she adjusted the suit so it would sit properly atop Metzli’s head. She was trying so desperately to keep her grin at a non-shit-eating level, but the snap of teeth and fangs paired with the bobbling dog head was… Well… amusing to say the least. The corner of Leila’s mouth tugged up in a small grin. To stifle it’s growth, she planted a quick kiss on Metzli’s cheek, careful to avoid the cartoon dog head that had seemingly swallowed them whole. 

“That’s exactly it. The children come up, they say trick or treat- or sometimes they don’t but that’s okay- and we give them candy and compliment their costumes.” It wasn’t a tradition she had ever been able to take part in during life- it hadn’t really been a thing, then. But the mare loved a good excuse to dress up and play pretend more than most- and what was Halloween but a night to dress up and play a bit of pretend?

Eleanor stared at herself through her phone camera and fidgeted with her bangs until they fell just right. She was still shocked that Metzli and Leila had agreed to go with her costume suggestion but excited nonetheless since Scooby Doo had been one of her favorite cartoons growing up. Unfortunately she’d never had a group to actually dress up with and trick-or-treating as Velma alone was too pathetic for her to even consider so her inner child glowed with happiness that the time had finally come - it really was a simple thing but to her it made all the difference.

“You being a vampire on Halloween would be like me dressing up as Sylvia Plath or Jane Austen,” which Eleanor had of course done many years in the past, “A writer dressing up as a writer, a vampire as a vampire… it takes the fun out of it. Part of the appeal of the holiday is that you get to be something or someone you’re not.” She adjusted her glasses before putting her phone away to focus on Leila as she finished getting Metzli into costume. “For the record, I think we look great. I may be biased though.”

While Halloween had never necessarily been Eleanor’s favorite holiday she enjoyed the creativity people put into their costumes and admired the dedication. “It’s also really important that we’re known as the house that gives out the good candy because kids go to school and talk about which houses to hit up or avoid the next year. It’s a whole thing, they take it very seriously.”

“Good candy?” There were so many rules to the holiday. Metzli usually loved rules, but these weren't the kind that they could easily understand. There was no logic or reason behind them. At least, not to Metzli. What did costumes and candy and carving pumpkins have to do with the thinning of the veil? 

Offerings, maybe, but they decided they didn't really care when they saw Leila and Eleanor fully dressed. Their face immediately felt warm. 

“Um, I…” Metzli blinked several times, trying to focus, only to be interrupted by a knock on the door. Their back straightened, “I-I…is this the good candy?” They snatched up the bowl and presented it to the candy experts. It was filled with full sized bars and packages. Metzli figured the more expensive, the better, but they needed confirmation before opening the door. 

“I can confirm there is such a thing as good candy, and we are definitely going to be the house that has the most of it.” If there was one thing that a mare was good for, it was having a nose for finding the best candy within a ten mile radius. Leila had used looking for sweets as a means of distracting herself from less happy things. The result: bags on bags of the best chocolate and sugary confection money could buy. King sized sweets where she could get them. Every child would leave with more candy than they could probably imagine. 

Out of the corner of her eye, Leila spied Eleanor’s phone raising up up up to take a picture of the pair. She couldn’t help but wink at the Velma Dinkly-fied version of the author she’d come to care for so much. “We do look great.” More importantly, it seemed to bringing a little sparkle of joy back into their world.

The door knocked and all eyes swiveled in the direction of the noise. Trick or Treaters. “That’s the good candy, yes- and I have lots extra if we run out, somehow… so don’t worry too much.”

Eleanor felt the trick-or-treaters before the knock came at the door and the overwhelming excitement and curiosity made her smile. She would have a fantastic time since she got to be with the two people she’d grown closest to and would be greeted by happy candy fiends throughout the night. A nice change of pace was needed for the three of them, they deserved it. Most of her time had gone to feeling hopelessly lost without having a project to obsess over and keep her mind busy while she knew the pair in front of her were still grieving their loss. A fun, carefree night was something they could all use.

She quickly snapped her picture and hoped that it hadn’t turned out blurry in her haste and glanced into the bowl. “I can confirm that that is the best candy you could have gotten, well done. We’ll be popular for sure. Also, the fact that we’re actually handing out the candy and not just leaving the bowl on the porch with a ‘take one’ sign is a plus.” Eleanor nodded approvingly and made her way to the door. “Hopefully our Scrappy Doo will decide to grace us with his presence before the night is up, I think he really pulls the whole look together.” She smiled at both of them before opening the door to greet the children on the other side.

The door opened and Metzli sucked in a hasty breath. Not leaving the bowl on the porch was supposed to be a plus, but it felt more like a negative as the door opened to reveal people. But they weren't just any people. They were children. Excited ones. Ones that would surely eat too much sugar that night and keel over from a crash much like the kind that Metzli witnesses with Leila and Eleanor. 

Trick or treat!

Children exclaimed and jumped up in celebration and all the vampire could do was stare for a few moments. They all looked happy and excited and full of wonder. One was dressed as a bear, and another as batman, while a child hidden in the back had a costume that was clearly a homemade dinosaur. 

Metzli remained frozen in their own wonder, smiling faintly. Is that what childhood was supposed to be like? Was that what Cass missed out on? They swallowed harshly and shook their head to move past the thought, kneeling down to offer the bowl. “Take one. Each. Please.”

The door opened, the tiny voices of children rang out from the other side of the door, and Leila’s heart ached. A bear, a Batman, and a dinosaur stared into the foyer with sparkling, expectant eyes, waiting for their well-earned payment of candy. Just visible over the tops of their little heads, waiting at the edge of the path, stood the parents. Watching their children enjoy one of those utterly wonderful childhood moments. 

Cass would have loved the Batman… 

It hurt a little, knowing Cass wouldn’t be sharing in the silly evening. In addition, there was another ache. She wouldn’t be one of those parents, making whatever costumes her child could dream up. Leila forced the thoughts past as she watched Metzli kneel down before three wide eyed children. They saw the bowl of the large candy bars, and looked back up at the vampire like they had met their new god. Peals of excited squealing rang out as little hands reached for candy bars they could barely hold, followed by tiny thank you’s. It was good to see this. Good for Metzli. Good for them all, probably… 

Eleanor smiled as Metzli interacted with the children and peered around the door to get a better look at the costumes. She wished that Metzli and Leila could have felt what she did radiating from their tiny guests because she knew that it would have helped lift their spirits even more. She hadn’t checked in on them like she should have, something she felt guilty about, but she knew that things hadn’t gotten easier for them; maybe it wasn’t the right time to bring it up though so she would ask them how they were feeling at a more appropriate time.

She laughed as the children grabbed their candy and stashed it into their buckets and bags. “You did great, they loved you. I think the parents found you amusing too.” Eleanor lightly touched Metzli’s arm and looked to Leila with raised eyebrows. “I didn’t think we’d actually get them into the costume. Good thing we did though, I think it’s going to be a hit. I would have never guessed that giving out candy might be just as much fun as receiving it.”

The youngest of the three stared a little longer while the other two retreated to show their parents what they had been given. She seemed a little bewildered by the giant head on top of Metzli's, and they gave it a few experimental wiggles in response. 

A flurry of giggles escaped her and Metzli smiled in response, leaning just a bit further to boop her head with the snout of the costume. She couldn't have been no older than three. “Happy Halloween.” Metzli wobbled the head again, earning them a final giggle before the little bear scurried off to her parents. They watched, eyes misted with a mixture of delight and grief, but overall they felt warm. 

“Maybe this is not so bad.” Leaning into Eleanor's touch, Metzli carefully tilted their head to place a gentle kiss on Leila's lips. They hummed with delight, planting an equally soft kiss to Eleanor's and closing the door with their foot. “Do not forget the hot chocolate. It is champurrado. Better than regular kind.” 

Simple little things. A little child’s giggles so bright that they chased all shadows away. The soft sound of Metzli’s voice. The spark in Eleanor’s eyes. The silliness of the costumes. These were all such simple, little things, and yet each one was so precious, so utterly perfect. Each moment burned through the dark ache in Leila’s chest. Soft. Warm. Like a candle fighting its way through the dark. 

A gentle kiss pulled her from her endless circle of dreamy thoughts. In a lazy motion, the mare looped one arm around each of their waists, pulling them closer. Just for one night, she thought, everything could be bright again. Just with those simple little things that filled the moments of the evening.

It was a good night, the first truly enjoyable night that Eleanor had had in a long while and she hoped that more good things were to come not only for herself but for Metzli and Leila as well. As much as she didn’t think it was fair that they had been put through so much undeserved hardship she couldn’t deny that the time they spent together could more than make up for it. Silly costumes, hot chocolate, and candy might not solve their problems but that didn’t mean it couldn’t help distract them for a little while.

Eleanor smiled in response to Metzli and wrapped an arm around Leila. It would be a good night, one that they would look back on fondly for years to come and she would refuse to ruin it by allowing her mind to wander into that dark place it liked to go sometimes. She was with the people she loved and nothing was more important than that.

[mortemoppetere]

TIMING: current LOCATION: The Leg PARTIES: @vanishingreyes  & @mortemoppetere SUMMARY: with the sigils destroyed, emilio goes to take care of the leg. xóchitl decides to tag along, and despite his initial reservations, emilio accepts her help. CONTENT WARNINGS: brief suicidal ideation

The sigils were gone. He’d gotten word not long ago, been given a head’s up to their disappearance, and that was a good thing. The sigils were gone, and the town was safer for it. Emilio didn’t know much about demon shit, in spite of his living situation and his relationship, in spite of the scars marring his arms and legs and the ordeal that had put them there, in spite of Wynne’s upbringing and his part in saving them from it. He’d dealt with enough demon shit to know it made him uncomfortable, but he didn’t know much more about it than that. One thing he did know, though, was that Wicked’s Rest was better off without a fucking demon bursting out of the ground. So the sigils were gone, and that was a good thing.

But the pieces were still there. The bits of demon sticking out of the ground, ready to burst free; the damn limbs that had started all this shit. To say it made Emilio antsy would be an understatement. As long as the limbs still existed, the threat wasn’t entirely resolved. Whatever was down there could still burst free or be dug out or something; his paranoia insisted upon as much. That same paranoia told him it was his job to fix it, and that it was the kind of thing he really needed to do on his own. If it was dangerous, there was no sense putting anyone else at risk. If it wasn’t dangerous, there was no reason why Emilio couldn’t handle it by himself. 

(And maybe, part of him felt as though he needed to handle it alone. Maybe part of him was stuck in that basement, still, with Aesil’s blade carving into his skin and his blood soaking the floor. Last time he got caught in the middle of a demon situation, he couldn’t free himself from it. This time, he could do more. He needed to do more.)

His fingers twitched idly as he made his way towards the leg, reflecting distantly on the irony of it all. A man with a leg that gave him hell was taking it upon himself to keep a demon leg from giving hell to an entire goddamn town. Maybe Teddy’d get a kick out of it later. 

He’d felt someone behind him for a while now. Paranoia made him a hard man to sneak up on, and it was running rampant here, insisting that every twitch in the underbrush meant danger. He didn’t act on it right away; if it was a rabbit or something, it’d be pretty goddamn embarrassing to spin around and accoust it. But after a while, he was confident enough that he was being followed to whirl around with a knife in hand…

…and come face to face with someone very familiar. Faltering, he quickly put the knife away. “Xó? What the hell are you doing here? You should be… at home, or something.” Somewhere safer than the middle of the woods, rapidly approaching a demon leg.

—

It wasn’t like she thought danger was sexy now, or anything like that. If anything, confirming that things she’d previously believed to be imaginary were actually real made it all distinctly less sexy (but then again, she’d never been too great at any of that, quite frankly). Xóchitl had heard warnings from people about whatever the fuck was going on right now, but quite frankly, she didn’t understand much of it. At least now she could nod with confusion rather than only expressing flat-out denial. So that was, like, growth, or something?

She also knew that she probably shouldn’t have been out and about, but she was bored being inside so much and for some reason that resulted in her wanting to go and stare at a giant leg. Maybe she needed to have her head checked out, when all of this was over. Because this wasn’t who she was. Not now. Not since that April. She wasn’t overly excitable and curious and daring. She wasn’t a recluse, thank god, but going out to explore something she didn’t understand and that might hurt her.

But maybe she had something of a death wish.

Which was also something that she didn’t like to think about too much. Though a death wish was more familiar than being all out there, daring.

Also, legs were supposed to be sexy, right? What was up with this town and making things that should have been sexy absolutely not. (Though, then again, there were some things that she’d come to realize could be real and were unexpectedly sexy, but this was not the time to focus on that either.)

Xóchitl had started to follow a familiar figure. Emilio. She should’ve figured that sneaking around him was not the best idea, but he knew shit. He was one of the people in town who she trusted most to give her real answers, and if he was out here poking around then maybe he was out here with answers.

“Shit, sorry!” Her hands shot up. “It’s me – Xó – Emilio, it’s just me.” She shrugged at his question. “I was bored.” Her face did bear genuine guilt. “I was – I don’t know. I won’t be too noisy. Why are you out here?”

—

Guilt flooded through him, the acidic taste of it sticking to his tongue and twisting his lips into an uncertain scowl. Xó shouldn’t be here. There were few things he was more certain of than that. Xó was strong, and smart, and stubborn, but she was also so painfully new to all of this. A few months ago, she’d had no idea any of it was real at all. He’d stood in her living room and told her as much as he could without risking overwhelming her (and had likely overwhelmed her anyway, because what did Emilio know about caution in situations like that?), and she’d reacted with enough shock to tell him she’d had no idea what kind of world she lived in. For her to be out when things were still dangerous was a bad idea.

Him pointing a fucking knife at her probably didn’t help matters much.

A hint of bitterness tugged at his limbs at her tone, at the gentleness of it. It’s just me, she said, because she probably knew that, for a second, he hadn’t known that. Emilio didn’t understand the things that went on in his own head sometimes. Xó probably did, with her fancy degree and all. And if she were anyone else, he might have resented her for that. If she were anyone else, he probably would have snapped at her. But she was Xóchitl. She was his friend — probably his best friend, or at least one of them. He couldn’t bring himself to turn that bitterness towards her right now, even if there was some twisted part of him that would always want to just a little.

He shoved his hand into his pocket, fiddling idly with his ring the moment it was out of sight. There was nothing wrong with letting Xó see it — she’d experienced his nervous habits before, after all — but he disliked the idea of expressing vulnerability when his heart was already pounding. “You should be bored somewhere else. It isn’t safe out here. And it’s not — It’s not about being noisy.” It wasn’t noise that had alerted him to her presence. That kind of thing hadn’t been a problem for him since the banshee screamed in his face while Xó was off in Ireland. “I’m… taking care of things. Doing my job. You know.” It wasn’t a great answer, and he knew she wouldn’t accept it at face value. She rarely did. That was the problem with people who knew you.

—

She did, admittedly, forget to breathe for a moment, what with Emilio’s reaction being what it was and all. But she hadn’t screamed and Xóchitl figured that was deserving of its own sort of reward, maybe. Not that she’d screamed exactly when Mateo and Wyatt had told her what they were, but it hadn’t been a good reaction. She wasn’t exactly sure if her reaction right now was good, either. But there were more important things to focus on, like the giant legs that didn’t make sense and seemed to even perplex the people who she knew knew more about these kinds of things. Which, if mystery novels and disaster movie summaries were anything to go off of, was a very bad sign.

Emilio was her best friend, probably. He was someone she trusted and felt safe with, and that was all before she knew all about what he did when he wasn’t private investigating. Or at least some about what he did – she couldn’t – and didn’t – claim to know everything, no matter how much she wanted to sometimes. She didn’t have the same sort of ego about knowing things that she’d had before. Now, more times than not, she felt like she didn’t know anything. 

Not that she was going to go to therapy about that (as, if! right?)

“I don’t want to be bored somewhere else.” Why were they doing this in English? Yet, still, she replied back in what was neither of their first languages. “Okay, well, great. I don’t know, actually, Emilio, what with only just finding out that fairy tales aren’t so fake after all!” She huffed, pressing her finger tips against her eyes. “I’m not going anywhere.” 

—

Frustration mingled with the guilt, and he thought it tasted a little better so he clung to it more than he’d care to admit. Xóchitl was stubborn. Xóchitl had been stubborn since the day he met her. If she weren’t, they probably wouldn’t have wound up friends, given how difficult Emilio was to deal with for anyone not willing to put in a good deal of extra work. Most of the time, he liked the stubbornness she exhibited, found it respectable. Right now, though… Right now, he wanted her to be safe more than he wanted anything else. And he wasn’t sure he could guarantee her safety if she came with him, wasn’t sure what trouble they might run into in these woods. 

Nostrils flaring, he pulled his hand from his pocket and pushed it through his hair, curls sticking up in all directions. “I didn’t ask if you wanted to be bored somewhere else,” he retorted. His tone was sharp, voice a little too loud. He was on edge, but when wasn’t he? His eyes darted around, just waiting for something to come out of the woods and rip Xó to pieces, but nothing did. He had nothing to point to to tell her it was unsafe, no quick and easy proof that she shouldn’t be here. All he really had was the rampant paranoia haunting his own mind, telling him over and over and over again that they were in danger. 

“Well then I’m telling you. Things like this are my job. It’s what I’m for. But you — you shouldn’t be here, Xóchitl. You shouldn’t be — wandering around in the woods, following me to — to fuck knows what. I have to go, and I have to take care of this. You don’t. You should go home. Please. Please go home.”

—

“Okay, and last I checked, I had free will, Emilio.” She didn’t want to get into a fight – or even anything beginning to resemble one – especially given her apparent tendency to go from zero to one hundred in no time when she was stressed out or overwhelmed. (Case in point, the whole Wyatt and Mateo debacle).

“What you’re for? Emilio, you realize what you sound like when you say shit like that, right?” Which was absolutely her putting on her psychologist hat, which she tried to avoid doing around friends, especially Emilio, but apparently sometimes that was unavoidable. Xóchitl would apologize about that later. Later, not now, not until she’d at least possibly somewhat figured something out about all of this.

Would she have rather been safe? Absolutely. However, she was opened up to a world of the unknown, and even with some answers as to what had happened to Mackenzie it wasn’t enough. She wasn’t sure if it ever would be enough – and that was a scary thought – because she was supposed to have found answers and then, because of the answers, found closure. That was what she’d expected for over two decades. 

She wasn’t doing so great with the lack of full closure.

“What if something gets me on the way out of here?” Xóchitl crossed her arms and raised an eyebrow. She was being a jerk now, but she also knew that Emilio would put up with a lot from her. Something she was apparently very willing to test out right now.

“I think I should stay here.” 

—

“I never said you didn’t,” he snapped, feeling bad for it immediately. There were few people who could so quickly fill him with guilt for his tendency of lashing out, but Xóchitl was certainly among them. It wasn’t a conscious effort on her part in any way — she never tried to make him feel guilty, and maybe that was part of why he did. Xó was one of the only people he knew would never snap back at him, no matter how nasty he got towards her. Tonight was tame, of course. Tonight, he’d kept things mostly reeled in so far. He wasn’t sure it would stay that way. He never really was. 

She repeated his statement, and he threw his hands up in quiet frustration. “No, I don’t.” It was the truth; he had no idea ‘what he sounded like’ with the claim. It was one he’d heard all his life, one that had been drilled into him at an early age. His life was meant to be a short and violent thing. He’d already lasted far longer than anyone had ever expected him to, already survived the unsurvivable more times than he had any right to. He should have died a thousand times over now, in a thousand different places and at a thousand different hands. It didn’t matter what risks he took, what dangerous things he did. Any time he had now was unearned, was extra. But if he said all that, Xó would argue. If he said all that, she’d tell him he was wrong and some part of him would want, so badly, to believe her. And belief like that was a dangerous thing. It would kill you so much more painfully than anything else could manage.

In an ideal scenario, Xóchitl would leave now. She’d said her piece, he’d said his, and wasn’t that all there was to it? This wasn’t the most dangerous thing he’d ever done. This wasn’t even the most dangerous thing he’d done in the last month. Destroying the leg, now that the sigils were gone and the thing it was attached to was weakened, would probably be an easy task. But there was always a chance it wouldn’t be. There was always a chance something would happen, and he couldn’t stomach the thought of anything happening to her. 

Except… walking back home alone was just as dangerous as following him to the leg. Maybe even more dangerous. She made a damn good point there. With a groan, Emilio threw his head back. “Fine,” he ground out, clearly unhappy about it. “Fine. You tag along. But if anything happens, you run, all right? Don’t worry about me keeping up, just get out.”

—

“Fine, okay!” She held her hands up. Except it was harsher than she wanted it to be – she wasn’t too harsh of a person by nature, and it felt even worse around Emilio. She couldn’t lose him – in any way – but he knew how she worked, sometimes better than she knew herself, and because of that she felt maybe more than a bit guilty for any bitter reaction she had to something Emilio said. That didn’t mean she’d change everything for him, but it did mean that she had enough sense to reflect on her actions. 

(Or perhaps half enough sense – she wasn’t that delusional.)

(Unless she was. Which – not the time to think about this right now.)

He wanted her to leave and maybe she should have left, but she also knew that Emilio would do anything – including die – to fix a problem, and Xóchitl couldn’t let that happen. She didn’t know what exactly she could do to prevent it, if it all came down to things, but it was the thought that counted most… right?

“I won’t psychoanalyze you about it.” Now. To your face. “But it doesn’t sound great. Just for what it’s worth, from my side of things. Best friend to best friend.” Then, in case it didn’t get through enough, she repeated it in Spanish. In the language they were most comfortable with, followed by an, “okay?” If it were under most any other circumstance, she might’ve hugged Emilio, but right now anything even slightly unexpected seemed like it would set him off, and that wasn’t her intention. 

She flipped her hair – perhaps a bit obnoxiously – “I’m good at running.” Once she’d said one thing in Spanish, using their familiar language just felt better. A part of Xóchitl also hoped that it would possibly put Emilio at even a modicum of greater ease.

They started to walk again, and so she let herself breathe just a little bit more.

“Is there any idea what the fuck’s up with the legs?” She said, voice low. “Even in like, basic terms, for those of us who still aren’t sure if they believe that mythological stuff is actually real?”

—

The sharpness of her tone washed over him like a wave of relief, turning the churning in his gut into something that felt more digestible. He didn’t know how to respond to gentleness, didn’t know how to hold concern. But the frustration in Xóchitl’s voice now? The angry look on her face? That made sense to him. It was almost disappointing, how quickly it was replaced with guilt. Emilio missed the heat right away, missed the way it burned. His eyes flicked down, and he nodded. “Fine,” he agreed. 

She refused to psychoanalyze him — whatever that meant — and it was a little bit of a relief. He didn’t particularly want to know what she thought it sounded like when he said things like that, which was strange. Not wanting to know something was a new sensation for Emilio, who usually needed every detail of every situation around him. But… there were things he’d prefer not to talk about, and this was one of them. It didn’t sound great, Xóchitl said, but wasn’t the truth ugly, sometimes? It didn’t sound great, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t honest. Emilio was a hunter, and hunters had one job. Hunters carried a weighty expectation. Xó didn’t understand it, and he couldn’t make her, so maybe it was best not to talk about it at all. He shrugged, saying nothing as he nodded. It was better that way.

The switch to Spanish was a relief, even if he didn’t let it show on his face. He clenched his jaw, nodding again when she confirmed she was a good runner. It wasn’t a great compromise — his ideal compromise was, of course, not a compromise at all, but Xó agreeing to do only what he wanted — but Emilio knew it was really the only one he was going to get. “Good,” he said. “And I’ll be fine, for the record. If you have to run, I’ll be fine.” He could focus on fighting whatever needed fighting better if he wasn’t splitting focus to make sure she was all right at the same time, anyway.

Trudging forward, he let Xó fall into step beside him as they moved towards the leg. Her question elicited a small snort, then a sigh. “Not sure you want to know that,” he admitted. Then, because it was Xó and he knew she wanted to know everything, he added, “It’s a demon trapped underneath the town. There are people trying to free it. That’s what the sigils were. With those gone, I think it can’t get out, but… I want to destroy it, anyway. To keep people away from it, to stop them from trying again.” 

—

She often wondered what her life would be like if she’d never met certain people. Not often, because she didn’t usually let herself know people well enough for her to believe that they’d made a significant impact on her life. That was all by extra-careful design, for better or for worse. Still, she found herself wondering what things would be like if she hadn’t been in that bar on that night and hadn’t met Emilio. Part of her answered with the fact that they probably would have met in some other way, some other time, but there was always the chance they’d just pass each other by. Or have somehow wound up being a one night thing (though that was more doubtful than them never meeting – they were both hot and good in bed and worked well – and yes, that was self-serving and centered but it was also true.) If she’d never met Emilio then she wouldn’t be standing here now and it was hard to imagine that.

Xóchitl liked to think that she could read Emilio pretty well, but even she had to admit halfway defeat at his reaction to her speaking Spanish. She wanted to say that he was masking his true and full relief, but that also might have been the more hopeful side of her – a side whose existence she sometimes doubted heavily, but one that at least seemed to be around, still, sometimes.

Whose existence was necessary right now, if she wanted to not pass out from sheer overwhelm of everything that was going on around them.

“If you say so.” She wasn’t sure if she believed him at all, but she also wasn’t sure if she had the effort or energy to say or think anything else. Which might have been for the best, in the end. Or at least right now. Which wasn’t going to be the end. She couldn’t let it.

“A demon?” Her eyebrows shot up. If it had been anybody else, she would have absolutely called them out on pulling something on her, but this was Emilio, and he wouldn’t do that. (Right?) He knew how confused and overwhelmed she was about everything. “Demons are real? What the shit?” God, she wished that she had something to drink right now. Several somethings. “Sigils – I – okay.” Xóchitl pressed the heel of her palms against her forehead. That was questions for another time. “Can I help destroy it, or is that a one-guy kinda job?”

—

There were probably a thousand different what ifs that could have made this easier. What if Emilio were quicker? What if he’d been able to get to the leg before she’d known to follow him at all, before she’d decided to trail behind him? What if he’d never let her get attached to him the way she had? It probably would have been far easier for everyone involved, probably would have been better. What if he were more convincing, better at pushing her away? What if he were smarter, could come up with some lie that would make her leave without argument? What if either one of them was a little less stubborn? None of those things were true, of course. They were who they were, and the situation was what it was, too. There was no sense thinking about how different things might have been otherwise, how much easier they could have had it. It wouldn’t help anyone.

“I do say so.” It was childish and stupid, but it made him feel a little better to snap all the same. It always felt better to snap, to rip things apart with his bare hands, to blow the fucking world to bits. Wasn’t that the source of half his problems? Self destruction was never as contained as you wanted it to be.

But it wasn’t exactly helpful here, either, so Emilio sighed. “Yeah. A demon.” Maybe he could have said more, told her about Levi or Teddy or Wynne and their cult or Aesil and the scars on his arms and legs, maybe he could have given her a fucking rundown on why, exactly, he knew as much as he did about something that wasn’t undead, but he couldn’t bring himself to speak about any of it, so he only shrugged. “Not sure. Was going to set it on fire. Kills most things, so…” He trailed off with a shrug, moving through the brush.

As they got closer, the landscape seemed to shift. The town had adjusted to make room for the intrusion, the ground had become uneven with its attempt to rise. It was difficult to walk on; each step was a little more painful than the last. Emilio grimaced, focusing on walking instead of talking by necessity. Something rustled in the bushes and he stopped, throwing a hand out to stop Xó, too. “Not sure what all could be out here,” he warned. “You stay behind me.” The leg was within eyeshot now — they just needed to get to it.

—

Maybe they were both too stubborn – too similar in eerily familiar ways. She wasn’t sure that she’d ever really get over that night when something had made them both see dead people. Some strange and contorted version of dead people at that. Dead people as they would have been then. Now. It was too much to think about even still. So avoidance was great. Especially right now, where it couldn’t be so easily paired with alcohol. Double up on one without the other. Or sometimes double up on one even with the other. Which was easy to do with Emilio – it was something of a habit they both fell into more often than not.

They were snapping at each other and all she wanted to say was that she loved him, that he was her person and so important to her, but that was for later. Xóchitl knew that Emilio didn’t react too well to compliments and she’d pulled more than a couple on him lately, and it would pull his concentration right now, probably, so it wasn’t the route to go. Afterwards, though? When they were both for sure alive and she’d convinced Emilio to shower with the promise of drinks and maybe throwing darts at something? Then she’d get him. Tell him how much she loved him and how much she couldn’t imagine not having him in her life. She only listened to him as much as she did because she loved him. Only gave him as hard a time for the same exact reason.

“That’s…okay.” Because what else exactly was she supposed to say, after all of that? She didn’t get it, and she wasn’t sure if she believed it, but she did at least know enough not to ask Emilio to explain all of this while going after a demon. “Fire does have that skill, yeah.” She held her tongue tight between her teeth, wondering how well it would work to light leprechauns on fire; then, in turn, wondering if that made her something of a pyromaniac (probably best not to think about that right now – self-diagnoses were something she’d gone through in spades back in her doctorate (and since) and she didn’t need to do more of that right now.

The ground turned less even and she wanted to point out that at least when following her best friend she had enough sense not to wear heels. 

(But that was too much, and rude, and even if she and Emilio had snipped and snapped at each other, being rude wasn’t something she ever wanted to do.)

She did, however, walk straight into Emilio’s arm. “Sorry.” A headshake. “Yeah, fine, I’ll stay behind you. Not a bad view,” she said, trying to inject some sort of humor into a distinctly non-humorous situation. Which, stupid, but it was done. “Do I get to help light it on fire?” 

––

Typically, holding a mirror up to Emilio lead to little more than broken glass and bloody fingers. There were few things he liked less than his own reflection, few things he hated the way he hated himself. The only time he’d ever learned to like pieces of himself was when he saw them in people who were easier to love. When Flora drove her heels into the ground and refused to be moved, when Jaime grinned crookedly and made a joke funny to no one but himself, when Nora hit him with some monotonous deadpan, when Wynne refused to take no for an answer, and now, too, when Xóchitl would not allow herself to be pushed away from something she wanted to be a part of. When he saw these things in himself, they were ugly. He hated how they looked, how they sounded. They were better in the people around him, he thought. And it made sense, of course. You could put blood on a canvas and call it paint, but it would never look quite as pretty.

That didn’t mean Xó’s stubbornness wasn’t frustrating right now, of course. That didn’t mean there wasn’t a part of Emilio that wanted to stop in the middle of the woods and waste time bickering just to prove his damn point. Another day, he might have done it. Another day, he might have decided that arguing was far more important than anything else. But there were demons involved here, and demons had made him nervous since the shit with Wynne’s family, had made his palms sweat and his fingers twitch since Aesil. There were demons involved here, and he wanted it over. He needed it to be finished, in whatever way he could end it.

He was grateful that Xóchitl didn’t ask any questions, because he wasn’t sure how he’d have answered them without giving away more than he wanted to. So few people knew of his harrowing experience in Caleb’s basement and still, too many were aware. Emilio would like to keep anyone else from knowing, wanted to hide the moment of weakness that had come with it. He certainly didn’t want to discuss it in the woods, with another demon somewhere beneath their feet. “Fire’s good for most things,” he offered, happy to have the subject shift, even if only slightly. “That and chopping something’s head off. But… don’t know where its head is. Just know about the legs.” And so, he’d take care of the leg. He’d burn it to ash, and he’d pretend it made him feel better. He’d like that.

Xóchitl agreed to stay behind him, and it was a relief. He pulled a knife from his pocket, handing it to her just in case. He doubted she’d need it, but he preferred everyone be armed. “It’s a great view,” he agreed. That, at least, was one part of himself that he did like. He shot her a smile that doubled as an apology he didn’t know how to say aloud; he hoped she’d understand it, anyway. “Maybe. It just depends on what —” 

Something launched itself from the brush, earning a quick swipe from Emilio’s blade. It fell back with a hiss, and it took a moment for him to register what it was. And, the moment he did, he almost wished he hadn’t. It was a leg. A fucking leg, with a bloody opening full of teeth on the thigh. Jesus fucking Christ. 

More sounds from the bushes, and the leg was flanked by two more, then another. They were dealing with a pack of these things, it seemed; the big leg was in view just ahead, stretching over the horizon to make for a strange skyline. Emilio eyed it with gritted teeth. They needed to get there. Now. 

—

Nearly every time Xóchitl found out about something else whose existence she’d previously thought was impossible, she figured it couldn’t be topped. Leprechauns? Had to have been the worst. Then there was more – and then more – and now legs? She knew she’d get a headache if she thought too much about it. Or get dizzy and fall over (either literally or metaphorically, she wasn’t sure which) and Emilio should not have to deal with that right now. Or ever. But collapsing into a heap could come later, if at all. 

He smiled at her and she could breathe a sigh of relief because that was Emilio-speak for sorry (not that she needed any sort of apology, seeing Emilio’s smile was enough of a win and it did happen to boost her ego just a smidgen that she was able to get him to smile as often as she was) and so they were all-good, chill, still best friends. 

“Fair. I can’t think that I’ve used fire too much, but I’ll take your word for it.” She kept her wincing internal at the idea of chopping a head off even though there might have been some level of understanding – given that she sort of knew what Emilio did. It didn’t mean that she understood it, or supported it (though there was part of her who would have liked to see what happened when you cut of a leprechaun’s head – which – not the point).

Except then Emilio screamed and Xóchitl couldn’t help herself and she screamed too – a leg was throwing itself at him, and then more threw themselves out and she wasn’t sure where they were coming from or if they were going to stop – and she couldn’t get over the fact that they had teeth because how? Of all the things she’d seen this was one of the things she was least able to make sense of.

“Okay – what’s the plan?” She ducked down. Do I – stab the legs? If so… where?”

—

He’d been expecting some resistance, of course. Even without the sigils, something like this was bound to have some form of protection around it. Granted, Emilio had figured it’d be cultists of one kind or another, which would have been… complicated. Cultists were misguided, to say the least, but human all the same. And in spite of everything, killing humans wasn’t something that sat right with Emilio. Even hurting them sometimes felt wrong, though he was more than willing to do so when it felt necessary. Sentient legs with teeth, though? It was a more unexpected complication, but it came with far less hesitation, too. Slicing through sentient legs with teeth was a simple, uncomplicated thing.

The problem, of course, came from the volume of the legs. One or two would have been easily dispatched, but this looked more like a fucking army. (Or… the leg equivalent.) Xó had a knife, but Emilio knew she didn’t know how to use it quite as well as he did. And he had no idea what might happen if one of them was bitten by one of those things. Did they have the ability to turn humans with just a bite, like zombies and werewolves? Would he and Xó wind up turning into a fucking leg once a month? It wasn’t a question he really wanted answered. It was better, he figured, to avoid finding out altogether. That meant exercising a level of caution he didn’t usually bother with.

Xó asked him for a plan, and Emilio glanced her way with another grimace. He’d never been particularly good at plans; most of the time, his solution to a problem was to throw himself at it and hope it broke before he did. He wasn’t sure that would work here. He didn’t even know how to kill the legs, didn’t know where to aim to be most effective. It wasn’t like he could go for the head here. But Xó was counting on him to know what to do, and so Emilio forced himself to think. It was a new sensation. 

“I’ll make a path,” he announced decisively. “Cut through them so you can get to the big one.” He dug around in his pocket quickly, thrusting a lighter and his flask towards her. “When you get there, light it up. We can deal with the small ones when the big one is finished. Maybe they’ll lose interest without something to protect.” Or maybe they’d both wind up being eaten by tiny legs, but at least the big one would be taken care of first.

—

Sentient legs – with teeth (which was neither a bonus that she’d been expecting nor one that she wanted – at all) weren’t something that she was sure would ever make any sort of sense. Legs being sentient was weird and improbable enough, but they weren’t even connected to the mouth, so where did the teeth come from? It wasn’t the time to analyze that, that much Xóchitl knew – that time could come later (or, ideally, not at all – but she knew that it would come at some point because she didn’t enjoy not having answers).

There were also way too many legs. She wasn’t sure if this meant that there were a lot of legless people or things running (or well, moving) around or if these legs were just existing on their own. Once again, she wasn’t sure which option was more horrifying. Each was quite horrifying in its own sort of way. But Emilio was one of the most capable people she knew, and so if anybody could deal with whatever-the-hell kind of legs these were, it would be him. Except that she wanted a more detailed plan than was going to be possible. She wanted a lot more than seemed to be possible – not just in this situation, but regarding so much more.

And she still couldn’t stop thinking about Mackenzie. 

Always and forever. The sort of friendship they’d promised to have, that had turned into how often she thought about her best friend. Even if she had people like Emilio and Wyatt who were her best friends now.

One of the legs threw itself at her and she couldn’t help but scream as she grabbed the leg and chucked it as far away as possible (which was actually much further than she thought it would have been), before turning back to Emilio stabbing at as many of the legs as was possible. He really was impossibly brilliantly skilled, she thought, but right now wasn’t the time to tell him that. Afterwards though, she could praise him as much as she wanted. Though that all hinged on them surviving this.

She grabbed his flask and the lighter from him as he pushed them off to her. “Okay – yes, that works.” Because what else was she supposed to say? And she did want to help, even though she wasn’t sure she could be anywhere near as much help as Emilio needed. Wyatt or Mateo would have been better at that, but she had a one up that neither of them did – Emilio trusted her and that wasn’t an honor she intended to take lightly.

“Well, I’ve been a therapist for a pyromaniac before. Maybe this is just really getting to know your clients.” Her tone was drier than she would’ve liked, but the situation was more dire than she would’ve liked. Emilio kept going after the legs and she stood still for a few moments before she began to fit herself through any empty spaces left behind by either stabbed or distracted legs.

—

From the time he was young, Emilio had been trained how to fight. He knew which undead species could be killed with a stake to the heart, which ones required a more extensive destruction. He knew what was weak to light and what was weak to fire. He knew when his rosary would come in handy and when to leave it in his pocket. He knew that, when all else failed, separating a creature’s head from its body was sure-fire way to kill most things that were out there, because there were very few beasts that could continue to function without a head.

He did not know how to fight fanged, disembodied legs.

They didn’t have heads to remove, at least not in a way he could easily pinpoint. Was everything above the knee its head, or would cutting it in half only make it regrow like a zombie? Or, worse still, did cutting it in half run the risk of it reproducing from the two halves? (His brother told him, years ago, that that was how worms reproduced. Emilio had no idea if that was the truth or not. Edgar had been a lot smarter than he was, but also full of shit around seventy percent of the time.) 

In any case, this was the kind of thing he was just going to have to figure out on the fly. He stabbed and slashed and avoided those sharp teeth as best he could, twisting and turning his body to keep himself out of reach while still trying to make sure that he was the most attractive target available to them. Xó took the lighter and the flask, and he didn’t turn to make sure she was headed for the leg but trusted that she would do so. His job was to buy her time… and to hope that she’d hold to the promise to leave him behind if things got too sticky. 

He tried to push the crowd of small legs back, away from the giant one they were trying to protect. He needed to form some kind of barrier between Xó and this hoard, needed to make sure that she was protected enough to get to the big leg without a problem. She wasn’t a fighter, so Emilio needed to fight twice as hard. He shoved his knife into the nearest leg and it fell back, taking the knife with it. He cursed and grabbed for another, barely managing to pull back and avoid the teeth of one of the legs to his left. 

“Hurry!” He shouted, turning to glance at her. Taking advantage of his distraction, one of the legs leaped up, delivering a powerful kick to the center of his chest and knocking him down on his ass. The legs began to descend on him, crowding him and making it impossible to get up. Emilio slashed wildly with his knife, cursing loudly. “Xó! Now or never!” 

—

She didn’t want Emilio to die. More like, she wasn’t at all sure that she could even begin to deal with that as an outcome. Which was why she’d agreed to leave if things got too bad – but as much of a coward as she was, Xóchitl wasn’t sure if she could end up following through on all of that. Because if it was back in April – back before Mackenzie died – and she had the chance to fix something, change it all, then she knew that she would’ve, even if things swapped around as far as endings went. Mackenzie would have driven Emilio wild, and there was some sort of small amusement about that. But she wanted both of them to survive this. No matter how often she thought about no longer living, she did like (at least, for the most part) the life she’d made for herself. It turned out that letting people close could be good, sometimes.

(She just really didn’t want to be proven wrong about all of that.)

She couldn’t mess this up, because there was more than just her own life on the line. Her mess-ups would result in terrible things for Emilio too. She couldn’t live with herself if that happened. She couldn’t well live with herself if anything bad happened, but especially not if it was a direct result of her own actions. Thinking about all of this too much (or, really, at all) was becoming way too distracting and was about to make itself a self-fulfilling prophecy. One leg thrown away was something, but Emilio had said that she – that both of them – had to get to the main giant leg and set it on fire (or something).

Xóchitl didn’t think too much about the fact that setting something terrible on fire might feel good. That killing something might feel good. Thank god she didn’t have her own therapist to unpack that with.

She heard him fall to the ground and she was pretty sure she was going to be sick. Looking back, the pile of legs all on top of him. Something horrific and impossible. Could the legs crush and suffocate him to death? Why did everything always come back to suffocation? To the damned leprechauns?

(She knew the answer, she just didn’t want to accept that as the only option – or even as any option.)

She pushed her way toward the bigger leg, elbowing another leg that came after her – that kicked against her ribs and made her wince, made her pause for perhaps too long of a time (but she was human, she was horribly (wonderfully?) human) but once it fell back, she moved faster (take that, legs who’d never lived in huge cities! Right?)

“Then… now?” She called, pouring the flask onto the ground near the giant leg and clicking the lighter on, dropping it right next to the pour – a huge burst of flames suddenly bursting from the ground and she fell backwards, doing her best to catch herself with her elbows.

—

The legs were all over him now, snapping and kicking and biting at him. Emilio fought them off as best he could, but his position on the ground was a vulnerable one, and the volume of legs surrounding him combined with the uselessness of his own shitty leg made the act of rising to his feet far easier said than done. One of the legs stood on his chest; another kicked at his ribs. Breathing was getting harder and harder to do, and he let out a sharp, breathless laugh at the idea that this could be how it ended for him. Crushed beneath a pile of sentient legs wasn’t exactly how he planned on going out, but there was some irony to it. Between his own leg, which hadn’t stopped paining him since Mexico, and the nightmares he still had about the factory where Rhett’s leg had been cut away from his body…

Maybe, on some fucked up level, it made sense for things to end like this. Maybe the pile of writhing legs on top of him was proof that God, or the universe, or whatever was out there calling the shots had one hell of a sense of humor. Emilio, with his own dry wit and jokes no one else ever seemed to think were funny, could respect that.

So maybe part of him was ready for it. Maybe part of him had been ready for it for a while now. In the barn with Owen, with that knife hanging over his throat, or in Caleb’s basement with Aesil standing over him, or in Mexico when everything should have ended, or any of the thousand other times he’d been close enough to death to taste it… wasn’t there always a sense of relief? Emilio took a breath, shallow and nowhere near enough to satisfy his screaming lungs. If this was it, this was it. He just hoped Xóchitl got away… and that she’d tell everyone something other than legs had killed him.

But then, something happened. The leg on his chest jumped back; others did, too. A strange sound rose up from the crowd of them, something that almost sounded like a scream. One by one, they scampered towards the large leg now burning in the woods… and one by one, they went up in flames themselves, long before they could actually reach the source of the fire. Some kind of empathetic connection, he figured; he didn’t know the specifics. He didn’t figure they mattered much. What mattered was that in a matter of minutes, the clearing was empty. No more small legs attacking him. All that remained was the big one, now burning.

Emilio sat up, though he wasn’t quite ready to get to his feet yet. He watched the flames eat away at the leg, heaving a sigh. Xóchitl approached, and he glanced up at her. He gave her a nod as if to say good job, though the actual words didn’t quite make it out. Instead, when he opened his mouth, what came out was: “Is there anything left in that flask? I need a fucking drink.” 

—

She wished that she could block out her hearing. Not that Emilio was making a ton of noise, but if she couldn’t hear anything then maybe it would be easier to pretend like nothing was happening. Like she was totally normally wandering the woods and setting giant sentient legs on fire. Which, even as she said it to herself, sounded completely ridiculous. But she wasn’t sure how else to rationalize something that was in no way rational. So trying her usual method was going to be what was going to have to work. There wasn’t another option, so it had to work. Xóchitl knew that was hardly any sort of logical way of thinking, but if fairytale and fantasy novel things were real, then what was the point of logic in the end, anyhow?

The legs were screaming now and Xóchitl pressed her palms against her ears, jumpy at the sudden noise. It wasn’t like any sort of scream that she’d heard before, and it made her skin crawl. She turned around, holding her breath, but the little legs were gone and Emilio was on the ground. Not moving much, but he wasn’t dead (she wouldn’t accept that – it wasn’t some sort of newfound optimism, but the sheer power of denial of bad things), and so she walked over to him and nearly collapsed onto the ground when he moved. 

She wanted to sit down next to him, but given how fast her heart was racing, she wasn’t sure if she’d ever get up again if she did. Thankfully, Emilio’s question redirected her focus. It should have worried her, but she knew how he worked and how she worked, and so it was just a natural progression, a natural response. “I don’t know, but I’ve got a lot at my place. We should go there.” Xóchitl rolled her shoulders back. “Besides, I know that I at least need a shower.” She held out her hand, concentrating on remaining upright. “Let’s go.”