Obssessed with the Lads

With a pensive hum, Sylus picks up a photo frame. You’re beaming in the picture, crouched beside where Rafayel is lying, buried up to his neck on the beach. Xavier is posing, a yellow toy spade in hand. Zayne is standing by the parasol he’d dragged over so the artist wouldn’t expire from heatstroke. Pity.

He shakes his head, then hands the photo to Zayne as though it’s incriminatingly gory. “Look.”

“Just as I thought,” Zayne nods, glasses glinting in the light. The frame is ornate— textured silver that winds like vines— and he sees it too, doesn’t he? Every crevice is polished. Meticulously.

Call it instinct, or an educated guess; they all look towards Rafayel.

Rafayel, who is now sat cross-legged on the couch, with a mouth full of satsuma segments. He splutters— sudden, sweet acidity and a spotlight. “What?”

“What did you do?” Xavier asks like the edge of a knife.

“Nothing!”

“That’s what they all say,” Sylus is tutting, stalking up to the sofa so he can spread his hands on the armrest and lean in. (He is, of course, a devoted member of that aforementioned ‘all’, so he would know.) “We’ll learn the truth sooner or later, little artist. Spare us any charades. Give in.”

Xavier’s voice digs deeper. “It’s over.”

And Sylus can’t resist a: “Relax, yeah?”

Unfazed, Rafayel is studying Sylus as he swallows another satsuma segment. The parroted words aren’t an ace, it seems; his expression implies they’re a three, at best. “What is this, like, scary-cop, horny-cop? You relax. I’m not cutie. You’re barking up the wrong coral branch with your pseudo-sexual mind games.”

That is not what Sylus was going for. Even remotely. He pulls back with a soft frown; maybe he has been spending too much time with you. Whoops.

A quiet rustle of brown paper, and Zayne has finished collecting the groceries from Xavier’s bag. He wanders over, ushering Sylus aside. It’s audacious. It’s presumptuous. It’s… a mercy, really. Sylus is still having a long, hard think about his behaviour, and how he comes across to others.

“Rafayel,” Zayne asks like an open hand, “think back over the last few days. Can you think of anything— anything at all— that might have upset our mutual friend?”

“Nah,” Rafayel shrugs, splitting off more of the fruit he’s holding, “I’m cutie’s rock, y’know. If I were you, I’d, uh… be looking in a more—” he shields a whisper— “white-haired, red-eyed direction.”

Sylus scowls. “I heard that.”

“Heard what? Didn’t say a thing.”

Rafayel yawns, then pops another segment in his mouth. The interrogation is over, and he thinks he’s passed with flying colours.

If Xavier were still here, he could get the truth out of him. Blood from a stone, and all that. Regrettably, the Hunter has wandered off to scout the rest of the house. A deep-cleaned lounge means one of them has upset you marginally. A deep-cleaned home? Kitchen? Bathroom? Garden?

Sylus glimpses motion beyond your floor-to-ceiling windows. Xavier is out there, inspecting a shrub, and he looks up— locks eyes with the group— and gives a grave shake of his head.

Has that… has that shrub been pruned?

A shiver runs down Sylus’s spine. This is cataclysmic levels of neatness. Someone here might have actually killed something you love.

“What’s Xavier doing out in the garden?”

Forget a shiver— for a single moment, Sylus’s entire soul leaves his body.

You’re standing at the foot of the stairs with a feather duster, like the ghost of a housekeeper who died before the job was quite done.

“Are you… are you alright, love?” Zayne voices tentatively.

“Why wouldn’t I be alright?”

You smile and it’s chilling. That’s the smile in the beach photo. The smile that gives all of them the strength to get out of bed every morning (or, in Sylus’s case, noon) but it’s wrong, somehow.

Hands latch onto his shoulders; Rafayel is gripping him, using him for cover. “Heeeey cutie,” he sing-songs nervously, “spring cleaning?”

“It’s July, Rafayel.”

“Summer cleaning?” he tries again.

Sylus shakes his hands away from his shoulders.

“Why’re you guys being weird?” Your tone is relaxed, but your gaze finds satsuma peel on the sofa behind them— a little on the floor, too.

Rafayel impulse kicks the floor peel under the coffee table.

Your transparent, glass coffee table.

Amateur.

You put your hands on your hips. Rafayel sheepishly lowers himself to the ground.

“You can all relax,” you sigh, setting your feather duster aside. “This isn’t murder cleaning, it’s ‘I have a thing tomorrow’ cleaning. Tara’s coming over. Bringing some of the guys from her tarot club. Xavi, you knew about this— I was with you when she invited you.”

Xavier is midway through stepping in from the garden, but he freezes. Glances up. “Hm?”

“Tara’s thing? The tarot thing?”

“Oh… oh, yeah, I’m going to that. There’ll be food,” he grins warmly.

Zayne presses his fingers to his temple. Sylus is suddenly craving a drink.

“Are you kidding me?” Rafayel groans, still prone on the floor.

…

“So… what’s wrong?” Xavier smiles, shoulder gently nudging yours as he unpacks groceries with you in the kitchen. “And is there any way I can help?”

There is no thing with Tara and her tarot club tomorrow.

“Grab me a mixing bowl?” you answer. He does, and you set it down with a clink. “Funny thing happened the other day, Xavi.” You’re separating ingredients from the groceries. “Yvonne was going through some stuff. You know Yvonne, from Akso? She helped you that time, when we were waiting, and you’d sprained your—”

“Yeah, I know Yvonne. She’s nice.”

“Mmh. So, yeah, she’d lost a relative. Things at the hospital had been pretty hectic too, so I decided to do something for her. Something to cheer her up. I made her some cupcakes.”

The ingredients you’re setting aside are for a cake too, incidentally.

“She wasn’t there when I brought them in— she was off helping someone. And I was in a rush, so I left them on the front desk. A tin of cupcakes, and a note. ‘Dear Yvonne’, it said, ‘from your favourite Deepspace Hunter! Just a little token of how appreciated you are.’”

“That’s sweet,” Xavier says, then chuckles over his inadvertent pun.

“It was sweet, right? So imagine my surprise when I next visited the hospital. She wouldn’t talk to me. Wouldn’t look at me. Pretended she was on the phone so she could wave me away like she was busy,” you huff. “Had to go to Greyson to find out what happened. Turns out… she did get my note. My tin, too.”

“And?”

“And it was empty.” You tear into a bag of flour. “She was devastated. Thought I was making fun of her. So, Greyson and I checked the CCTV. Found out someone got to the cupcakes first. Someone recognised my tin and thought, ‘oh, these must surely be for me,’ and someone? Was far too busy being a big, important doctor to stop and read the note.”

Xavier is still as he listens to your story. When it’s done, and you’re stirring flour, sugar, and spices together so violently that some is escaping the bowl, he stoops to a drawer. Fishes out a grater.

Then he goes to the fridge and pulls out some carrots.

Divider by: @/omi-resources