#amonstrousdream

She’d come home with her chest heaving and her hands still gripped tightly into fists. She could still feel that hunter’s skin melting against the rocky surface of hers, could still hear him screaming and feel him thrashing. Worse still, that feeling of satisfaction hadn’t left her, was still lingering in the corner of her chest where guilt should live. She’d almost killed him. She’d wanted to kill him. If Ariadne hadn’t been there, she wouldn’t have stopped. But Ariadne had been there, had seen the whole thing, and what must she think of Cass now? How terrified must she be? Cass had hurt someone, had left Ariadne still bleeding, had run. 

She’d been a mess as she reentered the cave. It took her dad ages to calm her down, gripping her chin in his hand and assuring her that she was fine, that it was okay. She hadn’t done anything wrong, he told her. She did a good job. But she could tell that he thought she should have finished what she’d started, even if he didn’t say it. And she wasn’t sure how to feel about that, either. So instead of trying to unpack it, she accepted the comfort he offered her. She lay in the cave and let him fuss over her like she was a child, still, like she was sick and he was parenting her the way no one ever really had. And she felt a little better, even if she still didn’t feel good.

He woke her with a gentle nudge, but she shot up anyway, heart pounding. “I’m sorry,” he said quietly. “I didn’t mean to startle you. I think someone is outside.”

Immediately, more panic gripped at her throat. “What?”

“There was a woman calling for you.”

Cass wondered who it might be. Ariadne probably wasn’t in much shape to make the trek to the cave. Could it be Anita, on Metzli’s behalf? No, that wasn’t right. Wasn’t she in Ireland? (Wasn’t everyone?) Someone else, then? Cass hesitated. Her father reached a hand out, resting it on her shoulder. “I can make them leave,” he offered, “or you can speak to them. But don’t let them tell you you were wrong. You did well, Cassidy. You did what you were meant to do. You shouldn’t feel badly for that.”

Carefully, Cass nodded. Her father still wasn’t ready to meet anyone, but he was offering to make someone go for her. Wasn’t that what love was? She felt warm. “I can talk to them,” she said. “You can go hide in the back, if you want. I’ll be okay.” He nodded, disappearing into the shadows. And, steeling herself, Cass headed to the front of the cave.

Leila should have been her first guess, really. If she weren’t so jumpy and anxious, she probably would have been. She didn’t offer the woman a smile as she approached. Her arms were crossed uncertainly over her chest, her brow furrowed. One look at the mare was really all it took to know. “Ariadne told you,” she said flatly, worrying her lip between her teeth.

—

There was a pit in Leila’s stomach, and it would not go away.

She wasn’t certain when the sensation had started, nor could she remember when she had noticed it. Things in her life had grown rather peaceful. Simple, at least where it had to do with the people she cared for. The events of the autumn and early winter had melted away with the snow, and for a time, so too did the constant worrying. But the feeling was back. Leila had tried to dismiss it. But side effect of living too long was, perhaps, that you knew no peace seemed to last all that long. 

It was the texts from Ariadne that gave the unplaced dread a name. Something was up with Cass. Different, wrong, not quite as it was. She hadn’t gathered as many details on the situation as she perhaps should have. Instead, Leila had dropped everything and taken the walk to the caves to find the girl. Every step sent her long-stilled heart sinking a little lower in her chest. It wasn’t until she was stopped by a man she did not recognize that her worry threatened to swallow her up whole. Who was standing guard at the cave? Who blocked the path, arms crossed, eyeing her up like she was a problem they had to deal with? Who was it that seemed to be interrogating her as to her presence there?

The man disappeared into the dark of the cave. Leila stood at the mouth of the cave, fingers tangled up, nails biting into the palms of her hands, waiting for the little ember to appear. After what felt like an eternity, the shadows gave way to the girl who emerged… who kept her distance. A momentary wash of relief flooded through the mare. Alive, whole, safe. But not alright. Not alright. Arms folded tight across her chest, brow furrowed, a lip worried between teeth. 

“She told me a little…” The words tasted like some strange admission of guilt on her tongue. “But regardless of what she said, I wanted to make sure you were alright…”

__

She couldn’t decide if it felt like a betrayal or not, Ariadne telling Leila what had happened. Something burned in her chest, though she didn’t have the right words to give it a name. She kept thinking of the way the hunter had smelled when her lava burned his flesh, kept remembering the thrill it had pulsed through her, kept thinking about how she wouldn’t have stopped if Ariadne hadn’t asked her to. Even now, in the privacy of her cave with Leila standing in front of her, Cass couldn’t decide if she was glad she’d been prevented from finishing the job. She knew her father was a little disappointed that she hadn’t, even if he hadn’t said as much. That burned, too. She thought of Ariadne on the ground, of Kuma in that bathroom with her wide eyes, of Debbie in the supermarket or Metzli’s sire in his crypt. They weren’t events she wanted to associate with one another, but it was getting harder and harder to pry them apart.

Standing in the mouth of the cave, she took a moment to try to decipher what Leila’s expression might mean. Something in the back of her mind — this part of herself that was so sure rejection was an inevitable thing — insisted that it could be nothing but disappointment. Leila would hide it, because of course she would. Because Leila was kind, because she knew Cass had a habit of shutting down when she felt rejected, because Cass was important to Metzli and Leila loved them. There were plenty of reasons why Leila wouldn’t say, outright, that she was upset by what Cass had done. There were plenty of reasons why Ariadne hadn’t, too. It was like Makaio told her — anyone who wasn’t fae could lie to you as easily as they could look at you. The reason for the lie never mattered quite as much as the lie itself.

“What did she say?” It sounded more like a demand than Cass had meant for it to, and she swallowed against the harshness of her own voice. She shook her head. “It doesn’t matter. It’s — I didn’t do anything wrong, you know.” Metzli had killed hunters. She was sure Leila had, too. Cass could hardly be judged for just almost killing one, for wanting to do it, for regretting that she hadn’t. If anything, she thought, they should be more like her father — not worried that she’d almost killed a man, but upset that she hadn’t finished the job. She squared her shoulders, trying to look big to make up for the fact that she felt small. “Whatever. It doesn’t matter. I’m fine. I didn’t even kill him.” I just wanted to. It felt like saying too much, so she held back. “Is that all?”

—

Oh. Oh this was not good.

Cass was prone to shutting if she thought she was going to be rejected or left behind. Leila had witnessed it so many times, and every time she had tried her best to reassure her that no matter what she would not leave the girl. The mare wished she knew the names and faces of those who had hurt Cass in the past, if only to make them feel regret in a way that only a cold-sweat-inducing dream could. It was wrong of her, she was sure, but it didn’t make the feeling vanish. Cass and Ariadne were the closest thing she would ever have to daughters. She would do anything for them, anything…

This stand-off was not what she had imagined when Ariadne had reached out upset and worried. There was an anger there that Leila wasn’t sure she’d ever seen in the girl. Cass always burned, a little ember, a spark… but this was different. This was a cold fire. Her mouth hung open, about to speak the words Ariadne had told her into the open air. That there had been a hunter, that he had hurt Ariadne, and Cass had blown up as a result, burning the man almost past the point of no return. Leila couldn’t say that she blamed her. She couldn’t even say that she hadn’t done worse. The mare had done some heinous things in the name of defending the loved ones she’d found in Wicked’s Rest. She took a step forward, trying to close the strange divide between them. “I never said you did anything wrong, I said I wanted to make sure you were okay. A big difference between those two things. It’s not… easy. To go through what you both went through. It’s hard in different ways.”

Is that all? The tone mixed with the words were like a dagger straight to the chest. There was a lump in her throat, and it took all her strength to swallow it back down. She wanted to hug Cass, wrap her up in her arms and listen if she wanted to talk. Hold her like she had after they’d escaped the hellhound. Would she pull away now? Had everything changed yet again? “I… um…” Words were choking her. Leila felt like she was walking a tightrope and every word she spoke put her at risk of falling. She let her bag slide off her shoulder, fishing out a bag of cookies and a few comics she’d been meaning to give her. “I brought these- I thought we could talk… or you could talk and I could just… listen. So you wouldn’t be alone…” 

But Cass wasn’t alone, was she? There was a man here with her. Some stranger who had acted as if only he had the right to be around Cass. Who had begrudgingly said he would let Cass know someone was there. She wondered if that stranger was still there, just out of her line of sight, listening to every word of the conversation. Whoever they were, something was off. Something in her gut was screaming it. Don’t trust, don’t trust… 

___

A few months ago, she would have accepted this without question. She would have collapsed into Leila’s arms, would have probably cried and admitted just how afraid she’d been when that hunter sunk his blade into her best friend, when she’d been so sure she was going to lose Ariadne. Everything had seemed simpler when she could believe every word people said, but… that wasn’t the case anymore, was it? People lied. Their mouths said one thing when their hearts said nother. They left when they said they would stay, or they stayed when they wanted to go. Everyone would leave her in the end. Everyone. Hadn’t they proven it, time and time again? Leila was here now, but how long would that last? If Cass admitted that she missed the smell of burning flesh, that part of her wanted to track that man down and melt his skin from his bones, would Leila be able to look at her the same? Would anyone? 

She thought of Rhett, of Chuy, of Debbie. This hunter, the one with Aria’s blood on his knife and Cass’s handprints burned into his skin, he was far from the first person Cass had ever wanted to hurt. She’d thought, before, that that part of her that wanted to hurt people was bad. She’d thought it was the kind of thing she should hide, should cover up. But why had she thought that? She remembered what her father said, remembered the timbre of his voice. Why should we care for the lives of people who want us dead? Why should she even pretend to? 

“It’s easier than you might think.” There was a flatness to her tone, like a shield sitting firmly between her and Leila. She didn’t think Leila understood — how could she? She’d been hunted, too, but it felt different than what Cass went through. She couldn’t put her finger on why that was. Maybe it was the way Leila was hunted for something she’d become instead of something she’d been born. Maybe it was because Leila had had a life before she was a target, whatever that life had looked like. Or maybe it was Makaio’s voice ever-present whispering in Cass’s ear, reminding her that none of this could ever be permanent. She’d had friends over the years that were human, and she’d had friends who weren’t. She’d known undead and shifters and empaths, but how many of them had stayed? How many of them could understand what it was to feel the Earth flow through you, to feel the life in the stones beneath your feet? The only one she’d ever met who understood that was her father. Maybe he was the only one who’d ever understood her, too.

She had to make sure he stayed. Leila would leave eventually; Cass knew that. And if Leila’s departure was inevitable, she had to make sure that Makaio’s wasn’t. She had to be what he wanted her to be, even if it meant not being what Leila did. It was a difficult decision to make, but her desperation made it for her all the same. 

“I already ate,” she said, glancing to the cookies. Her father had brought donuts earlier. They were stale and hard, but he’d brought them for her, and she’d eaten so many her stomach ached, even now. “You don’t — Why don’t you say what you came here to say, Leila? I know you didn’t come here for — for cookies and comics. You came here to say something, so say it.” Did Cass even need to hear it? She’d already written the ending of this conversation in her mind. Anything Leila said would translate just the same.

—

It felt like her world had just imploded.

Her ears were ringing, ringing, ringing, so much it made her want to scrunch her eyes shut. For once, the mare wished that she were the one having a nightmare. One more nightmare, that wouldn’t be so bad. It could be a hallucination, this whole dreadful scene, where Cass was staring at Leila like she had hurt her already. Like she had left. Like she was suddenly nothing. Hadn’t she promised Cass that she would never leave? Or was that some trick her too-old memory was now playing on her? Let this be a nightmare. If prayers from the undead were taken into consideration by higher powers, that would be her prayer. That this whole conversation was some trick of the mind. That she might wake up and find a Cass that wasn’t standing behind an invisible adamantine wall she had built for herself to keep people out. To keep her out. 

The cookies and comics stayed held out, despite the lashing words that made her want to set them down. She was young. She was young, and probably scared out of her mind, and upset, and… Leila came up with a list of a million other excuses for the coldness aimed in her direction. Perhaps she wasn’t the person Cass wanted to see. Maybe it was Metzli- maybe Metzli could make things better, or Ariadne, or… The mare sucked in a sharp breath, forcing herself to keep her resolve. Ignore the ringing in her ears. Ignore the words if they were cold or sharp. Stay. 

“I told you. I came here to listen-” Her pleas held the same sort of franticness of a bird desperate to flee a cage, wings battering repeatedly against metal bars. “I came here because I am worried about you. I came here because I love you, and I care, and I needed to check on you-” Her mouth felt dry. There was a constant falling feeling in her chest, and everything felt too heavy. She wasn’t saying anything right. Nothing was right. “I know how it feels to almost lose someone…” Her words came out in a wince. A blow torch had been her answer to thinking Metzli would be lost, last time. She heard the elder vampire’s screams still. And yet, she still felt justified in the relief of watching him turn to ashes. “I know how it feels to want to make people pay for hurting those you love. I didn’t want you to think you were alone. Because you aren’t, you aren’t alone Cass.” 

__

It felt like she was at war with herself. Half of her wanted, so badly, to believe every word Leila said. It would be easy enough to do, wouldn’t it? But she couldn’t shake that other half, the half that remembered every single person who’d walked out on her for far less than what she’d done to that hunter. Just the look of her without her glamour had been enough to scare Kuma, who had taken her in in a way so similarly to Leila and promised never to leave in a way that had been so empty in the end. There were very few things that the parade of people who’d existed throughout Cass’s life had in common. There was, in fact, only one thread that held them all together: every single one of them walked away in the end.

So why would Leila be any different? Cass had never given her a reason to leave before, but she certainly had one now. She thought, again, of that hunter. She thought of his screams, the way they’d gotten louder and then quieter, the way she’d felt excited, in a way, when they had. She thought of Pompeii learning what lay within the mountain, thought of fire raining down and power that tasted a little too sweet. She thought of her father in the cave behind her, waiting for her to be finished here. She’d already disappointed him. She’d already let him down. Wouldn’t letting herself fall back on the childish idea that someone outside of this family could stay only add to that?

“And I told you, I’m fine. I — I didn’t do anything I shouldn’t have done. The only bad thing I did was not finishing —” She cut herself off, letting her mouth snap shut so hard that her teeth gnashed together with the force of it. Her heart was pounding, and her palms felt sweaty. Her father wasn’t worried about her. He didn’t think what she’d done was something that invited concern. Why should it be? There was nothing to worry about. “I don’t need you to check on me, or worry about me. I know I’m not alone. I have…” She trailed off, mouth snapping shut again. No. Makaio could reveal himself in his own time. Cass had let him down enough; she wouldn’t add to it. “I know I’m not alone. I don’t need you to remind me of that.”

—

She’d never seen a wildfire in person, nor watched a volcano erupt, but Leila had to imagine the anger that seemed to be threatening to swallow Cass whole was akin to the sparking, rageful heat the two natural events conjured. Cass was both the fire and the kindling. The mare feared not for the heat of the fire that seared every word, but for what would happen when the girl’s rage had run its course. What would happen when the fire cooled away, when there was nothing but ash? 

“I know you don’t need me to, ma braise.” She spoke slowly, carefully. This was no time to be brash with her words. It already felt as though she were screaming into a void that would never listen. “I wanted to check on you. I needed…. You… you are my family, Cass. I choose you. No matter what. Please tell me you know that,” Despite her best efforts, there was despair hidden in those words. A side effect of being alone for as long as she had: Leila gave her love so freely and indiscriminately, but she always forgot that there was hurt that came when the ones she chose to love wrenched away. And there was Cass, sweet, bold, passionate, wonderful Cass, putting worlds of distance between them. A wall of fire, impenetrable. 

“You are- you are not a bad person for being angry or for wanting to protect your friends. You aren’t wrong for what you did- It’s hard, living like we do-”

__

Leila said they were family, and all Cass could think of was the man in the cave behind her. She’d never known what family looked like before she’d come home to find him sitting among the stones. She’d thought she had, had convinced herself of it, but she was wrong, wasn’t she? Family was made up of people who looked like you did. She could trace her own features on her father’s face, could see herself reflected in the rocky texture of his skin and the magma burning in his veins. She loved Leila. She loved Metzli, she loved Anita and Ariadne and Van — but wasn’t it her father’s blood that ran through her? She was more like him than she could ever be like any of them, no matter how hard she tried. And like gravitated towards like, didn’t it? Ariadne and Leila shared a bond she couldn’t understand, had both had the same experience that left them the way they were. Leila and Metzli shared unbeating hearts that yearned only for each other. Anita and Metzli had a history Cass couldn’t compete with. She didn’t think she was anyone’s first choice, even if she liked to believe she might be someone’s second. 

But Makaio would choose her first, wouldn’t he? Because they were family, because they shared a bond in blood. Wouldn’t it be fair, then, to choose him first, too? Wouldn’t it be the safe option? She’d disappointed him when she’d left that hunter alive, but she could do better. She could make sure he was proud, make sure he stayed that way. If she earned his love fair and square, it wouldn’t have to be a fragile thing. It wouldn’t be something she was so afraid of losing. He wouldn’t leave if she gave him a reason to stay.

Could she say the same of Leila? The mare spoke, and something ached in Cass’s chest. “I know I’m not bad for that. That’s — That’s what I’m saying. I’m already saying I’m not bad, so why are you…” She trailed off, mouth dry. Was Leila’s reassurance only there because she believed the opposite? Who was Leila trying to convince of Cass’s ‘goodness,’ here? Cass had already said that she was fine, that she’d done nothing wrong, that she was justified. So… was Leila trying to convince herself of it? Did she believe the opposite of what she was saying?

Regardless of its accuracy, that perception of rejection burned in the oread’s chest. She swallowed, her throat feeling tight. “You know what, Leila? I — I’m good here. You don’t have to stick around.” The words tasted like ash, but Cass was a volcano. Wasn’t a little ash to be expected after any eruption? 

—

It was as if every good moment the two had ever had was going up in smoke. Moment after moment erased in the girl’s mind by the flames of whatever pain burned through her. Nothing Leila said was quite right, not quite good enough. At their sounding, the oread seemed to pull further and further away in herself. She hadn’t expected the conversation to turn like this, so quickly and so viciously. 

The girl’s final words landed like a swift strike to the gut. Her lungs ached despite the fact that they did not need to draw air. Her eyes burned with worthless, shimmering tears, threatening to cut across her face like falling stars. I’m good here, you don’t have to stick around. Cass didn’t need to say it flat out. The context clues pointed clearly to one answer: she wanted Leila to leave. The mare and her clumsy words of attempted comfort were not needed or wanted. And what could she do? She remembered Cass had told her not so long ago that she was like a Makuahine, a mother. But there was no affection in the girl’s eyes. 

Her mouth hung open with words she could not force to leave her throat. A tear streaked down her cheek. “Okay… okay.” She set the cookies and the comics down on a nearby rock, a final gesture of love that could be made without words. “I’m sorry… I will give you space if that’s what you want… but I need you to know this, and listen to me when I tell you that no matter what, I am here for you. If you need me or want me, you know where to find me…” Leila’s heart felt as if it was fracturing apart piece by piece with every word, with every moment that Cass looked at her like that. Even the last three words she spoke came out broken. 

“I love you..” 

___

Everything felt so twisted in her mind now, and she wasn’t sure when it had started. Things hadn’t exactly been clear, even before the hunter hurt Aria, had they? There’d been this… shadow of confusion hanging over her for the last month or so, this quiet uncertainty. It was a natural thing, she thought; her father’s arrival had completely shifted her worldview, made her go from someone who understood she’d been abandoned by everyone who was supposed to want her to someone who knew that she’d had a parent out there searching for her all this time. And he was strong, and he was proud, and he was wary. He’d been lied to so much, by so many people. He didn’t want the same for Cass. 

So, was Leila lying? Cass had never thought so before. Leila cared about her, loved her. But… that was before, wasn’t it? It was easy to love someone when every aspect of who they were was edited to best fit what they thought you wanted. She’d diluted herself for so long, poured in enough sweetener to curb the bitterness. She pretended she didn’t feel glad when Andy killed the hunter that attacked Alex, acted as if she wasn’t disappointed when she learned Rhett was still alive after attacking her. She watched Nora kill Debbie in a supermarket with all the lights off, and for months afterward she pretended that that was more important than the fact that she’d made friends because of it, acted as though the ‘not telling’ part of the secret weighed more than the ‘look out for each other’ part that bound them all together. 

She thought of the way Metzli thought themself a monster for the people they’d hurt while under someone else’s control, and she wondered what it said about her that no one had ever controlled her, but she hurt people anyway. She wondered what it said that she wished she’d hurt them worse. If Metzli thought they were a monster, what must they have thought of Cass? What must Leila? 

Everything she said sounded honest, but Cass couldn’t help but see the asterisk at the end of each sentence. If she’d actually killed that hunter the way she’d wanted to, the way she still sort of wished she had, would Leila be here, still? Would Ariadne still have called her after, still left a voicemail when Cass didn’t pick up?

Leila said she’d go if Cass wanted her to, and the conflict in her gut made her stomach churn. She didn’t want Leila to go, but she didn’t want her to stay, either. She wanted something in between that didn’t quite exist, wanted some impossible contradiction, wanted a world where she could have this family and the one in the cave behind her. But that felt less and less likely with each passing day. It felt like she was going to have to make a choice, sooner rather than later. And hadn’t her father told her that he was the only one who’d ever really stick around? Hadn’t he said he was the only one who ever could? 

Those last three words came out of Leila’s mouth, and Cass’s tongue felt heavy. Do you? She wanted to ask. Do you still? Will you tomorrow, or the next day, or a hundred years from now? Did the people of Pompeii love Mount Vesuvius? Did they think it was beautiful, even while it was erupting? Would you love me if I buried a city in ash? She knew the answer for Makaio. That was what complicated it, she thought. She knew her father would love her even after she erupted, because didn’t he understand how it felt when everything built to the point of bursting? Didn’t he have his own Pompeii somewhere? If people like Leila and Metzli and Ariadne, who were good people, who tried to be good, thought of themselves as monstrous just because of the things they were, wasn’t it inevitable that they’d think the same of Cass, too? 

Every inch of her ached. She felt like she’d run a marathon or climbed a mountain, even if all she was doing was standing. She swallowed, and even that hurt. “I love you, too,” she said, and she didn’t ask any of the questions that came with it. She was too afraid of the answers. “I gotta go.” She’d been out here too long already. Wouldn’t Makaio worry? Wasn’t that what fathers did? “I… Can you tell Aria I’m sorry?”

—

Every moment of silence between them felt like dying again. She could recall the feeling, even after two centuries. It was an ache that slowly bit into her, hollowed her out little by little until nothing inside of her was left to fight it. But dead things like her could not die again- at least, not of heartbreak. Cass had unwittingly grown up into her life, like ivy weaving its way up the side of a building, latching roots into the little cracks of her heart. With every little bit the girl pulled away, the mare felt herself rip, rip, rip until those cracks were open wounds. Invisible to the eye, but there. Always there. 

The four words that broke the silence made her world shake, crumble, rattle like the crust of the earth beneath her would simply swallow her up. Up and down were muddled, love and loss were jumbled up together. She was going to break. Two hundred years and she was going to shatter into dust, and no blade ever had to strike at her neck. I love you too. Four words, and Leila couldn’t tell if they were said in honesty, or if they had merely parrotted back. She wouldn’t blame Cass. Words were easy to repeat. And they could be a shield to hide behind, if you needed one. 

Her place in the girl's life was officially a question mark. Half of the mare wondered if she would ever see her again, if Cass would actually reach out, or if this was a strange goodbye with no finality. She swallowed, that glass-shard feeling scratching up her throat. “I’ll tell her.” And then, “I promise.” for good measure. Isn’t that what she could weigh fact on? A promise? A bargain? A promise was not just a word if it could be claimed. Though, perhaps the promise of love and care could not be claimed. It simply had to be believed. And belief was such a fragile thing. 

She would not say goodbye. The word was sour on her tongue, and if it was goodbye, she didn’t want to believe it. Not yet. And so, with a sad smile, tears burning her eyes with their wishes to be set free, she forced herself to speak some other words into the air. 

“I’ll see you soon, Mon étincelle… I’ll see you soon.”

—

A promise. Months ago — weeks, even — Cass would have shattered the bind instantly, without another thought. She would have said you don’t have to promise me anything, would have scolded Leila for forgetting just how heavy that word could be. She thought of Kuma, of the way the promise she’d made and broken to Cass had eaten away at her until there was nothing left but an empty estate sale. That used to fill her with guilt, used to strangle her with it. But now… It wasn’t her fault, was it? If people made promises, they should keep them. They shouldn’t throw the word around like it was nothing, like it meant nothing. Kuma promised to stay, and she hadn’t. Whatever happened because of that happened thanks to her choices, not Cass’s. 

The same would be true for Leila. It wasn’t a big promise, really. It was a simple one, an easy one. All Leila had to do was talk to Ariadne, and who wouldn’t want to do that? Ariadne was easy to talk to. Ariadne was easy to love. It was Cass who was the problem, Cass who everyone always walked away from. Or… almost everyone. She leaned unconsciously back towards the mouth of the cave, away from Leila. The quiet fluttering in her stomach informing her of nearby fae used to come with such dread, but it was a comfort now. No one loved you like family, her father told her. Other people would walk away, every time. Ariadne would fall to a hunter someday, when Cass was not around to stop it. Metzli would abandon her the same way they had before, and Leila loved them too much not to go right along with them. 

Her human friends would die, her immortal friends would leave. But Cass wouldn’t be alone. Not anymore, not ever again. Makaio was here, and he loved her. He wanted her in his life, he appreciated her. Shouldn’t she do whatever it took to make sure that wasn’t misplaced? Didn’t she have to? 

“Okay,” she agreed, and she made the bind. It felt wrong, but only for a moment. Only for a moment, before that fluttering in her stomach reminded her of who she was, of what she was. Makaio thought it was their right to do things like this, and shouldn’t Cass agree? Wasn’t it better if she did? 

Leila said she’d see her soon, and Cass wondered if it was true. The end never quite felt like the end when it was happening, did it? It wasn’t like in a movie, where the music swelled up and the plot points all tied together perfectly to wrap things up in a nice little bow. It wasn’t like in a comic book, where you could count the pages you had left. In real life, people walked away and it seemed normal. It seemed temporary, but only until they didn’t come back. Only until they stayed away.

Cass took a step back into the cave, and then another. She swallowed, turning away as she made her way back towards Makaio. “See you later, Leila,” she replied, and it burned her tongue like a lie. 

She hadn’t meant to go so long without feeding on the dreams of some unsuspecting victim within Wicked’s Rest. But with all of the chaos that previous months had brought, whipping up nightmares had been the last thing on Leila’s mind. There were projects to work on, people to take care of, elder vampires to kill, and a death-day anniversary to ignore. With all of it combined, it took the waking and dreaming hours of her life. Meals became few and far between. Finally, it had been too much. She needed a dream, and she needed it immediately. 

And so, the mare disappeared into that in-between space of the astral and fluttered about the town, hunting for sweet dreams to sour. The town, slowly emerging from the gooey hellscape of autumn, was slowly taking on a more saccharine feel again. Naturally darkened dreams of stress and dread were starting to grow brighter. It was overwhelming, to say the least.

After what felt like ages, Leila found a bright spot of dreaming that her hunger would not let her pass up. She slipped through the keyhole, into the darkened room on the soft edges of shadow and moonlight, following the smell of dreams until she found her little dreamer, tucked away in bed. A feather-light hand rested against their arm to ensure they stayed asleep before the mare snuck her way into their dream.

__

Sam couldn’t go any longer without sleeping, but she knew if she slept, her gift of sight would go away. It seemed to do that, when her body was actually well rested. But she couldn’t stay up another minute, especially considering she had almost walked out in front of a car today coming back home from the store. So she reluctantly shut off the lights, crawled in the bed with Scout at her feet, and as soon as her head hit the pillow, drifted off into a deep slumber. One she had at least hoped would be restful, if she had to endure it.

Settling in and shifting through the REM stages of sleep, Sam had finally found herself in a peaceful environment. One that she had felt safe and comfortable in. It was full of familiar faces of friends and family. She was back home in Kahnawake. Everything looked familiar, at least to what her childhood memories were, but this time she was grown. In fact, it was as if she had resided there. Wicked’s Rest was a thing of the past, and she had reopened her comic book shop.

Hearing the bell alert her to the presence of someone, Sam had walked out from the back, “Can I help you? Is there something you’re looking for?” Everything seemed like another day at Escape Your Fate, except Scout seemed to be missing, which had felt off for some reason.

—

It had taken the nightmare an awful long time to realize what feeding on dreams was akin to. Centuries of floating on the periphery of that one divine moment on the edge of sleep where dreams were all that were and ever had been had shown her that dreams- most dreams, all dreams- were simply life in disguise. Nightmares fed on that. The bit of life and humanity that made all people dream, to replace the life and dreams that had been stolen from them. Had she not been so hungry, Leila might have been disgusted by herself. By interrupting the remembrance of life and happiness in the place in-between. 

But monsters had a desire to live, too. 

Unseen, unknown, the mare stalked about, looking at the sweet dream that seemed to be playing out in the stranger’s mind. A bell jingling merrily. Comic books lined the walls as she flitted down the aisles, a bit of breeze. The tang of uncertainty caught her off guard. The dreamer had noted something. Something missing. A string she could pull, perhaps. Some memory she could unravel? Ah… An idea flickered in Leila’s mind, and the mare willed the sound of footsteps in the back of the store. A voice. A thud. Maybe there was something here she could work with? 

___

Hearing the sound of footsteps, Sam narrowed her eyes and looked back. It wasn’t Scout. He was right next to her and those footsteps were clunky, like boots. Turning her attention back on the person in the store, Sam noticed a stranger she had never seen before. But quickly the voice; an all too familiar voice. One she had heard almost every day of her life since coming to Wicked’s Rest peaked her interest once more. Zach. The part of her heart that had been missing for months now, but he was alive? Of course he was! Sam didn’t know she was dreaming. To her, this was life, but the thud, for whatever reason, had sent a wave of anxiety shooting through her body, and without hesitating, she was to her feet and running towards the back of the store in the blink of an eye.

Breaking the threshold of the doorway, Sam hit the brakes when suddenly, she was no longer in the comic bookstore, but standing in a dark alleyway that appeared empty at first, until she had squinted to take a closer look; her eyesight failing her in the moment. As she inched closer, she couldn’t help but remain cautious. She could have sworn, she was just in the comic book store. And where was Scout? So badly she wanted to shout out his name, but there was a lingering fear sitting inside that told her to remain quiet.

___

Oh… oh, she’d found the thread to pull. 

Whoever the owner of the voice that filled memory after memory in this girl’s mind was, there was an awful lot there. All of it dark. Something in Leila’s chest tugged her forward, wanting to know what it was in this particular thread of memory she’d plucked up and begun to weave back into the story it once was. 

The safety of that shop was easily transformed into something more sinister. Whoever Zach was, nothing good happened to him here, in the damp of a dark alley. She wove the scene together quickly, continuing to pull along at that thread as if it were her personal, unending ball of yarn. She created shadows there, just out of sight of the girl. Enough to draw her forward, enough to pull her along and create the suspense that would satiate her appetite. Sam… Sammy… Leila used that voice again, calling out like a mockingbird. The uncertainty was a start. The strange, tickling warmth that filled her chest with every feeding urged the mare to create terror rather than mere uncomfortableness. The problem was that despite her hunger, despite that instinct, she was curious. She wanted to know what happened. Wanted to see for herself. 

Sammy, where are you… 

___

Sam lingered in her spot in the alley. Fear had engulfed her entire body, and she stood frozen. But Zach was calling for her. Calling her name, looking for her like she had been looking for him. She had to move forward. She had to go find him. She couldn’t leave him. The way the guilt was swelling up in her small form made her heart seem to shatter for unknown reasons thanks to the dream she was currently lost in. Not because she could actually, in that moment, remember the exact events and the way everything went down.

With a quivering breath and her heart pounding so much faster than it had been both in the dream and in her waking life, Sam took one step forward, followed by another and another, letting out a soft whisper, “Z-Zach…” If there was something lurking in the shadows, she didn’t want to awaken it to her presence. Her mind seemed to run stories from her childhood on repeat; tales of warnings from the various creatures that roamed the Earth when her ancestors were still a part of the living world, “Zach, I’m here…where are you?”

Sam continued to step cautiously as her narrowed eyes scanned the area looking for him, but so far nothing. She just seemed to move deeper and deeper into the alley and the darkness and impending certainty of doom that it held hoping she would eventually run into him.

___

There was a rush that came with the fear of a dreamer. It was heady, utterly intoxicating- the first time she’d experienced it, the mare hadn’t known what to make of it. But as existence had stretched on and on, Leila had finally been able to pinpoint it. The racing pulse and sharp intakes of breath were so harsh that they almost replaced what was lacking in the mare. It was horrible, yes. But it was necessary. Without that little act of thievery, she feared she’d dissipate into nothingness. 

It was easy to pull the threads together now. The further into the girl's memories that she played, the more elements Leila could call to light. The boy’s- Zach’s- voice, calling out for her dreamer. Letting it go from whispered calmness to hissed fear as Sam’s fear grew. Shadows… she needed to shape the shadows. With a keen eye for detail, she pulled a form from the recesses of the girl’s mind as one might pluck a pattern from a rack. What Leila wasn’t ready for was how much it startled her to see the form take shape. Feminine. Small. A heap of a boy at their feet. Who was this that she’d created from a memory? And why was this body discarded like abandoned prey, eyes wide and empty…?

The voice morphed from the fearful Zach’s to something other. Some cacophony of terrible voices, all crying out at once from this strange figure’s mouth. sam. Sam. SAM. SAM. 

___

Sam didn’t want to be the coward she feared she’d forever feel like. She wanted to be brave. She wanted to find Zach. To save her friend. To be the hero she knew lived inside her. Like the ones from her comic books. Even the anti-hero like Maya Lopez. She just wanted to be brave. But the closer she went towards him, the more afraid she became. The more she wanted to draw back and retreat, until…

Seeing the figure form of the woman who had taken Zach and made him her meal, along with blurry shadows of those surrounding a clear image of his deceased body laying at their feet had left her frozen in fear. But this time, she had nowhere to hide. All Sam could do was look on helplessly at not being able to save her friend once again. And the voices…her name…shrill and loud. So loud that she tried to cover her ears, but it did no good. Instead, Sam’s heart was beating fiercely. So hard that it hurt. So hard that she felt like she couldn’t breathe anymore.

Gasping for air, she dropped to her knees clawing at her throat, until her eyes shot open and saw nothing but darkness surrounding her as she tried to adjust to the lack of light, except for that peeking in from the sides of her blinds and curtains. But as she scanned the room, she quickly caught sight of a shadowing figure near her, and without any control let out a blood curdling scream, praying Scout would react, but remembering he was staying with her parents tonight.

Scrambling from the sheets, Sam nearly fell out of the bed and rushed over to find the lightswitch on the wall hoping that once the light was on, it would kill whatever shadow monster lurked in her room and probably moreso in her mind.

___

The dream was enough. More than enough, really- there was so much fear welling up within the poor girl who had been unfortunate enough to become her meal for the evening. Usually, there came a point where the guilt seeped in. Usually, the realization of what Leila was doing to the poor person who was simply trying to get some rest was enough to send her back into the astral. That feeling was what made it easier to weave together dreams in the minds of those who, in some way, deserved it. 

But this time, Leila couldn’t leave. She couldn’t bring herself to flutter away to safety, a wisp of smoke and shadow. Instead, she needed to watch. Needed to figure out what had happened, extract as much detail as she possibly could before departing. The girl had suffered, had lost this person whose memory remained like a scar in her mind. She tried to memorize every inch of the figure she’d plucked from the dreamer’s memory. Time, however, was running short. She could feel the poor dreamer’s heartbeat rocketing. 

Mere seconds before Sam’s eyes snapped open, Leila was fleeing through the astral, through the crack in the keyhole of the door. What she had seen in the dream lurked in her mind, an echo reverberating over and over and over… It left her curious. Yes, she’d caused some amount of pain here, forcing the young woman to relive the moment in her dreams, but… Perhaps, she could help her. Somehow. 

Ravenous was the only word Leila had to describe her current state of being.

She hadn’t fed since the Kurt incident, not really. The idea of going into honey-sweet dreams every single evening and souring them until they were bitter and dark with fear was something that the mare could not bring herself to do. Even when every instinct that had taken hold after her death demanded it. Leila had held off for as long as she could, and now she was paying the price. Everything hurt. Ancient bones and blood-turned-glittering-dust were screaming for a dream to cling to. 

She gave in. Eyes closed, and up, up, up into the astral. And she went to hunt a dream. 

There was a loud thing that evening. Even if she hadn’t been so hungry, she would have caught a whiff of it. Loud dreams, loud memories, they were like a feast that demanded to be attended. There was a seat waiting for her, and all she had to do was pull up her seat. A guest of dishonor to pull at the weave of their mind until Leila had had her fill, until everything in her no longer cried out for something she could no longer have on her own. She would hate herself tomorrow when she replayed the nightmare she had woven in her mind. But for that evening, when hunger ruled over reason, she would be a monster.

Leila descended, a bit of shadow on a midnight breeze, into the dreams of a stranger. 

Slayers didn’t need to sleep quite as much as most people did. It was one of those things that came with the territory, like the night vision and the toxic blood. It was a means of protection, a way of giving them at least some semblance of a fighting chance to make it to forty. Sleep was still necessary, but not as often. And even those limits, Emilio liked to push.

It wasn’t as if it was without reason, of course. Emilio knew what was waiting for him when he closed his eyes. It was the same thing, every time. A cruel time loop, a tape stuck replaying the same scene of a movie over and over and over again.

It wasn’t always exactly the same; things got muddled, sometimes. Changed based on what was happening in his life, where he was. But the feeling was always the same. The white hot dread. The heavy grief. The acidic taste of failure coating his tongue, metallic like blood. 

There was the living room, the one from Mexico. Always bigger in his dreams than it had been in reality, as if his subconscious needed a larger space to hold the depth of what had happened here. There was the blood on the walls, the floor, the ceiling. There were corpses on the ground, more than there had been in this room in reality but less than he was probably responsible for. And there, in the middle of it, was a shape so small, so wilted. His heart was in his throat. He was…

He wasn’t alone. It struck him all at once, like a jolt of electricity. He wasn’t alone, and it wasn’t one of the monsters his subconscious usually allotted him. It wasn’t a vampire wearing his face, or Lucio with the knife in his gut, or his own bloody hands. There was someone else here, and they weren’t supposed to be. Wild eyed, Emilio whirled around. “Who’s there? Who the fuck are you?”

Leila could already feel the ache of the hunger that clawed at her starting to vanish as she settled into the stranger’s dream as an unwelcome guest. Sometimes the dreams were not so sweet when she entered them, their own subconscious tormenting them in their sleep. Those were the easiest dreams to settle into when Leila was ravenous simply because she didn’t have to think too much. The fears and pains that she would have to manipulate were already right there at the forefront of their mind. All it took was a little tug at their thoughts and suddenly she was an actor in a ghastly play. 

The living room was grotesque. Blood was splattered across every imaginable surface in a room that seemed to be rapidly expanding… make it grow… feel small… It was routine. She would hate herself tomorrow for it, but for now… bodies. Limp limbs in strange angles and… The small one at the center made her feel guilty. More than guilty. Monstrous. But the stranger’s heart was beating so fast, and the fear of the dream rolled off. Hunger vanished, dreams taking and replacing the emptiness that lived inside her. 

And then, something else. Something she’d never really experienced before. The dreamer knew she was there. 

Quick as anything she became nothing but a shadow in an already murky dreamscape, the scene swirling like ink in water only to replay again, forcing this man closer to the things he wished not to see. I’m sorry, she wanted to say. I’m so sorry, it will be over soon… But dreams felt interminable for those dreaming. 

The room reformed itself, the play started back from the beginning, look at the living room, look at the gore, look at the center of this macabre scene. 

His heart was pounding in his chest, beating against his ribs like a prisoner beating against the walls of their cell. The room was disappearing, somehow, the walls shrinking around him as the bodies got closer and closer. His foot bumped against Juliana’s head, and it lulled to the side to face him, eyes wide and unseeing and accusatory. Emilio thought he might be sick, taking an unsteady step backwards. 

Flora was in the center of the room, getting closer. The wall was at his back now, pushing him closer to her. It was sticky, tacky, and he knew why even if he refused to turn to look at it. “No,” he muttered, pushing back against the wall. “I can’t do it again, goddamn it, I can’t —”

There it was again. That presence, that tingle up his spine that didn’t quite belong. He’d been distracted from it with the changing of the scene, pulled back into the pile of bodies with familiar faces all surrounding that unimaginable thing in the center of the room, but it was there. 

He clung to it, a little. This break in the monotony, this strange new aspect of things, this quiet change. It didn’t matter if it was a good thing or a bad one — it only mattered that it was different. It only mattered that it was something that wasn’t that too-small body in the center of the room, only mattered that it might keep him from having to look at it for a second longer. He didn’t care if it was something that wanted to kill him. That was far more preferable than this, any day of the week.

“I know you’re here.” His voice was hoarse, somehow, even though all of this was happening inside his head. “Are you doing this? Why? Para, por favor. Just make it stop.”

As the pain of hunger subsided a bit, it provided a clearer mind for the hungry mare. She hated the moment of clarity that came as she fed, always trying to force her to look and see what monstrosities she had created without abandon. Look for yourself, some hellish part of her begged. See what you’ve done? Make more. More would take Leila’s pain away, but as she watched the man stumble away in the shrinking room that she forced to grow smaller and smaller for just a moment more of sustenance, she wished that she hadn’t entered the dream at all. 

The figure at the center was so small, so very small. The dreamer was forced closer still to her little frame, seeming to try to do all they could to look away from the scene. But that was the worst part of dreams. There were no eyes to close, no refuge to take from the story that unfolded in the mind. Look, look, see what you did? See what you couldn’t defend? His fear and grief were too much. Fear was a powerful elixir, one that broke the minds of mortals and fueled creatures of ideas, things that clung to life with a simple emotion. 

The little body’s face was more visible now. Leila moved closer, instinct moving her while empathy screamed away in her mind to let the poor dreamer go. They were suffering. Go away. Leila… What she wouldn’t do to give them a dream- a nice peaceful dream where these figures that littered the room were happy, what she wouldn’t pay to let this stranger relive the happiest moment of their life, whatever that might have been. 

Leila didn’t like to speak in dreams. The words usually became a part of the dream somehow, twisting and warping themselves into something to fear more in order to feed the mare. But as the shadows closed in around the man and the figure at his feet, she finally spoke. “I’m sorry,” The words were hoarse, hardly more than a whisper, but the voice was not her own. It was several unfamiliar voices joined together in a chorus- voices she did not know, but voices this stranger was all too familiar with. “I’m so sorry…” 

The room kept getting smaller and smaller, pushing him further and further towards the center of it. He wondered if it would shrink down until the walls crushed him between them, wondered if the floor would rise up to meet the ceiling and grind him to dust with the rest of the corpses. In a way, he thought it might come as a relief. Physical pain had always been far simpler to deal with than whatever this was now, after all.

There was no avoiding that body in the center of the pile anymore. Emilio didn’t know if the spinning of the room forced him to his knees or if it was his mind that couldn’t handle it anymore. The knees of his jeans quickly soaked through with blood. If he were conscious, this position — him, on his knees in the floor — would have been painful. His bad leg would have been screaming, protesting the weight on it. The fact that it wasn’t served as another clue as to what was happening, but Emilio didn’t need clues. He knew a nightmare when he was in one. That had never been the problem.

He looked at her, at last. Her tiny features warped in death, eyes wide and unseeing just as her mothers had been before. He couldn’t remember if this was what she’d actually looked like, when he found her; grief had such a funny way of twisting things. There were moments of that day that he remembered as clearly as if they’d happened only seconds before, and there were moments he’d lost just as soon as they were over. It didn’t matter much, though, how accurate it was. This was the closest he could ever come to seeing his daughter again either way. 

“Flora,” he said quietly, reaching a hand out. He touched her hair, and he didn’t know if the blood was coming from her or from him, only that it was there. He didn’t know if she was still bleeding or if it was all already over, only that he’d failed her. It was all he ever did, these days. Maybe it was all he’d ever done at all. 

Everyone’s voices rang out at once in an apology. His mother, his siblings, his nephew, his daughter. They were all distorted, all far away. And the apology was worse, somehow, than the accusations. It hurt more. Flora’s mouth was moving, even as her face remained blank and her eyes remained empty. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. It was Lucio’s words in her mouth, he thought. Hadn’t his uncle apologized when Emilio found him? Hadn’t the guilt and the grief said everything that needed saying? It was especially cruel, putting those words in the mouths of the corpses he’d betrayed. 

“Stop,” he begged, unsure who he was speaking to. Was the presence he felt real, or had he imagined that, too? “Please. Just make it stop. I can’t look at her anymore.”

Flora…

Leila felt sick, half from gorging on a meal she had not wanted, half from the knowledge of the pain she was causing. The more she ate, the more lucid she became, the more she came face to face with the pain she was causing. Flora, the girl’s name was Flora… She wanted to pull this stranger far away from the gory scene that was playing out in his mind, but the closer the mare got to the man, the more the shadows pulled close and focused on the girl, the blood, the voices that echoed an apology that did nothing. These people were gone, and this man was alone. 

The mare knew alone better than most people. In dying and being thrust into an eternal existence, she had outlived everyone she had ever known. She had stayed away from humanity as much as she could. But there was something about being confronted with a dead past that hurt more than anything. While Leila had been the one to die, this stranger was surrounded by death and yet still lived. A survivor in a sea of loss and tragedy. 

She did the only thing she knew how to do. Leila pulled the darkness in so close it surrounded the man, wrapping him up in an embrace of nothing. It didn’t make it better. She knew that. Hell, it was a risk to do- the mortal could catch a glimpse of the waking world and she would become nothing but red-hot eyes in an eternal shadow rather than endless dark. But she was careful- so very careful… Slowly the faces of those the man had loved were obscured with shadow until they faded from vision completely. The words she had uttered were still a faint echo in the astral, apologies from long ago from voices long gone. 

I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry… so sorry… 

He barely registered the way the light seemed to fade out of the room. Even when the darkness overtook him entirely, it was like it was all still right there. He still saw his daughter’s body laid out in front of him, even when it was too dark to see his hand in front of his face. It was like the bodies were etched into the backs of his eyelids, there no matter what he did. There was no escaping them, no comfort in the darkness that blocked them off from view. Especially not when their voices continued to echo. 

“I’m sorry.” His own voice joined the echoing chorus, hoarse and unsteady. “Mija, I’m sorry. I should have…” Should have what? There were a thousand things he should have done, and none of them made any difference now. He should have saved her, he should have stopped this, he should have at least had the decency to die for his sins. He should have done a thousand things, and he’d done none of them. What good would sorry do now?

He leaned forward, no longer able to feel the body or the blood or even the carpet beneath his palms. And was that better, or worse? To exist in a room full of corpses or to float in a black hole so empty that it felt as though you no longer existed at all… which was the real Hell? Emilio let out a shuddering breath, curling into himself. “I’m sorry,” he said again. “Please, just — I’m sorry.” 

Many people thought that nightmares vanished in the night once the lights were turned on. That the tricks of the mind were wiped away, to return some other time. Even if the thoughts lingered on for a while, it was just a dream. Just a dream. Leila did not have that luxury. Each dream she fed on, each nightmare she created, they were a part of her. They were etched into her memory like carvings in stone. They were as much a part of her as the fine granules of glimmering dust that pretended to be stagnant blood in her veins. 

So when the dreaming man’s mind called out the word Mija into the endless darkness that was Leila trying to reach out to comfort, something broken in her shattered completely. 

His daughter. His family. The bodies were painted in crystal clear perfection in her mind, and there they would stay in some morbid archive of dreams that did not belong to her. Filed in a box somewhere in her mind. Tucked away as far as she could. But she’d still fed upon the dream. She’d still fed on that grief… And it was only a piece. Only a little piece, when this man had oceans of pain locked inside of him. Not oceans… planets. Galaxies. Infinite pain. 

A gentle, shaking hand made of nothing but smoke brushed over the man’s head as she prayed that this stranger might forgive her. The most comforting that the nightmare could offer. Wake up… Wake up now, just a dream, just a dream… The thought she left behind in his mind was the softest whisper as she wrenched herself away from the dream as quick as she could, tearing herself back through the astral plane and back to safety, lurching back into a corporeal form with a ragged sob.

It should have been a kindness, the waking up. It should have offered some sense of relief, some quiet reprieve. To open your eyes in your own home, to realize that the horrors you’d seen existed only within the confines of your unconscious mind, it was supposed to be a good thing. For Emilio, it felt empty. He opened his eyes, sweat soaking the twisted sheets around him and clinging to the air in the dingy bedroom, the words just a dream echoing through his head, and there was no relief to it. There was no peace. Because it wasn’t. Not really. 

The reality hadn’t happened exactly like the dream, of course — there was no echoing chorus of an apology, the bodies hadn’t all been stacked together in one neat little pile, there wasn’t a strange, off putting presence he swore he could feel in the back of his mind — but there was still a reality to it. His daughter’s body was a tangible thing rotting back in Mexico. His wife’s empty, accusatory stare existed in memory as much as it did in dreams. What relief could you really hope to find when your nightmares were things that had already happened to you? Where was the release when your waking life was just as empty as the one that haunted your dreams?

He leaned forward on the bare mattress, putting his head between his knees and breathing in, the ache of it vibrating through his bones. It was just a dream, but it wasn’t. That was the worst part. 

After a moment, he got to his feet. The sun wasn’t up yet, wouldn’t be for hours, but he knew there’d be no more sleep tonight. He’d get a drink, he’d have a cigarette. He’d pretend any of it made him less empty than it was. 

She was working on a new list of potentially magical items when she heard the doorbell give a cheery little jingle, alerting her that she had company. Leila gave an obligatory glance upward for hardly a moment to voice a “Welcome in,” before ducking back down. Pants from the 70s, no signs of possession, no serious enchantment when worn, simply felt happy and had an overwhelming need to listen to ABBA or Queen. If that was all those pants did, she might keep them for herself for a rainy day. After all, they did fit her quite well… 

It wasn’t until after the figure had walked further into the shop that she recognized the shock of pink hair and the easy smile. “Hi Teddy,” Her shoulders relaxed and the painted on grin became more genuine, if a bit tired. Whoever had made it so that mares could not sleep had severely misjudged just how stressful it was to be undead. “Here for your shirts?”

All things considered, Teddy Jones made out like a bandit with that last escapade. No one even got hurt. And Teddy got a new deal out of it. Not a deal-deal but something the Jones family could profit off of nonetheless. If Leila's shop was a beacon for cursed objects, Mephisto's was going to have a whole new section pretty soon. Excellent. 

The giddy demon strode down the way, ignoring the way their bones ached with the changing of the weather. Nothing could bring them down. Not then. Teddy was normally a pretty chipper thing, but between the cross store team up and the meddling they were very much about to continue with Leila, it was shaping up to be an amazing week all around. Could even excuse the attempted murderer and subsequent sea monster healing period. It was great. 

"Hey there sweets! Shirts, pants, hats, whatever you got!" 

—

Teddy Jones was a delight to have in the shop on any day. She couldn’t remember exactly when they had started showing up at The Party Thrifter, but since the store’s opening, Teddy had become a regular and a welcome guest. She pushed herself up from her place on the floor, surrounded by piles of clothing to go properly greet her guest. 

“A little bit of everything, got it.” At least they weren’t asking about the chaotic events that transpired the last time they had graced the shop with their presence. At least they weren’t asking about Metzli. Light. Easy. “I meant to mention it the other day, but I really do love the new color.” Leila gave a little jerk of her chin, motioning up towards the top of her friend’s head. “You always look so cool. In my next life, I need to take a page out of your styling book.” If she had to leave Wicked’s Rest and recreate herself again, maybe she’d dye her hair purple. Just the ends, though. Nothing too crazy. 

Her gaze fluttered about the shop as if she were trying to locate something before “Ah-”. Leila marched over to a stack of clothing she had been pulling and setting aside, all with the distinct fashion taste of the customer she had grown to know so well. “I saw these, thought you might like to take a look through...”

“Oh! Before I forget, your jelly donuts madame–” Teddy moved closer, rounding the rack of clothing to show off the box of treats they presented as if they were crown jewels. The various donuts were rings of delight. Well. The non-filled ones anyway. Teddy sure was itching to talk about all that had transpired, but they were a good guest and would wait until it was brought up naturally. Always so considerate, that demon. 

“Sweets, you’re too good to me. I like to change it up a lot, but the pink is really nice, gotta say it’s in the top three colors I’ve ever worn.” It definitely helped that Teddy didn’t really have to go through the trouble of actually picking, mixing, and applying dye just to get a color that might not be exactly what they imagined. No, they just had to re-build their body from the ground up. Imagining all the bits they’d like to have different this time. Of course, it couldn’t be too different, people might get a little suspicious then. Even in a town like this. 

The pile of neatly folded clothes immediately drew Teddy’s eye the second it was brought to their attention. The demon melted into a gleeful dance, quickly finding a stable enough surface to lay the box down so they could start rifling through the selections. “Leila! You’ve outdone yourself.” 

A whole dozen donuts sat in the box, sugary and fresh and delicious. She had smelled them when Teddy waltzed through her door, but hadn’t said a word. Smelling a box of donuts from that distance would have been strange to say the least, and while she was fairly certain that they wouldn’t hold a little strangeness against her, Leila wasn’t in the mood to chance it. 

“Have I told you lately that you are the absolute best?” The mare chirped as she took the box and practically danced it over to the counter. Lemon meringue donut first. She plucked it up as if it were the most precious thing in the world before taking a bite and letting the sugary rush akin to dreams crash into her. “God, that is good…”

Leila perched herself up on the counter’s edge, kicking her legs with childlike glee as she happily munched away at her donut. “I do try… otherwise, why would you keep coming in? Consider this an apology for yesterday’s chaos.”

“I could always stand to hear it more.” A kind of sing-songy lilt carried the words from the scrounger at Mt. Clothing. Doing their damndest to act like a miner combing through the valuable ore for the diamonds. Only it seemed the entire pile was rare and shiny goods. Rather than just a few. Really took all the work of going to a thrift store out of it, which was excellent. Teddy liked shopping, sure, but this seemed so much more personal. Like a hug from the store itself. Collaborative. 

The demon smiled, turning with a swish as they held up a paisley number that looked straight out of the 70’s. Long and kind of a tunic, kind of a dress. That beautiful androgynous style that the hippies co-opted and went wild with. “This one might be my favorite of the bunch. But they are all perfect” Teddy grinned, this one was absolutely going in regular rotation. Maybe with that little belt and– Oh right. C’mon Jones. Pay attention. 

“Well I’d come in for the lovely company and your impeccable taste in music.” Teds laid the clothes down (with a great amount of reverence) and waltzed over to the counter. Draping themselves on their elbows and plucking up one of the other donuts to munch on. “Nah but, you are so sweet. It’s no wonder Metz likes you so much.” 

She swore she was in donut heaven. The lemony, fluffy thing she was trying not to cram into her face in three large bites. Leila had always had a bit of a sweet tooth, but ever since her change from life to death, desserts had become a survival mechanism. The sweetness of the sugar was the closest thing in terms of mortal food to a dream. When she couldn’t (or wouldn’t) dine on dreamers, she turned to the nearest candy store or bakery. 

Leila raised food-dreamy eyes to look at Teddy, who had found the paisley piece she’d snuck into the middle of the pile. A grin blossomed across her face at their joy. “I thought you might like that one. Plus, it compliments your eyes.”

She damn near choked on the last of her donut at their mention of Metzli. If she were alive, her cheeks might have gone scarlet. The mare could only pray they didn’t start shimmering like a diamond. Leila gave their arm a playful whack and shook her head. “They do not like me, Ted.” 

Teddy hummed into their choice of pastry, apple, just like they’d said online. Getting a little of the good good goo on their mustache in the process. A snack for later perhaps? Or just something to be noticed by a good friend. Or as close to one as Teddy really had. There were a number of folks in town Teds considered friends, but that wasn’t like capital F ‘Friends’. Something they weren’t sure they’d ever really achieve. But Leila was lovely, and a pleasure to be around. So they’d enjoy it while it lasted. 

“Aww, charmer. With or without the glasses?” With a waggle of their brows, the demon leaned in. Peering over the lenses just enough for their eyes would still look big and brown rather than the strange dark inky color with a bright teal pupil at their center they normally were. Occasionally when the mood struck, they did shift enough to actually hide their more sea-worthy bits. Enough to go out in public and dissuade people from thinking that they had something to keep secret. 

“Oh yeah? Survey says otherwise.” They were close enough now for a wink and a nudge. “Trust me, I know these kinds of things. Also in addition to Spanish, French, Ancient Latin, Korean, and a bunch of others, I speak the language of loooove.” 

“Both. I am the master of pairing people with clothing for all situations, sweetheart.” She chuckled and wiped at the corner of her mouth with the back of her hand. If she wouldn’t look entirely ridiculous, Leila would have immediately snatched up another donut to bite into. Patience, it is a virtue… she heard her mother’s voice chide in her mind in a long ago echo. “Heads up: You’ve got a lil apple, there…” She motioned with her thumb to their mustache. 

The mare rolled her eyes and shook her head. Nope, no, impossible. Teddy may have been a master of several languages, even love, but Leila wasn’t someone who got a romantic happy ending. Or even a little romance. She was a nightmare: she fluttered about from place to place in an attempt to preserve herself, and that was that. Metzli called her ‘friend’. That was enough. Besides- she had seen their post. They didn’t want to ruin a friendship, and there was someone they already liked. 

“The Survey of Teddy? Total number of surveyors, one?” Leila sighed a little and bowed her head. “They are my friend, and that’s all…” She pushed away the disappointment that followed that statement. “Besides, there’s already someone they’re fond of.”

The apple remained, as it would until the matter at hand had been settled. Teddy rolled back into their shoulders, bobbing with the sudden laughter that overtook them. “Stars in the sky– You two are exactly the same.” Once again, shared in that oldest of tongues. Only a Jones could understand the words, but the tone and exasperated smile were enough to convey the meaning. The giggling fit that shook them soon subsided, leaving a friendly gaze with just a hint of loving judgment. 

“Lei, hun, I wouldn’t be bringing this up so much if it wasn’t so obvious. It’s you. You are the one they like. They are just too scared to do anything about it ‘cause they think they’re gonna ruin something somehow. You guys gotta communicate, babe.” Teddy took a finger full of jam and booped Leila on the nose. The bright red mark as clear to Ted as the emotions both the (probably) undead dears ‘tried’ to keep hidden. 

“Both of you are so worried about making the first move. You like them don’t you? And I know they like you. Verbal confirmation. Scout’s honor.” Okay so the demon had never been a scout, but Leila didn’t need to know that. “I could set something upppp if you don’t wanna???” 

Teddy shook with laughter in a language unknown to her. She felt a bit silly, though she knew their laughter held no malice in it. Just a tiny hint of judgement tinged with friendly love. While it was obvious to Teddy that Metzli was supposedly in love with her, it wasn’t obvious to Leila. She sighed heavily and head drop back to stare at the ceiling.

“Impossible,” she muttered under her breath. Because it was. It simply was. “They only want a friend.” She said, a sad certainty settling over her. “Why in the world would they be inter-“ Teddy booped her nose, promptly shutting her up. The smell of strawberry jam was utterly intoxicating. 

Did she like them? As much as she didn’t want to admit it, Leila was slowly coming to the conclusion that Teddy was right. She did like Metzli. At least, probably more than a friend should. “Right, they like me as a friend, Ted.” They had to have misconstrued… right?  “What if they go out with me and then don’t like me, and I lose a friend?”

Sometimes, to put some good out in the world you had to work at it. Sow the seeds so you could reap the reward when the harvest came. Other times you had to chip away at a mountain of self doubt and almost willful blindness to something that was clear as the waters in the Bahamas. If Teddy didn't like Leila so much, if Metzli hadn't been to fun to poke around with, maybe they would have lost interest by now. But at this point it was starting to feel like a personal sleight that neither was taking the hint. 

"Leila." Teddy straightened up, placed a hand on either of the woman's shoulders and looked her dead in the eyes. "I would not lie to you." To many others, sure, but not her. "So listen to me when I say, Metzli had the exact same worry. Cares about you in the exact same way." Their expression softened, a tinge of concern and the weight of experience giving their smile a more wistful tone. "Even if it's scary, I think it's worth it to try. You are both adults, and I know you aren't the type to leave someone in the dirt just because you aren't compatible like that. You won't lose a friend, I promise." 

With a twist and a hop, Teddy joined Leila up on the counter. Grabbing another two donuts and handing one off to her as they took a small nibble out of their own. Marmalade, delicious. "Life is too short to get caught up on the what ifs. Sure, you could play it safe. But don't you think it would eat at you never to know? You deserve that kind of sweetness, Sweets." The demon offered a playful nudge, almost almost admitting they knew something about Leila's lifespan. How it might be longer than normal because of a certain condition. It wasn't too hard to guess that the strange wanderer wasn't exactly human either. It didn't matter if you were immortal, life was still too short. "Plus you two would look just so cute holding hands and kissing. They're like twelve feet taller than you! Metzli would have to swoop you up in their arms, it'd be like a fairytale!" One where the monsters had a chance at love too. 

She was very distracted by the strawberry jam that was still on the tip of her nose. Leila quickly swiped it off with her finger and stuck the jam-nose-evidence in her mouth. It was a good distraction from the thoughts that were now barraging her mind due to Teddy’s observations… But a short-lived distraction. Teddy’s hands were on her shoulders and they were looking her dead in the eye as they all but promised all they had said was true. There was a sudden weight in her chest, her heart rising into her throat. They were right. It was scary. A better word was probably terrifying. Absolutely utterly terrifying. The irony was not lost on her that she was a thing made of terror. But being cared for by someone she cared about was so utterly foreign, that Leila feared that despite Teddy’s words, it might not really be true. 

The mare’s shoulders drooped a little, the weight of her newfound knowledge pulling her in on herself. And then, just like magic, a donut was hovering in front of her nose like a promise that everything would be alright. A little sweetness in her life. Her. She almost folded and told Teddy why that didn’t make sense. That life was entirely too long for her. That she was a destroyer of sweet dreams. But none of that mattered… what more, Leila knew that none of it mattered to Metzli. Look at the brights, Leila…