#gossipsnake

The rhyming had become… almost fun, if Felix was being entirely honest with themself. There was something kind of entertaining about it, even if it was technically a curse. It didn’t seem to be hurting anything and, as a bonus, it seemed to annoy Leo enough that he’d been avoiding conversation with them. If it were only Felix cursed, they might have just… let it continue for a while. But they were pretty sure some of their friends were getting tired of it, and it didn’t seem fair to subject all of them to a life of rhyming just because Felix didn’t mind it. 

So, they’d called together a strategy session. A few of the people who were cursed — and no one who wasn’t. The last thing they wanted was to spread this thing even further, so it seemed way safer to only include people already involved. It wasn’t like someone could be cursed twice, right? 

The boiler room was a little cramped, not really meant to house this many people at once, but that was okay. They wouldn’t be in here long, hopefully. Felix had set the glass orange in the center of the room, like they all might need a reminder about why they were gathered here today. He squinted at it suspiciously from where he sat on the single office chair, elbows on his knees and hands folded and propping up their chin. 

“We need a plan of action,” Felix announced. “So far, nothing we’ve tried has had any real reaction. It can’t be broken. And once you’ve touched it, rhymes must be spoken. But every curse has to have an out. I think we all know that without a doubt. So, what should we do? I want to hear from all of you.”

—

As far as Charlie was concerned, rhyming kinda fucking rocked. He had been a lyric-writing machine as of late, speaking the words aloud and then writing them on paper if they sounded good. Yeah, Finn was annoyed any time Charlie opened his mouth to speak to him, seeing as how everything that came out of his mouth was a fucking rhyme, but that wasn’t his fault. How was he supposed to know that ugly as sin Faberge egg was cursed with a rhyme scheme curse?

So that’s how he’d ended up in Felix’s boiler room apartment after a shift at the pit, tired and a little out of sorts. Charlie looked around at the others in the room, then let out a sigh. “Well as far as I’m concerned, there’s nothing that we’ve learned. We’re stuck in a rhyme which is, as far as I’m concerned? A total fucking crime. But also, I’ve been writing a lot and I feel kinda like a robot. So I can go either way, I write music by day.” He shrugged his shoulders.

As far as Charlie was concerned, this was a gift. He was able to write his music and not have to wrack his brain for rhyme schemes when he was cursed to do it automatically. It was great! He’d written so many songs in such a short amount of time that he was allotting himself a break after all this was cleared up. 

__

Thea had found a nice patch of damp for herself, tucked against the wall of Felix’s possibly still rat-infested boiler room. For hundreds of years, humans had been rhyming (probably, Thea had done no real research regarding the topic). But the couplet itself dates back to like, the medieval era, right? (She really should’ve googled) Regardless, Thea felt connected to her poetry slinging ancestors in that she was certain she had poetry slinging ancestors. Really, could anyone confirm that she wasn’t related to William Shakespeare? The rhymes said otherwise. There was a history of art she was connected to; a history of verse and meter and kids teasing each other on the playground rhyming ‘fart’ with ‘smart’. It was all really normal, when she thought about it. 

Still, her ability to hold conversations was severely impaired and that ability was struggling before the rhyming. “What if the answer is a visual enhancer? Perhaps the answer is…more advancer than basic thinking?” Thea had been testing the bounds of the rhymes; as long as they existed—slant, couplet, alternate, ballade, enclosed, triplet, limerick, villanelle—the form didn’t matter. ‘Hickory Dickory Dock’ was as valid to her tongue as ‘I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead; I lift my lids and all is born again (I think I made you up inside my head)’. She wasn’t surprised that this had led to creativity for Charlie. “I’m pinking.” Thea brought her cold hands to her hot face; it was hard to say what she was about to but the truth was clear to her. 

“I-It might be that state of head clear, so-called.” Thea gestured to her hair (which was growing in nicely!). “That state of bald to which I was once appalled; in case any here recalled. That is to say, to our problem enthralled, perhaps we all must go bald?” 

—

The English language was complex and often confusing as a non-native speaker; and that was without being cursed to rhyme anytime one opened their mouth. Of course, as Anita had learned, the rhyming wasn’t limited to speaking in English. Spanish was a much more beautiful language and lent itself better to forced rhyming in her opinion. But in this strange grouping of Felix’s friends, Spanish was not a realistic option. Despite her usual propensity to yap she had resigned to being slightly more silent to try and avoid having to rhyme. Being forced to do anything, even something as simple as rhyming, was not something she had interest in. It had grown old and at least in silence Anita felt like she was in control. 

Both people who had spoken so far seemed strange and Anita didn’t know them much at all. When the one sitting against the wall suggested they all go bald, Anita’s face scrunched into a disgusted frown as her eyes rolled to the side in the direction of the woman. “No, we are not entertaining that for one moment; and I surely hope I am not that suggestion’s only opponent.” 

Moving somewhat suddenly from where she was standing near Felix, Anita picked up the orange egg from the table and threw it against a wall on the other side of the small boiler room with all her strength. It, of course, didn’t break. They’d tried that many times before. She sighed, walked over to pick it up in defeat and then placed it back in the center of the room where it had been. “It doesn’t break. And nothing happens when you feed it to a very large snake. I don’t know much about curses and I’m sure there are some exceptions, but the ones I do know of can last for generations.” 

—

Rhyming wasn’t the worst, but Ariadne had never been a big fan of Dr. Seuss. That was too much, and she preferred an occasional rhyme rather than constant ones. Which was probably rude to say and think, but she couldn’t help it. At least rhyming didn’t seen to cause her or anybody around her any actual harm. That would’ve been too much, and wouldn’t have been something that she could so easily deal with. Some of the nightmares she’d had to cause even wound up rhyming, which was a bit of a headache and had made for some less effective nightmares – something she’d have normally been thrilled about, because less effective meant less harm, but it also meant she wasn’t as quickly satiated, which meant she had to do more, which ended up meaning more harm.

But right now she was here to help Felix. Not to make things about herself and have some sort of a pity party about all of it.

“You’ve all got good thoughts.” Ariadne began. “I guess we’ve just gotta figure out how to connect the dots.” She winched. “I’d rather not go bald, if it’s all the same to you. I bet there’s something else that we can do!”

—

Okay, so some of the suggestions so far weren’t the best. Felix wasn’t really sure how going bald would help anything, and they rubbed a hand absently over their hair at the thought. Their mother used to shave their hair in the summers, but it had never looked quite right. Their brother always insisted it was because they had a lumpy head. Felix wasn’t sure if that was true. They hoped it wasn’t. “I’m not sure going bald is the best solution,” they said hesitantly, flashing Thea an apologetic smile. “I’m sure, between all of us, we can find another resolution!”

But, of course, throwing the orange wasn’t helping much, either. Felix winced as it hit the wall uselessly, falling back onto the ground without breaking the same way it always did. They weren’t even sure if breaking it would actually lift the curse. For all any of them knew, that would make things permanent. “We can’t afford to be pessimistic! How many of those generational curses are linguistic? I know we can find a good way out. There are some really smart people here, so I have no doubt. We know trying to break it won’t work. If we keep trying the same thing, we’ll all end up going beserk. Let’s try to think of things we haven’t done yet! I’ll start up a list so we don’t forget.” They pulled out their phone, typing in the notes app. Breaking the orange was at the top of the does not work list. They added a last resort list and typed bald beneath the heading. “Has anyone tried anything on their own? Let me know so I can put it into my phone!”

—

There was a brief moment that Charlie considered the bald thing, a hand shooting up to his hair, and then thought better of it. “I’d rather rhyme forever than be bald.” He decided, pulling a face. He fell silent for a long moment, wracking his brain for ideas of how to be free of the curse. Sure, it was useful to get songwriting done, but it was a nightmare when trying to have a serious conversation with someone and you’re acting like fucking Dr. Seuss. 

He frowned at the mention of generational curses and large snakes, looking at Anita a little funny before shaking his head and going back to the task at hand. Breaking the curse. “What happens if we dull its shine?” He asked, staring at the tacky object. “Surely if we find a way to tarnish it, we’ll all be fine.” Charlie scratched at his head, unsure if that was a solution to anything or just a way to take his frustrations out on the orange.

Had he tried something on his own to break the curse? He thought about it for a minute, looking over to Felix’s phone. “I tried rhyming all the words I could think of that would rhyme with red. Took a while, but… it didn’t work and I was filled with dread.”

__

Having an idea rejected was not a good feeling; having it rejected in rhyme was somehow worse. Thea slumped against her moldy pitch of wall. Yes, she’d also rather rhyme forever than be bald and yet, she couldn’t stop thinking that ever since her hair started coming back, her life was weird. Mostly that was because of the strange hair serum she insisted on but what if it was because she angered some baldness god by not respecting the bald? What if this curse was yet another warning from the bald man above? Thea sighed; probably not. Wait… Thea shot up, waving her arm in the air as though this were a classroom, but spoke despite anyone calling on her. She pointed to the older, very attractive woman. “Snickity snackity make, what’s this about a snake?” Thea leaned back again. “We’ve gone through it, if a snake can’t do it, maybe we quit?” But Felix was trying so hard, and no one wanted to rhyme, or be bald. 

“Yes.” Thea shrugged at Charlie’s red rhyming plight. “What a mess. Technically everything rhymes. I don’t have lactose digesting enzymes.” Thea shook her head. “No, what I mean to say—not to play—is that rhymes slant, are still rhymes you can grant. Words imaginary are not a rhyming scary. It is true, though it makes me blue, that the English language has…” She paused. “Words known as…” She paused again. “Unrhymable.” She sighed. “I thought I was able…to break rhyme with these words fabled…instead I became unstable.” Thea lifted a finger up. “Listen: purple. What rhymes with purple? Purple rhymes with purple. Circle is not a perfect rhyme for purple. Jimminy jemminy nurple, I still rhyme with purple.” Thea hugged herself, trying to soothe the pain of purple rhyming. “My point is that rhymes imperfect, are still rhymes you can perfect. And so what does it matter? What’s the point of all this chatter? For a curse that will never shatter?” 

—

Anita didn’t care for being pointed at, but she did grin softly at the suggestion that if a snake couldn’t solve this that it was perhaps unsolvable. A sentiment she, as the snake in question, wanted to agree with but also one she knew had to be untrue - because she knew that there had to be a way to stop this awful rhyming even if she wasn’t the one who was able to figure it out. “Why are you both trying to rhyme colors? Red, purple … and all the others. You seem to be making this harder on yourselves than this all needs to be. Don’t you see? You don’t need to be Shakeperian with the words that you say. They just need to rhyme at the end of the day. It is harder in English that is no doubt, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t a solution we can’t scout out.”

It wasn’t something that she would admit aloud, but there was part of Anita that wondered if this was a permanent curse. Her ability to transform into a snake, the gift of the lamia, was technically a curse. An unbreakable one that traveled through a family for generations. She didn’t really want to have a second curse upon her forcing her to rhyme until the end of time. “Maybe if we source this orange back to its origin we’ll find a solution before we become permanent jesters. Preferably before the start of the new semester. It’s one thing to have to rhyme, but I don’t wish to feel like the lorax trying to find words that rhyme with antenna, glands, and thorax.” 

_ 

Ariadne did her best to stay mostly silent. All the rhyming was giving her more than a bit of a headache, and she wasn’t always great with words to start, so suddenly rhyming perfectly was a bit unsettling. Which, again, was maybe a rude way of looking at things, but she couldn’t quite help herself. It was important to try and think of ideas though, and she scrunched her face up, trying to think of more ideas – Thea and Felix and Anita and the dude called Charlie were all having really interesting ideas, and she wanted to do her best to at least try and contribute something.

“Maybe if we ask it to stop? I don’t know if that idea’s a flop.” But it couldn’t hurt to suggest. Ariadne was always down to ask people, animals, or – objects, in this case, to do their very best. Give them the choice, even though she wasn’t sure if this orange had a thought process – conscious – but if she could come back from the dead then maybe decorative oranges could think for themselves.

“Thankfully if I have to rhyme when I do ballet – I shouldn’t have to think all day.” Ariadne nodded, “Plié rhymes at least mostly with chassé, and so on.” So that much was a relief, that she wouldn’t sound too weird during class. Though she was sure that some way would come about to make things sound weirder than they should’ve. “Uh, we could also leave it be? Go away and come back and maybe offer another plea?”

—

This really was a mess, wasn’t it? Everyone was going back and forth about their experiences, and Felix’s feelings towards the curse were souring the more they realized that their friends were probably having less fun than they were. Charlie was full of dread, Thea was rambling about unrhymable words and baldness, Anita had classes to teach, Ariadne had ballet… but that was why they were all here, weren’t they? If they banded together, they’d surely find a way to break the curse. 

Glancing up at Ariadne, they offered a small smile. “Talking to it was one of the first things I tried,” they admitted. “I asked it to let us stop rhyming, but it never replied.” They’d tried that tactic for longer than they’d like to admit, in various different ways. Begging, pleading, making empty promises to the reflective glass… nothing had really done what they were hoping for. “I’m not sure making it dirty would do much, either. It’d probably work as well as breaking it, and we tried that for so long that I had to stop to take a breather!” Breaking it seemed mean, anyway, and Felix didn’t want to be mean. They squinted at the egg, inspecting it carefully.

“Maybe it wants us to make a specific kind of rhyme,” they suggested. “Something to do with the thing itself this time? There could be some kind of secret password. Or maybe something we need to try to say backwards? Or it could just have to do with the egg. Or maybe we have to take it to the leg!” Could the leg be related? Leg did rhyme with egg, didn’t it? Except… “I guess it doesn’t look much like an egg, when you really look at it. The shape isn’t quite right, so the word doesn’t really fit.” They turned it over in their hands with a sigh. “I guess… it’s really more of an orange. I didn’t even know they sold glass oranges, but apparently they do. Isn’t that weird to think about?” They were rambling now… and unaware that those rambles no longer rhymed. Still turning the egg over, still perplexed, and just as clueless as always.

—

There were a lot of ideas being thrown around, and Charlie wasn’t sure which one would make sense. Well, the orange egg thing wasn’t lonely, so appeasing it seemed to be out. Rhyming words with difficult words to rhyme made sense. He was so lost in thought that he tuned out most of what was going on, only coming to when Felix began speaking again, going on and on about different rhymes.

Charlie stared at Felix as he rambled on, noticing that his words slipped from rhyme to just regular speech. “Wait.” Charlie pointed at Felix, shaking his head. “Nothing rhymes with Orange! Which means…” He paused a moment. “Felix, you fucking genius!” Charlie surged forward and shook his friend by the shoulders, grinning brightly. “That’s it, nothing rhymes with orange! We’re fucking free!” He placed his hands on either side of Felix’s face and nodding his head excitedly before letting go and doing a little dance now that he wasn’t stuck rhyming everything. Now Finn wouldn’t be reduced to murdering him for his rhymes! Amazing!

__

“No, technically things do rhyme with orange.” Thea said quickly, ignoring the more celebratory aspect of Charlie’s words. “There just aren’t perfect rhymes. But what’s a perfect rhyme even mean? What does it—I mean—what I was saying was…” Thea paused, staring at the group. She wasn’t rhyming. Felix wasn’t rhyming. Charlie wasn’t rhyming. Their problem was solved! And yet, watching Charlie celebrate made her feel decidedly empty. “I guess we’re free?” Her words were back to being bland; her cadence was clumsy again. She was Thea. She frowned. What rhymed with free? “Uh, I guess we have knees? Uh, tree?” It wasn’t the same—she had to think about her words, she had to bear the ugly sound of her voice echoing in her ears. She was Thea, as she had been before all this. Rhyming wasn’t so bad, when the alternative was this. Thea forced herself to perk up. “Hey! Good job, Felix!” 

Pushing herself off the ground, she swiped dirt off her legs. “Now, what do we do about the orange?” Thea pointed at it. “It is really nice, and I think it matches with the Garfield posters, but maybe we should, like, break it or something? Or put it in a case that says ‘don’t touch unless you want to rhyme’? Or, uh, something?” Thea winced at herself; she’d gotten used to the more eloquent rhyming. 

—

For as much as Anita cared for Felix, she did not much care for this group of their friends and she cared even less for their ramblings and ideas regarding fixing this curse. Clearly there were no solutions down in this boiler room. Mentally planning a swift exit before things devolved into listening to the girl suggesting they go bald, Anita had not even noticed that people stopped rhyming until the excitable one burst across the room (not that it took much to burst across a room that size) and was exclaiming that they were free. She frowned, a bit annoyed that everyone was still talking about rhyming with colors. Hadn’t they gotten past this. 

“Tons of words rhyme with orange in Spanish,” Anita muttered, mostly to herself and whomever else in the room spoke Spanish. “Naranja. Toronja. Corrija. Esponja. Puta.”  As she listed of Spanish orange rhymes the realization of what the others were talking about settled in. Had the ridiculousness of the English language just saved them from this rhyming hell? Gross. She’d cogradulate Felix on the success later, maybe, it was their fault everyone was rhyming to begin with anyone. She certainly wasn’t going to do it in front of these strangers, though. “Did you not see what happened earlier? How do you expect to break this thing? No, no. This thing must be locked away in a box of some kind, taken to a remote location, and buried a minimum of 12 feet underground. And then the key must be destroyed.” 

_ 

“Aw, well…” but it did make Ariadne smile that Felix had already tried her idea. They were really great, and the fact that they didn’t just immediately brush her idea off. Because there were plenty of people who might’ve done that. She wouldn’t judge any of them for brushing it off, because that was just how things worked, sometimes, and there wasn’t a reason to be judgmental about it right back to them. That wasn’t kind, and she wanted to be kind whenever she could.

“That’s – we’ll think of something, I know it. We’ll figure stuff out.” Except she did a double-take, listening to everyone else. They weren’t rhyming anymore. “I sort of like blue. It’s a nice color.” Ariadne shook her head. “Sorry, was – I just wanted to try it out, to see if I’d –” she smiled. “If there was still rhyming going on. “That’s true, orange is a tricky thing – word – to rhyme with.” She signed, but nodded to Thea’s idea, and Anita’s. “We could lock it up. Just to be safe?”

—

The rhyming curse was broken, it seemed, as easily as it had been cast in the first place. Touch an orange and rhyme. Speak the word ‘orange’ at the end of your sentence and free yourself. It didn’t make a lot of sense but, then, curses rarely did, did they? Felix felt a rush of… pride, maybe, as Charlie called them a genius, even though they’d had no idea what they were doing when they broke the curse. They hadn’t meant to free anyone any more than they’d meant to curse them in the first place, but maybe intentions didn’t mean much here. Maybe it was enough that they’d broken the curse at all.

There were other matters to attend to, anyway. Felix looked to the orange skeptically, shifting their weight uncertainly between their feet. If Anita wanted to bury it, maybe they could bury it. But… “I’m not sure I can dig a hole that’s 12 feet deep. Maybe we should just, um, chuck it into the ocean or something?” Did it still have its power? If they touched it again now, would the curse start anew? It was hard to say. “I can take care of it. Um, one way or another. I can make sure no one else gets cursed.”

—

Staring at the orange with a look of hesitation, Charlie frowned and crossed his arms over his chest. “Maybe you should handle it with a pair of tongs, yeah?” He suggested, looking over to Felix with a raised brow. “I mean, can’t risk touching it again, you know?” He looked to Anita, nodding his head. “I definitely think the deeper the hole the better off we are, bury that shit away and hope no one digs it back up. The ocean is an idea too, throw it off the side of a boat Titanic style.” Charlie wiggled his brows, remembering the scene where she threw the necklace into the ocean. 

“Just don’t get yourself cursed in the process of getting rid of it. Because if you curse yourself and then throw it into the ocean, you’re fucking screwed, you know?” Charlie decided it was important enough to point that out, god forbid that poor Felix be stuck rhyming for the rest of his life.

__

“What if the fish start rhyming?” Thea asked with complete and honest seriousness. “When you throw it into the ocean? I mean, and, you gotta think about—like…” She hated not rhyming. Everything sounded harsh and wrong. “…like, pollution. There’s a lot of garbage in the ocean already, it’s not nice to dump things in it.” She frowned; maybe none of them really cared about the environment. And yes the ocean was vast, but that thing totally looked like it would just float and then what? “It’s like, you know in Oops, I did it again? They have that whole part in the music video. Which, um, yeah—“ Thea gestured to Charlie. “Yeah, like Titanic. I know that’s not your point but people find things in the ocean eventually. Someone could find it.” The attractive woman was sure that it couldn’t be broken—even if Thea thought they just needed to try harder—and Thea couldn’t argue with an attractive person. It wasn’t much better to bury it either; there would be rhyming worms. 

Thea shrugged; rhyming wasn’t the worst thing to her. “I trust you, Felix. Whatever you want to do with it, that’d be good.” She agreed more with Ariadne, and the idea of locking it up. “Even if it slightly contributes to the declining environmental state of our planet.” Felix was allowed a little climate crime, she thought. They were owed that. 

—

“Oh my god!” Anita finally exclaimed, astonished and exhausted by all of the talking and discussion about what to do and how it might make the fish start rhyming. It was like the curse was lingering, trapping them into a cycle of hypotheticals and hesitations on how to destroy the stupid orange thing. She had given a perfect solution but its feasibility was questioned. Fine. But she was not going to sit around in this room any longer and have a philosophical discussion about how throwing the orange in the ocean may impact the environmental state of the planet. 

Walking up to the egg again, Anita allowed her neck, jaw, and inner digestive tract to shift into the mojave rattlesnake. She did not know these people, and typically would not have exposed herself so obviously, but none of the questioned an orange figurine making the rhyme and they were all friends of Felix’s, in the boiler room of the Grit Pit - if there were ever a space safe from hunters this was it. Opening her mouth wide, she inhaled the orange and allowed it to travel through her body where it would hopefully, finally, meet its end. 

Anita whipped her mouth after shifting back to her human appearance, scanned the room, making eye contact with each of the individuals present. “Now that that is settled, let us never speak of this again.” She paused, waiting to see if the orange in her stomach was going to make her rhyme again, “And look at that, no compulsion for poetry.” She grabbed her bag and made her way to the exit, seeing no need for her to stick around for even a second longer. 

_ 

Ariadne found herself distracted by her relief, up until a lady partially turned into a snake? Or snake-like? Which caused her to do a fairly significant double take. “Or… that. That works too.” It did work, so long as it didn’t hurt the woman who’d eaten the orange and didn’t hurt the orange, either. Even if it had caused all of them to just keep rhyming non-stop. Wynne had found it cute, maybe even charming, but it had been a bit dizzying.

“I won’t say anything about that, I promise.” Ariadne held up her hand, Girl Scout salute and all.

“I know I could use a rootbeer float, if anybody wants to come along?” She turned to leave. “Felix, if you want, we can go shopping for decor together sometime.” Ariadne nervously shifted from the ball of one foot to the other, wishing she had on shoes that were more flexible, desperately wishing to go by her dance studio. “But we did it. That – good job, everyone!” She winced at herself.

—

Thea made a very good point. What about the environmental impact of a cursed glass orange sitting on the bottom of the ocean floor? Felix grappled with the lack of a perfect solution, heart stuttering uncertainly as they tried to come up with some magical answer that might resolve the issue with no kind of negative impact. Burying it in the dirt might find someone else digging it up, keeping it locked away always ran the risk of it being found. What options were available to them? How could they get rid of a thing that didn’t seem to be able to be destroyed without risking someone, somewhere finding it and using it for some kind of poetic evil? 

Their heart was pounding with the pressure, panic threatening to suffocate them, when Anita stepped forward. She made a quick beeline for the orange, and — she ate it. Felix blinked, watching it disappear down her throat. She spoke, not in rhyme, and Felix blinked again. The orange was gone. No one was cursed. This was the closest thing to a best-case scenario they’d gotten in a while, wasn’t it?

Charitable really wasn’t a word that was often used to describe Anita. She liked to see herself as fairly charitable, though. After all, she could kill far more humans than she actually did. Instead, she showed relative restraint. Quite charitable. Beyond that, however, she typically had no interest in helping strangers. There had been something about the very depressing way in which this Kaden guy asked for tips on how to make his couch more comfortable to sleep on that sparked the slightest sliver of kindness within herself. While the wheels had not been set in motion yet, she had already planned to give her roommate access to one of the guest rooms to redesign as they saw fit. It seemed only fair, given how long they had been living together and how little of the home was their own space. 

So, it was good timing that this poor sad stranger needed a bed and that Anita seemed to read his obvious cry for help while feeling particularly generous. She had sent him her home address, figuring that if he was a weirdo who wanted to kill her she could just kill him first. It had been a dreary rainy day and Anita wasn’t about to just wait around for this stranger to arrive so she decided to spend the day cleaning and rearranging her terrariums. As she usually did when she was home alone - she did so in her true form, in her lamia form. 

This was probably a stupid idea. Kaden had a lot of those lately. He was already exhausted just from getting in his fucking truck and driving over to the address she gave him. And he hadn’t even looked at that mattress, let alone tried to haul it.

Putain de merde, if he popped a stitch Regan was going to scream. He had a feeling that she would just know somehow the second it happened and he’d hear it all the way from across town. 

Well, guess he’d have to try and be some kind of careful. He grimaced as he swung out of his truck, his hand clutching his side as he stood up. He took a deep breath, steadied himself. He could manage this. He wasn’t even dizzy by the time he made it to the door. This was fine.

He was about to knock on the door, but his hand hovered, hesitating as he felt a shiver down his spine. Putain de merde. A shifter was nearby, and if he had to guess, they were inside the house, considering he only picked up on it standing there on the porch. Kaden considered turning around and going home, he wasn’t sure he was prepared to potentially come face to face with the werewolf who did this to him on the off chance that was who offered him the mattress. No, that was stupid. It would be alright, he’d just get the mattress and leave. He knocked on the door and waited to see who was going to greet him once it opened. 

The knock came at a perfect moment, as Anita had just finished feeding one of the many snakes she had living in her home. Sure, they were small and insignificant, but the reptiles always seemed to be able to sense her familiarity and they were far better companions than the yappy dog her roommate let run around the house. Whoever was at her door was human, the red heat of their body temperature certainly confirmed that. Quickly shifting back to a socially acceptable appearance and throwing on a t-shirt and jeans, she made her way through the sprawling mansion and downstairs. 

As she pulled the door open, Anita took in the tall scruffy man before her who she presumed to be Kaden, here for the mattress. He looked worn and a bit distraught. That tracked, given what little information she knew about the man. “Honestly, you look exactly like the kind of guy who lives in a cabin without a mattress. Kudos for accurate self-advertising.” Leaving the door open behind her, Anita took a few steps into her house inviting him inside without saying the words. 

“It doesn’t come with the bedding. You don’t need the bedding, do you?” Anita genuinely could not have cared less about the bedding, but she felt that she needed to keep talking and she was not about to be a “good host” and offer to procure a beverage for him. 

His senses faded as he waited, all but gone when the door swung open. Kaden was starting to think he was imagining it. “Thanks,” he said flatly as he followed her inside. He winced as he started walking, hoping she didn’t see the pain written all over his face. She was judgemental enough as it was. And it had been about ten seconds. “It’s my cousins’ cabin so they got dibs on the mattresses.” He had a feeling none of it mattered to her. The house was huge, elaborate. She was clearly not the kind of person who would feel at home in the cabin even with a top of the line bed to sleep in. Her loss, as far as he was concerned.

“I figured,” he added, a few steps behind her despite his long legs. Stupid injury slowing him down. “I have a feeling we have different taste in bedding, anyway.” Honestly, he’d be fine sleeping on a bare mattress with no damn bedding of any sort. Which is why he usually went for the cheapest shit he could find at the store. It was also exactly what he planned to do once he had the mattress at home. “So is it upstairs or downstairs?” 

Cousins, plural. It was interesting, given his accent Anita wondered if that was what brought him to town. It wasn’t interesting enough, however, for her to actually ask him about it. She really had no desire to engage in banal small talk. If he was content living in a cabin with multiple cousins and, to date, no bed, then that was his business. 

Giving him a once over, Anita’s mouth turned to a slight frown and she shrugged, “You’re probably right about that.” If he weren't a human man perhaps she would have been more cordial, but he fell into her least favorite category of person. Absent an empty stomach - she really saw no need or use for him. “It’s not up or down, it’s on this level,” she responded, figuring that by downstairs he meant the basement. While she had noticed his soft grunts and obvious pain, Anita had been planning on ignoring it until she realized that it likely meant he would need assistance carrying the mattress. She sighed softly, “I take it neither of your cousins were free to help with mattress pick-up?” 

Kaden tried not to look relieved when she said the mattress was on that level. Stairs only made the pain that much worse. Not that he wasn’t used to working past pain. Hell, that was probably half of hunter training. If not the majority. 

“Good. Lead the way,” he said, gesturing as if he was just trying to take his time following rather than the truth of the matter which was that it hurt to move. “Yeah well someone had to go to work since I’m on leave at the moment,” he said with a shrug. Truth was he didn’t ask because he knew Andy would give him that look. The one that said “are you fucking kidding me you dumbass?” Which would be fair enough. Still, he wanted the damn mattress and he got the feeling Anita wasn’t the type to make room in her schedule for him or go out of her way to wait for him to pick it up in a week or two. 

He glanced around as they walked (well, he limped) and noticed the decorations around the place. Skulls and bones lining shelves and various containers of different bugs. Interesting choice of decor. “Funny, I know someone who has a very similar taste in interior design. She works in the morgue.” 

“Because you’ve injured yourself?” Anita wondered what type of job he did that prevented him from working while injured. It didn’t really narrow things down at all, since it essentially just ruled out office jobs. He seemed like the kind of person who worked with their hands, and not in a typing on a keyboard all day way. “Enough to not be able to work, but not so badly that you cannot transport a mattress.” It wasn’t really a question but she did find it interesting. He was either stubborn or stupid. 

As they walked through the living room and down the hallway towards the spare bedroom, Anita toyed with the idea of just eating him. But then she recalled that her conversation online with him was public and would likely draw unwanted attention. “If you’re talking about the deeply dark and depressing decor and art… that’s my roommates.” She turned her head back as he mentioned the morgue, however, her interest suddenly piqued. Surely there were multiple people who worked at the local morgue, but she wondered if he knew the same very mysterious medical examiner that she did. “Quite an interesting place to work, I’m sure. What does your friend do there?” 

“Very observant.” Kaden tried to keep the sarcasm to a minimum but it was hard to curb it entirely. “I’m animal control,” he added. “Pretty sure moving a mattress is a lot less dangerous than what I encounter daily on the job.” While that was true, that didn’t mean this was going to be easy. In fact, he had a feeling this was probably more than he could handle. Not that it was stopping him.

“Is it? Who’s your roommate?” He asked, brow raised. Maybe she was roommates with Regan? No, that didn’t seem right. Though it was macabre, it was a slightly different sort. Also he couldn’t imagine Regan trying to live with anyone. Not with how elusive she was. “Medical examiner,” he replied. “She helped patch me up, actually.” Why did he share that? Putain. There wasn’t any fucking reason to open the door to any real conversation here. He could tell she wasn’t in the mood.

“I am a scientist. We are known for our keen observational skills.” The response was laced with just slightly more sarcasm than the initial statement he had made. Though upon finishing her sentence, Anita tried to recall if she had mentioned her occupation in their conversations or if he seemed to be the type to google the person he was picking up a mattress from. She didn’t spend much thought on it, as her mind was now preoccupied with what he did for a living. “Animal control?” She didn’t quite know how she felt about that job. Sure, some animals needed to be controlled… but in a town like this one it made her wonder exactly what sort of animals he was in the business of trying to control. “Get too close to a mama bear or something?” 

“Oh, I’m sure you don’t know them. They’re quite aloof usually - runs an art gallery downtown.” Anita normally wasn’t cagey about disclosing who her roommate was but she didn’t see the need in giving him any more information than that. While she hadn’t met the beautifully macabre medical examiner she had been speaking to online in person yet, Anita knew enough to think that she and Kaden were talking about the same one. It was curious though, as Regan didn’t exactly seem like the type to offer to patch up injured animal control workers - or, by her own assertions, have friends. “Think I might know her as well. Unless this town has two medical examiners with … similar taste in interior design.” 

As they neared the end of the hallway, Anita turned to open one of the tall wooden doors. The guest room was modest, compared to the rest of the home, but still well decorated. It lacked any of the more unique art and trinkets from the main house, instead decorated with bright Mexican artwork and warm tones. If it had been used twice in the three years since the home was built that would be a lot. “So, this is it.” 

“Something like that,” Kaden said with a shrug. Ow. Mistake. He’d have to remember to shrug with the other shoulder, keep from tugging at the sutures. “I was trying to contain a large, aggressive dog. I tranqed it but not fast enough.” Close enough to the truth, right? “Dog’s fine, by the way.” Alright, he wasn’t sure of that. He had no idea what happened to the werewolf in question, but he assumed it was alright. Shit. Maybe he should go out and check the area, just to be sure. Not like he could eavesdrop at the 3 daggers to try and figure it out. No one was going to brag about taking down a drugged werewolf. They weren’t likely to commit any details about its appearance to memory, either. They would only care if it was dead. 

“Runs an art gallery?” Kaden raised a brow. There was exactly one of those that he had been to in town. Not that it was a big town, but it would be an interesting coincidence. “Is it the one with the good cheese? I think, uh, what was it, MuertArte?” It felt strange now to be in Metzli’s house without having known it. Now that she said it, though, it made sense. He could see some of the similarities in taste of some of the decor to that of the gallery’s, not that he could describe any of it. More got the same feeling if anything. “I know them. Not well but helped them get an aiva– I mean, a rooster out of the gallery at one of their openings.” Granted that made it clear enough that her roommate was decidedly not Regan. “Sounds like the same one. Dr. Kavanagh. She’s interesting, I’ll say that much.” She was certainly curious. There was no reason for him to want to pry into her secrets and foster any sort of relationship there, not when she pushed him away any time he hit a nerve, but something kept drawing him in. 

And there it was. The mattress in question. The room was bright and inviting. Not his style (which he didn’t have much of, admittedly), but he wouldn’t hate staying there. He smiled as he noticed one of the blankets thrown over a chair in a corner of the room. “My, uh…” Putain, he did it again. He didn’t know if he should just say friend or what. What exactly was Monty to him? He didn’t know and he wasn’t going to figure that out now standing in this guest room to pick up a fucking mattress. This shit was too complicated. “Monty, he has a saddle blanket for his horse that looks just like that.” 

Kaden pulled his arm across his chest and stretched his shoulder before swapping to the other. He rolled his shoulders back, stretched his neck, and tried to prepare himself for what would normally be an incredibly simple task. He decided to start by pushing the mattress off the bed frame. Bending down to reach it hurt like a bitch, but Kaden was determined to just grit his teeth and bear it. It’s not like he had to fight for his life while injured, he just had to carry a fucking mattress. 

Large aggressive dog. It could go either way, Anita figured, as there was plenty of natural and supernatural wildlife around town and she couldn’t quite recall if there had been a full moon recently. “Oh, well thank goodness.” She didn’t want to come across as a total ass, so she quickly added, “That you’re both okay, relatively speaking.” Even if it had just been a wild dog, Anita would always root for the animal over the human trying to control it. 

It wasn’t all that surprising that he could identify the art gallery - there weren’t many in town - but it was interesting that he claimed to know Metzli. Helped them… get rid of a rooster? Anita wasn’t sure what to make of that statement. If she knew her roommate, which she liked to think she did, she couldn’t really imagine that they would have needed assistance dealing with a simple rooster. Did he know more about them? Did he know what they were?  “Oh? Can’t say I can speak to the quality of cheese they offer at their openings, but yes, that’s them. I’m sure they were quite thankful for your assistance with … the rooster.” 

It made him knowing Regan more compelling as well. Anita had her suspicions about the very dedicated medical examiner, but those were things she would figure out for herself whenever they finally met - which she was sure would happen. “She was pretty adamant that she didn’t have time for friends. Guess you’re a lucky exception.” Why was he an exception? That was beyond her. Or maybe he wasn’t a friend, and she just felt bad that he had gotten attacked. Which, again, struck Anita as odd. “No need to go to a doctor with an on-the-job injury when you’ve got a friend who’s medically trained, I suppose.” 

While Anita was, admittedly, far more curious as to who this man was and how involved he was in her community than she was when he first arrived, she still had no desire to let this interaction drag out too long. After they stepped into the guest room she began to take off the decorative pillows and pull down the blankets and sheets that were still on the bed. “Your Monty?” A small smirk spread across her lips. That was a curious way to put it. Her gaze moved towards the hand crafted wool striped blanket that she had ordered from a local artisan back in Mexico. “Is your Monty a vaquero?” She paused, then translated, “Is he a cowboy? Back home a lot of them use these blankets for their saddles. They’re durable.” 

Well, warm was definitely not a word that Kaden would use to describe her, he’d say that much. She wasn’t hostile, though, and pleasant enough, clearly kept decent company, so that was probably the least he could ask for. “It was comte, good shit.” He was about to mention that they thanked him by giving him some extra blocks but decided against it. “I actually asked them if they’d help teach me Spanish the other day. I offered to help them with French. Seemed fair enough.” Something told him that he wasn’t about to see Anita a whole lot if he ended up over here again. Didn’t seem like he was to her taste. 

Kaden was familiar with Regan’s insistence that she didn’t have friends nor wanted them. Something he questioned from the get go. Not that not having friends, that part seemed to hold true, but the not wanting them? Didn’t buy it. “No idea if she’d call me a friend or not. But we keep meeting by circumstances.” Some of those circumstances involved mime mushrooms, unfortunately. He’d prefer getting sutures any day of the week. “Plus, she yelled at me to go to a doctor so not like she could really say no when I turned up at the morgue.

As Kaden started to help take off the bedding, he stopped short and his face flushed bright red. Shit. “My– uh, no. He’s not– That’s not– I didn’t mean– I misspoke, alright.” He had to turn away from her, he culdn’t handle how fucking warm his cheeks had gotten. Fucking hell. “Uh, anyway, he is, yeah. Owns a dairy farm out in Gatlin Fields.” Maybe if he rubbed his cheeks a little with the inside of his arm casually, they’d fucking quit betraying him. “Makes sense. Don’t know if you have the same back home, but he’s from Mexico.” That would explain the overlap in aesthetic, now that he thought about it. Probably should have been obvious from the get go.  

“They’re a fairly quick learner, but I can’t really speak to their ability to teach. I’ve had to help them out with English a lot over the years. Didn’t realize they wanted to learn French.” When Anita first moved to town and welcomed Metzli into her home there weren’t many others who came by with any amount of frequency. Lately, however, her roommate was becoming shockingly social and the number of strangers that became regular guests had drastically increased. Anita wondered if he was going to be added to that list… she hoped not. 

“Didn’t realize animal control and a medical examiner had so many circumstances for interaction. Way she made it sound, she spends the bulk of her time in the morgue.” It was promising, however, that it seemed that Anita may have the opportunity to get close to Regan if the right circumstances kept arising. Or if a very crafty lamia carefully and intentionally created circumstances for interaction. She’d keep that idea in the back of her head. “Well, in fairness, I’m sure she’s not exactly used to bodies showing up at the morgue that can actually ask for help.”

Anita shrugged as she continued to strip the sheets from the bed, tossing them in a somewhat neat pile in the corner of the room. “You don’t have to be embarrassed to like this Monty. If you’re talking, dating, fucking, whatever… I don’t know him and I hardly know you, so I truly don’t care about whatever your dynamic is.” She straightened her top out as she stood up after tossing the last piece of bedding off the mattress. “How’d you meet? Animal control call for a missing cow or something?” Not that she would do so herself since there were far more delicious thighs in town to eat, but she had heard that livestock often went missing in town. Natural and stationary prey for the world of predators that surrounded them. “I’m also from Mexico, so that is what I meant when I said back home.” 

Without waiting to see if he was going to make a pathetic attempt, given his injured state, to help move the mattress, Anita began to push it off the bed frame and stand it up on its side. It wasn’t particularly heavy, and if need-be she knew that she could get it out to his truck by herself even without use of her lamia strength. “Hopefully your cousins will be home to help you get this back out of the truck later.” 

“Well, worst that happens is that it doesn’t work out.” Kaden knew that Metzli was still learning English and that they didn’t seem like the most talkative person. Still, there was something that made him feel like they were the right person to ask. Maybe it was because he figured that they’d be blunt, but that they wouldn’t judge him for making stupid mistakes. At least not in any real, harsh manner. He could be completely wrong and maybe he was an idiot for reaching out but it was worth a shot. “But yeah, they said their partner speaks French and that’s why they were trying to learn it. So, yeah, it’s entirely possible we’ll end up just speaking to each other in our native languages back and forth and not have a fucking clue what the other is saying.” At least there would be good cheese.

“An unusually aggressive vulture attacked the morgue once. And she managed to find a dead fox in the woods that seemed like it had an usual death. She helped me locate it again to examine it.” Not that they ever got to examine the fox or learn what had killed the animal. They were a little preoccupied with the effects of the fucking mushrooms instead. “She said as much. Did the sutures anyway so pretty sure I made out alright in the end.”

Kaden sighed. She had a fucking point. Why did he care if she cared? Right, he didn’t. And he definitely hadn’t blushed, either. “Fine. You caught me. Just dating. I think.” He never knew how to define shit and he sure as shit didn’t want to ask or talk about it. Labeling things or committing to shit always made him want to twist away and make a break for it. There was something too vulnerable to it all, the possibility of getting hurt too close to reality. “Close, funny enough. Someone dropped a horse off at the animal shelter and I knew he had a farm. I called, he came to take the horse, I went there to help, left with a date. Definitely had worse days on the job.” 

Yeah, should have guessed she’d go ahead and start moving the mattress without him. It was clear Anita wanted this done as quickly as possible and the way to achieve that was definitely not by letting him struggle on his own. Kaden went to grab one side of the mattress, figuring they could probably move it fast enough together. It was more awkward than heavy, anyway. “Me too. At least hope it doesn’t rain long enough for them to help bring it inside.” Not that there were storm clouds in the sky but, knowing his luck, well, it was a possibility. 

Off the top of her head, Anita could think of several worse outcomes than it simply not working out. It wasn’t that she didn’t think Metzli couldn't handle this guy on their own if push came to shove, but there was a strange protective instinct that came over her. It wasn’t a feeling she was particularly familiar with, but it almost made her wish that their tutoring sessions did take place at the house, that way she could at least make sure nothing strange happened. “Well, that is certainly an option. We speak the same tongue and I don’t understand what they are saying sometimes.” She offered it up as a joke, unsure if the tension she felt was real or just in her head. 

“I don’t date, so I am certainly not an expert on it. But I think you typically should know whether or not you are dating someone else.” It was moments like these that Anita was glad she didn’t let herself get tangled up in relationships, they always seemed to bring out a weird side in people. “Sounds like you seem to make out impeccably well on the job. Capture a rooster, get a Spanish tutor. Deal with a vulture, get an on-call trauma surgeon. Find a stray horse, get a date.” It was actually quite impressive. He was either blessed with dumb luck, or perhaps he had a natural charm that was simply lost on Anita. 

It was admirable how he came to offer assistance moving the mattress. While it was unnecessary, Anita opted to let him help instead of shooing him away. With her holding the bulk of the weight, she started leading them out of the guest room and back down the hallway toward the front door. “Didn’t even think about it before… but you’re gonna just put this down on the floor of the cabin, aren’t you?” Should she offer the bedframe to him as well? That seemed unnecessary nor did she really think he would accept it. Besides, a mattress on the floor had to be better than a lumpy couch anyway. 

Kaden shrugged. “If nothing else, I know they’ll bring good cheese. So I might not learn a damn thing but I’ll be well fed.” He wasn’t usually one to stick to the silver lining bullshit but in this instance, he was strangely positive. Maybe it was because he knew there would be a dog involved in addition to the good cheese. 

“Me either. Usually,” he replied. “Relationships and labels and all that shit are too fucking complicated. So I don’t know what the hell to call it.” Whether that was because of ignorance or him ignoring the issue of labeling shit or asking any questions about it was up for debate. He was pretty damn fine with how things were at the moment, no need to make it into a big deal or make shit weird. Interesting that she had a point about his luck on the job, considering. Granted, only one of those instances actually involved an animal and not a monster but the outcome was the same he supposed. “Yeah, guess that’s my reward for losing a pound of flesh or whatever. So far it’s a decent trade but we’ll see what I get for the next brush with death.” 

“For now,” he told her as they walked the mattress through the house. “But I’ve got a bed frame coming.” He didn’t feel like explaining that Monty was making it. He’d embarrassed himself enough already. When they were halfway to the door, Kaden’s brows furrowed. The brief interlude of quiet spurred his memory. His hunter senses went off just as he got there. And then nothing. Strange. If she was a shifter, he should still feel it. But there was no one else where.  

…Putain, should he be worried about a dead body in the house? Was there a shifter here that she offed? She could be lying about the macabre decorations being solely Metzli’s. 

“Not knowing what he’d call it is the kind of thing that’s usually solved with a conversation, I think.” Anita wasn’t sure why she was continuing to engage with the relationship conversation. Maybe it was because she did admittedly find it interesting when someone claimed to ‘not be a relationship person’ and then found themselves intertwined in what seemed like some complicated dynamic. That seemed to be something that happened regularly yet something she had personally managed to avoid. “But again, I don’t really care about your dynamic with your vaquero.” 

“Capturing a runaway rooster constitutes a brush with death to you?” Either he was being facetious or this rooster story had more to it than simply being a rooster. She’d have to ask Metzli about that. As they got towards the door, Anita felt a soft shift in his demeanor. Without making it obvious, she scanned the room for something out of place that might cause concern to a human. There didn’t appear to be any - Anita didn’t keep things like that out in the open. Maybe he was just realizing how sad his little cabin was in comparison to her own home. 

Not wanting this interaction to linger on much longer, Anita simply proceeded towards the front door, setting the end of the mattress down for a moment to swing open up the large wooden door. “I can take it the rest of the way to your vehicle, if you want. Don’t want you to bust open those stitches and bleed all over my walkway. Blood is hard to get out of concrete.” Without waiting for his response, she began to proceed down the front steps and towards the truck parked in her driveway. 

“Yeah, yeah. What happened to ‘I don’t date, I’m not an expert, I don’t care,’ huh?” Kaden shot her a look, but it didn’t help him avoid blushing when she, once again, called Monty ‘his vaquero.’ Putain de merde. They had to get this mattress in the damn truck and wrap this shit up soon as they could. He was having enough trouble keeping his foot out of his mouth and he didn’t anticipate it getting any better the longer he stayed there. 

Kaden rolled his eyes. “Not the rooster incident, the one with the wer–” Fuck. Kaden let go of the mattress and his hands flew to his side as he ‘doubled over’ in pain. He was sure it was very convincing. Definitely covered up the slip of tongue. “Like I was saying, the incident with the dog. That did this,” he said, pointing to the injury. And of course, she was still walking ahead with the mattress in hand. Great. Good to know he wasn’t helping even a little. He sighed and dragged after her, no longer attempting the rouse. 

“Go for it,” he replied. And he wasn’t surprised that she was out the door and tossing the mattress into his truck before he said a word. At least the feeling was mutual that this interaction had run its course. And then some. Kaden hobbled over to the truck and helped direct the mattress into the bed of the vehicle, angling it to rest against the side. He got to work hooking the tie-down straps to the truck and tossing them over the mattress to pull across to the other side. 

The slip of the tongue did not go unnoticed by Anita. She had her suspicions about what ‘wer-’ word he was going to say that miraculously got replaced by ‘dog’. It certainly was not the time or the place to address those suspicions, however. An animal control officer throwing around the start of the word werewolf was enough for her to trust her gut instinct on not trusting him. His apparent connections to both her roommate and the weird yet compelling medical examiner were enough for her to not swallow him whole on the spot. “Dogs can be quite aggressive, and I’m sure you come across the most aggressive of them in your line of work.”  

Him releasing his grip on the mattress actually made it easier for Anita to navigate it into the bed of his pickup truck. After she tossed it in the back she wondered if they should have put some sort of tarp down first - it wasn’t exceptionally clean back there. Oh well. Content with her contribution to the efforts she let him take lead on tying the mattress down.