#hotmessmuses

He stood, closing up the book he had just finished and strolling over to the bookshelf to deposit it. He put it in place, right next to the rest of his boring old books about law and government, and pulled out another, much older, book. It was bound in leather with thick parchment pages and the text was in  form of English much older than the 20th century. There were pages that had been flipped to so many times, they automatically turned when he cracked open the book in his hands. “This is one of the few things I have from my time in the colony. It’s a religious text, if you can believe I would keep something like that. See here, it explains how to destroy revenants, vampires, the undead. Creatures like me.” He turned the book around; a crude drawing showed a skull lying in an unmarked grave, no body to be found. “When you separate the head from the body, it’s impossible for the undead to put themselves back together. Stab me and the wound will close. But cut my head off? Do that and I’m on a one way trip to an eternal bonfire.”

She had serious options to think about here. She could refuse to play along with Blair’s demands and possibly end up dead, but what would happen to Vidar if she wasn’t there to take care of him and all of his needs? In the end she made the quick decision that it was simpler to play along for now rather than acting out in defiance and ended up sliced to pieces. “Okay. Okay, I’m listening.” she said, crouching slightly with her hands up in a defensive gesture. “J-j-just please, no matter what, don’t hurt my son. If you’re really his f-f-friend, you wouldn’t want him to feel pain, would you? We’ll work together. A d-deal, like you said. Let’s just talk about it.”

The word ‘torture’ alone made her stomach sink. First she thought this was just a game, but she was starting to think otherwise. “Honey, please...” she said, voice strained and weak. She pleaded to him, eyes welling up with tears and black lipstick smeared on one side of her lips. Her eyes glanced to the rat, staring at the creature and trying to figure out what it was for. Was it rabid? Was it feral? “What...what are you going to do?”

He hissed with pain as the needle was driven into him, gritting his teeth and trying so hard not to yell as it was pushed deep into his skin through flesh and muscle. It was as if all of the nerves in his body centered on that one spot. He could barely get his thoughts together enough to respond, but he tried his best. “I just--” he gasped out the words, quickly gritting his teeth once more as the needle was pushed further. “I just wanted--I wanted to know we were sure!” Sure, apparently, wasn’t discovered for a good several years of living together and being romantically involved. “I was--I was worried, alright?! Worried for selfish reasons! But--but we’ll fix it. We’ll get married. Soon. It’ll be perfect. Just take the needles out, for God’s sake!”

He sat down, not too close to Callisto to give them their space, but not too far away either. He was looking forward to getting some of these questions out of the way. “Well, I’ll admit, I had wondered about that briefly, but...no, that’s silly.” he said with the tiniest grin, trying to keep a lightness about him. “I guess, first, I’d like to ask, did you ever plan on telling me? I mean, even if I was just a human. I understand you probably don’t tell humans this kind of thing very often though.” He really didn’t blame them at all if they decided they never wanted him to know, but good friends often shared secrets with one another when they really felt trust. “What about Io? Is Io just like you?”

“Oh, come on, this is his culture! He should embrace it! I’m trying to learn, just like any good foreigner should!” he settled down at last, throwing an arm around her shoulder. “Okay, okay, I won’t go looking for a gold suit. But if I did, I’d look pretty damn good, just warning you. I promise not to chase your brother away, but that just means you’ll be the only one to see my amazing dancing.” He snapped his fingers and weaved back and forth in the dumbest little boogie possible. “Face it, my dancing is irresistible.”

Donovan could smell a hint of something spicy as soon as Indigo grew close to them; in no time, that smell was all around as he marked his territory and erased away the basic scent of soap that Donny seemed to always carry when they weren’t wearing cologne. It did smell incredible, like a trip past a coffee shop on a fall day. “Great, now I stink too!” Donny laughed. “I’m teasin’. You do smell good. I’d take more baths if I ever got the patience to, it’s not that I don’t like baths. I just don’t relax as much as I probably should.” At least they were honest with themselves and could admit that they didn’t exactly rest the way other people did. They were always in the middle of something, and when they did decide to relax, it was always in front of the television or a movie or a computer screen. It probably wouldn’t hurt to settle down in a bathtub for once in their life. Who knows, it might even help calm their frustrations. “If you like it, it must be good, right?”

“I would be distracted all day.” Anton admitted, brushing hair out of Eirik’s eyes only to watch it fall back in place again. “I can’t imagine anyone would kick you out of the troupe though. I mean, we need our makeup and you’re the best in town, so if folks like Richard don’t like it, they can...shove it!” It was odd for Anton to say anything somewhat confrontational, and hearing aggressive words come out of his mouth was very strange and somewhat silly to hear. “But if the day goes by and I get absolutely nothing done, I’m blaming it on your beauty.”