#floaters

Regan didn’t care for being out on the water. She couldn’t even fool herself into thinking the deck was solid ground, because the vibrating and buzzing of the ferry’s engine was inescapable. And worse, there were only so many dead things she could scavenge on a boat. And her necklace was making her glamour waver, which—actually, that was worse than there not being any animal carcasses around (it took some deliberation). Regan looked back at the mainland as the ferry departed the dock. This would be a short ride, at least, and there was a death scene waiting for her on World’s End Isle. 

If she could make it there looking human. 

It didn’t take long for her glamour to become an issue. Ten minutes. Fifteen. Regan stared down at the darkness creeping up her knuckles, then she stuffed her hands into her pockets. Not the first time that broke through. Was that the only thing? Regan caught her distorted reflection in the metal railing, and there was at least enough detail for her to see that her eyes remained blue. For now. In hindsight, this being the worst case scenario shouldn’t have required deliberation. She needed to get away from all of the other passengers, find somewhere on this ferry where—

The crawling sensation of her wings trying to spread, cramped and scrunched up underneath her coat, was more sickening than the rocking of the ferry in the white waves. Her glamour was completely falling apart. Regan could feel her coat ride up, wing veins pinching and bending in painful directions. She needed to find somewhere now. There, in the back of the boat, a tarp was loosely tied to the deck. It would have to do. Regan scrambled over and found a spot where the tarp had enough give and she could climb underneath.

It smelled like seaweed and greased metal and was noticeably warmer inside. The coat was now suffocating enough that she needed to force her shaking hands to unzip it and tear it off. The relief her wings felt hardly seemed like relief at all. Either the necklace would start working again, or she would be stuck on this vessel until tonight, trying to will her phone into having service so she could contact Jade.

Regan peered out from beneath the tarp. She had to be vigilant. See if there was a way she could help herself. This time, it paid off. Regan spotted a familiar face on the ferry with her, and it was someone who—through Jade and Henri no doubt—knew about banshees. Knew Regan was one. (More or less—usually less.)

She didn’t exactly have many options. “Eve,” Regan hissed, her fingers curled around the edge of the tarp, holding it up. The fact she was literally desperate on her knees filled her mouth with bile and revulsion. When Eve made eye contact, Regan crawled further under the tarp. She couldn’t risk anyone else seeing her, and she trusted Eve to recognize she needed to come closer. “My necklace—” Right, Eve probably didn’t know anything about glamours or necklaces or glamour necklaces. And even if she did know about glamours, the necklace required explanation Regan didn’t have the time or desire to wade into right now. “I do not have a way to look—I can’t conceal my appearance anymore. I don’t know how.”

A man’s voice drifted from the end of the deck. “Hey, where are the other mooring lines? This one’s no good. The salt got it.”

“Aft, blue tarp,” a second man answered.

Regan stared at the stiff tarp clutched in her inky fingers. That was certainly blue. And she was fairly sure an aft referred to the back deck of a boat. Which meant—

The scream forming in her lungs had nothing to do with predicting death. Cold trickled down the nape of her neck. Attention, discovery—it was no better than being up on a stage, the judgement of a spotlight exposing every dark orifice. “Can you stop them? Or—I don’t know, where do I—help.” 

—

Eve had a large sportsbag on wheels with her on the ferry. Plausibly, she could be carrying a whole number of computing supplies in there. New routers, a phone system that could be installed, servers to be installed. Instead, it was currently inflated with balloons and weights, so that on the way back, it wouldn’t be conspicuous that she would have a body folded up in it. 

Her back had been prickling the whole ride, and if Eve wasn’t so used to living in Wicked’s Rest, where sometimes even her grocery shopping came with a surprise urge to sprout wings of her own, she might have been more suspicious, but it was probably some fire salamander that some spellcaster was using as a pet. If Eve was a proper hunter, she might have investigated, but… well. She was on her way to clean up a body. 

Her gaze shot to her side at the sound of her name. Eve peered at the figure under the tarp, momentarily thrown by the jet black eyes and black marks on the skin, her brain supplying Banshee before it supplied the familiar face behind the death-marks. Rather, the face that usually was in front of this one. “Regan?”

She stood up, and walked over casually, kneeling down to tie the shoelaces on her prosthetic leg. (A pointless exercise, considering those laces never became untied.) “Your glamour isn’t working? Shit, okay.” 

The tarp shifted behind Regan, in a way no human back would ever cause the plastic to move. Wings too, then. Eve hadn’t understood the part about a necklace, but that was beside the point. There had to be another surge happening, which had cost so many fae their glamorous before. Shit. Her stomach turned at the thought, even if the fact Regan wasn’t currently screaming was reassuring. The “moose” had been pretty damn loud last time, which hadn’t been true this week. Maybe it would be a short one. 

Her gaze turned to the approaching men, and she nodded. “You got it. Just keep trying to glamour in the mean time.”

Eve stood up as one of the men approached, leaning hard into the youthfulness her blonde hair offered her. “Oh, you can’t go under there!” 

He ignored her, which was more than fair enough, but Eve stepped right in front of him, forcing her face to blush bright red. “Wait! My friend’s naked under there.” Her words slurred a little, her movements became looser. “She’s just a little sea sick, if you know what I mean. She, like, threw up. We’ve cleaned it up, but she’s getting changed. We just need, like, a few minutes. Please.”

He raised his eyebrows and crossed his arms. “This isn’t a changing room. I need the ropes under there. Now.”

“Right!” Eve said, and hoped Regan would play along. “Ray-bae, girl, can you push out the ropes from under the tarp? Then I can grab a sweater for you!”

—

Every week, Eve tended to Regan’s laptop or phone or (most frequently) both. Every week, and if it could be fixed, she would fix it. Reliability was a trait Regan admired—it was probably universally beloved by all scientists and doctors. And now, Eve was once again displaying that she could be relied upon, and Regan’s gratitude could have knocked her off the side of the boat were she not confined to the tarp. She crawled closer to the edge as Eve leaned down pretending to… tie her shoe? Someone was going to wonder why it was taking so long, eventually.

Regan tried not to flinch back from that moment of evaluation Eve seemed to first study her with. The eye contact that was not immediate recognition. It came quickly enough, though, and Regan preferred not to think about the split second that preceded it. “I can’t glamour, which is the problem.” But Eve seemed confused about the necklace, like this was a hiccup and not her baseline. Regan couldn’t blame her. It shouldn’t have been necessary for her to rely on a trinket. “It’s pointless for me to try. You need to—I need a large puffer coat, or something.” (Jade was going to destroy it when she saw it.) 

Where glamouring was concerned, effort was not the issue and never had been… probably. Regan had tried and tried, but even iron was a failed teacher. Cliodhna, usually stoic as stone, found it almost amusing in the brief moments she could recover from the embarrassment to their shared blood. Regan, the banshee who wanted out, wanted to be back with the humans, was the only one who couldn’t look the part. Even the children fresh off their first scream could make something happen. Regan tightened her grip on her necklace. She hated it. But she also didn’t dare pull hard enough to break the chain, even if the damn thing was as good as broken anyway. It was a chain that she needed and might always need.

Eve physically intercepted the approaching men, which gave Regan a moment to breathe without worrying exposure could come at any moment. She could hardly catch it, her breath. She could almost hear the heaving of her lungs in the chamber the tarp made over her. “A Halloween costume. Or… what was it that—cosplay? Yes, cosplay. A cosplay of a, um… banshee. From a piece of media. You would not know it. It’s very new. But not so new I didn’t have time to create the costume, you see.” Regan did not laugh, so that strangled sound that came from her mouth had to be something else, which was sane and collected. 

Regan remained quiet now that one of the men was responding to Eve, and her whole body flared hot. This wasn’t working. They were going to—no, Eve had this. She had an idea, that much was clear. Regan was certain it would be something brilliant and dignified.

Hold on. Naked? She wasn’t—okay, it was an excuse, obviously, and she was a metaphorical variety of nude right now (another reason to dislike metaphors). But since when did nudity ever stop a man? Oh. Vomit. In Regan’s experience, that rarely stopped a man either. “I don’t need a sweater,” Regan said, and immediately realized her error. Her stomach was about to twist. “I mean, um, because I first require a bra. And do not call me that… Eve…bay.” She couldn’t think of an equally belittling moniker. She slid the coil of rope (metal and fortunately not iron) out beneath the tarp, pulling her fingertips back under as quickly as possible.

The two men exchanged a glance, and one of them pulled the rope up with meaty fingers. Regan could appreciate the musculature of his legs, contours evident even through his pants. His occupation involved a great deal of physical labor. His legs swiveled as he addressed Eve. “You have two minutes, not five. Get her out of there and put the booze away. Don’t want to see any goddamn bottles under there when the tarp goes up.” He muttered, “this is a ferry; there’s no daycare.”

But the legs moved further away, presumably along with the body attached to them. Now Regan could only see Eve’s—prosthetic and not. Regan poked her head out. “Is it clear? I am wearing a bra, by the way.”

—

Can’t glamour. That was new. Eve was fascinated, if only because she wondered if that little necklace had to clue wardens needed to reverse engineer proper dispellates again. Ones that didn’t stink up the whole street, and worked reliably. Eve owned two good ones, of the three she was given when she was twelve, with strict instructions not to use them unless completely necessary. She had used a couple of the cheaper ones as a teenager, with their variability and all, but a necklace that could make a glamour might hold the answer to removing them. 

If only Eve could tinker anything more complicated than a basic arduino board. And, of course, she didn’t want to take anything from Jade’s partner that she needed. (Although maybe if it wasn’t working anymore….)

Of course, hoping a fae would help her lie was a step too far, as Regan fumbled the truth. (The lie about the cosplay had been more convincing, perhaps they should have both stuck to it). Her lie was unconvincing, but she was also supposedly drunk, and drunk people never made much sense even when they were telling the truth. 

It was enough to convince the two men, as the cables appeared from under the tarp. Eve grinned at the two men, and offered them an overenthusiastic salute. “Aye aye, captain!” She winked, and watched them leave before turning back to Regan. She knelt, her metal knee thunking against the plastic flooring as Regan reassured her that she did, in fact, have a bra. 

“Love that for you, Regan,” Eve replied idly, thinking. “It’s clear right here, but there are other people nearby, and we have another fifteen minutes on this ferry.” She hummed. “One second.” Eve hurried back to the bag, and rolled it over. While yes, it was large enough to fit a human in it, that was a human who did not care how their hamstrings stretched anymore, or if they had space to breathe. Fitting Regan in there would be impossible without breaking whatever wings she had. Eve reached into the top pocket of the bag, and pulled out a pair of latex gloves, and a pair of sunglasses that had been meant to keep away the snowglare. They would be far from perfect under any kind of scrutiny, but they would distract. A basic face mask went well with the latex gloves to give Regan a health-concerned kind of look, but the biggest problem was one Eve still wasn’t sure how to solve.

“I don’t have a puffer jacket, but, I might have some other options. What do your wings looks like? Or rather, how do they work? Can you fold them closely to your back?” She had once seen a muse with moth wings. Or rather, she had seen a dead muse, with her wings in the process of being hacked off for a trophy. They had been hypnotically beautiful, much like the rest of the muse, but the memory still left a sour taste in her mouth. They hadn’t folded down neatly, either. 

—

Before Regan could ask Eve about this idea, she was off, and reappeared just as quickly with a… suitcase? Something in there? Actually, Regan had hardly heard its weight thumping against the deck. “I am not flexible enough to—”

Gloves. Of course. If her mind had slowed for even one second she might have thought of that. Regan stared at the gloves and sunglasses, hesitating to accept either of them. “I prefer nitrile,” Regan said, patting the pocket of her jeans. Right. She should wear them. She fished out the packet and snapped them on, but found herself staring again at the gloves Eve was offering her. “Why do you have those? Most people do not carry gloves around. Well, except during the winter, but those are—you know what kind of gloves I mean.” She shook her head. The sunglasses presented a problem of their own. If she lost control, if she shattered more than just her glamour, the glasses were a serious hazard. They were also, Regan knew, as she studied the way Eve was dodging her eyes, necessary. She accepted them and blinked as she put them on, adjusting to the tint. “Do not startle me.” She didn’t want to explain that one.

Her wings flicked, and she knew they made this whole charade pointless. They could cover her hands and her eyes, but people noticed giant bug wings. She raised a brow at Eve’s questions, but Eve did not offer elaboration. Eve was a slayer, like Jade, and while she knew about banshees, the questions showed a level of specificity and comfort with the subject that Regan wouldn’t expect from—no, she was not going to think about that right now. She could have turned slightly, giving Eve a better view of her back, but the present emergency did not reduce that scalpel cut of anxiety every time she thought about someone looking at them. 

“They lie flat,” Regan finally offered, her voice dry. “They’re—they function, so they’re—I mean, in terms of size, they’re—how about the tarp?” The idea struck. She ran the material between her gloved fingers. It was plastic and not especially pliable. “It would be an awkward maneuver from underneath it, and I think it’s tethered down in several spots, but unless you travel with a large blanket, which, by the way, that bag sounded light when you rolled it over and I am curious about its contents, I cannot think of an alt—” Actually. “First aid kit! Shock blanket. There must be one on board.”

—

“Do you have a latex allergy?” Eve asked, but Regan did not hesitate to pull on the latex. She probably had a pair of nitrile gloves somewhere, but her own preference was for the second-skin feel of Latex… except when she was using chemicals where the durability of her gloves really mattered. Despite her situation, Regan was brimming with questions, that Eve could not answer honestly. Even if she was in love with a slayer, Eve was certain Regan would not appreciate someone tampering with the corpses that Regan cared for. Rewriting death was an unpopular choice even among those who did not worship it. 

“You would not believe the state of some people’s laptops. They’re basically a biohazard all on their own,” Eve lied easily. It took her a moment to notice Regan’s hesitation with the sunglasses, and paused. She nodded at Regan’s suggestion, in agreement. For many reasons; Eve liked her internal organs not to contain ruptures, thank you very much. “Not planning to, don’t you worry. Nothing here is a threat to you.” Except, perhaps, Eve herself. 

They function. Now that was interesting. Not every fae could make that claim, after all, which suggested a stronger muscle mass in the back to go with it. And the length was typically longer. (Although Eve had seen a fae once with stout bumblebee wings that had no problem aviating) She was curious to see them, but now was not the time. “I don’t think you can take the tarp,” she hummed. If she’d had her whole van, there would have been tarps and blankets a plenty, but as Regan was pointing out, her back was relatively heavy. She could not offer Regan a cut up body-bag, for many reasons. “No giant blankets today,” Eve confirmed, sidestepping the comment about her bag. Regan was too observant for her own good, and the thought was starting to stress Eve a little. At Regan’s suggestion, she grinned. “Genius. I saw a first aid kit earlier, let me go grab it.”

She had one in her bag, but Eve suspected that would summon more questions than she wanted to answer from Regan, considering the existing complexities of their relationship. Eve was also pretty sure that the one she had packed today did not have an emergency blanket in it, but it did have non-prescribed opioids, and suture kits that Eve did not think Regan would miss. She pushed herself to her feet, and began hurrying to the cabin on the boat. Briefly, she made eye contact with one of the sailors, with an apologetic hand gesture to signal they just needed a couple more minutes. He rolled his eyes irritably, but didn’t stop her from reaching into the cabin and grabbing the first aid kit. “You gotta pay for whatever you use!” He bellowed after her. 

Eve ignored him, and brought the bag back to Regan.

—

Eve knew of banshees, yet somehow she thought Regan had to concern herself with threats, as if she herself weren't the most explosive thing on this boat. The comment was insulting. It was out of Eve's friendship with Jade (and, okay, her present circumstances) that prevented Regan from pointing it out so plainly. She was no cowering creature—though she was cowering under a tarp. "Startling is different than feeling threatened. Not that I startle easily either. I just—” she reached up and tapped the side of the sunglasses, “The less time I’m wearing these, the better.”

Eve was agreeable to the first aid kit idea, and Regan just hoped she didn’t run into anyone who would insist on being involved. Had Regan seen someone grabbing the first aid for a medical emergency, she would have inserted herself into the situation. Was there a doctor on board? Before she could really spiral about another doctor seeing her look like this (and report it to the board, and get her fired for… something, and she probably should be fired regardless considering Pubik, and—” she noticed something: the suitcase. Eve had left it right in front of Regan, probably to prevent anyone from lifting the tarp right where she was hidden. And Regan hadn’t missed that Eve seemed evasive about the contents. If it was empty, why not simply say that? All Regan knew was there were no blankets. Most possible contents were not blankets.

Obviously, Regan reached out and wheeled the suitcase closer, right up to the tarp. She unzipped it. The suitcase wasn’t empty, but Regan also couldn't see completely inside it while at a crouch. Near the top, there was a large knife, sheathed. She eyed the deck and didn’t see anyone watching or Eve returning, so she took her time studying it. Part of the blade was exposed toward the hilt, and Regan was intimately familiar with what that metal appeared to be. Eve might have just been cautious. Or… 

She could hear footsteps and quickly zipped the suitcase back up, nudging it slightly away. Eve would probably know she handled it, but Regan had doubts she would turn it into a confrontation. “You’re back!” Regan said, her voice a little too light in her mouth; she wondered what the pitch was doing. “That didn’t take very long. No one gave you trouble?” Regan accepted the kit and snapped it open without even looking; it was My Medic brand and she could navigate it blind. 

The mylar of the shock blanket crinkled as Regan adjusted it around herself. These blankets weren't meant to be comfortable, and their stiffness was not ideal. Her wings kept flicking against it, causing it to fan up. "I think this will suffice," she told Eve, and suffice was definitely the word of choice. “What do you think?” She turned slightly. “Am I good to come out? Of the tarp. You are already aware—Jade gets in my head, you know. What I mean is—you know what I meant. Feck!” She smacked her forehead. “The death scene! What do I—I need to be able to process the scene. And then there’s returning home, and after that, and perhaps the necklace will work again by then, but there are no guarantees!" 

Lately, someone had been altering her scenes, sometimes removing the bodies entirely, and the threat had only made Regan more desperate to get their first and do good work. An hour might make the difference. The decedent's family could have closure, however painful... or they could have a wound that would bleed out until the day they died.

—

“My mistake, I won’t make confuse the two again. I know, we’ll get those off ASAP.” Eve replied smoothly to Regan’s response, even if Regan was the one hiding under a tarp. Next time, she’d remember to bring plastic sunglasses.  

As she walked over, Eve could not help but notice that her bag was not quite where she’d left it. Perhaps it had been a small wavebump that had made it slide over, Eve wondered dubiously. No, the point where the zips had moved, if only by a fraction of an inch. Eve might never have noticed, if she hadn’t specialised in ensuring such errors were never visible from her own rifling. She carefully cleared all expressions of accusation from her face. She shrugged at Regan’s question, her metal knee thunking against the floor as she knelt down, rummaging through the first aid kit to find the emergency blanket. It was thin, sheets of dual coloured metal glinting in the misty sunlight, but it would do. “The sailors, but I can handle them once you’re covered up,” Eve said, with a small smile, “I’m great at smoothing these kinds of things over.” 

If Regan had been looking through her bag… She couldn’t focus on that now. 

“It will definitely suffice,” Eve agreed, looking over the metal. Regan looked bizarre, but far less bizarre than many of the things running around town right now. When compared to the mimes and people dressed like they were in the 1600s, Regan did not seem that spectacular, even in her shock blanket, latex gloves, and sunglasses. She chuckled. “Yeah, you can come out of the tarp.” 

What Regan said next had her pause. Was it possible they were on their way to the same death scene? Shit. “Do you think you can work a death scene right now? It’s up to you, of course, I just imagine that will involve a lot of moving around, and this cape is not completely secure. You work with police, right? They might see something. People are being so weird about things at the moment.” And that she reached the corpse first, ideally. Eve would move it and change it so far from its original context that when it was found, it was almost impossible to connect the context, and therefore, identify the supernatural nature of the killings. It kept people for looking for answers in places where they might actually find them. It kept them safe. 

—

Regan’s every movement crinkled as she pulled the tarp up and crawled out, her wings trapped and displeased. She clapped her hands together, nitrile on nitrile, and stretched her legs. Eve had a couple of inches on her, and something had changed between them, the seabreeze chillier. Maybe when she’d unzipped that suitcase. 

Regan wanted to stand nose to nose with Eve; she flicked her eyes to Eve’s without craning her neck. “Of course I can work a scene,” Regan bristled, though she had been wondering the same thing only moments ago. And it was true she often had the attention of officers on the scene. But a death was a death, and she would not be kept away by a shattered glamour. She attempted to smooth the unsmoothable shock blanket. “They may ask questions about the blanket, but I can tell them I am using it as PPE. I can be very convincing.” That hurt her stomach. “I appreciate the help. Thank you, Eve. As always.”