#wickedswriting

Rory couldn’t remember the last time she’d gotten any kind of snail mail that wasn’t junk. Most of what she got at Mickey’s place included the words or current resident in the address, so checking the mail was usually less a process of actually opening envelopes and more a process of walking from the box to the dumpster and dumping all the junk inside. Who even sent mail anymore? It was weird. 

Today, though, an envelope caught her eye. It was bright pink, with glitter on it. Not the kind of thing someone would splurge on just to send someone an advertisement or credit card application, probably. Her name was handwritten on the front, too, in large, swooping letters. Rory’s brow furrowed as she stood beside the dumpster, half-tempted to toss the envelop by habit if nothing else. But… there was no harm in opening it, right?

She broke the seal on the envelope, ripping it open and pulling out a small piece of cardstock. The letters looked to have been written out carefully in gel pen. Rory snorted. “Cordially invited to appear as a judge… what the fuck is this?” She had not signed up to judge any kind of drag show, which was what the letter seemed to be inviting her to. “What a fucking scam,” she snorted. She moved back towards the dumpster, lifting her hand up to drop the letter inside. 

And then, she blinked, and the world around her changed. There was no dumpster. There was no crummy apartment building, no block of metal mailboxes, no half melted snow piled in the shade. Instead, there was a stage, and a table in front of her. “What —”

“Oh, good, you’re right on time!” A man exclaimed, clapping his hands together. “The hair’s a mess, but we can work with this!”

“What the fuck,” Rory said flatly, gaping. This fucking town. 

—

Receiving fan mail wasn’t a first for Kieran. It had happened less and less as technology took over, but if DMs were allowed to be counted as fan mail then he was still drowning in it. But an actual letter, in person? It had been a while. It was a bit tacky, screaming for attention in all the wrong ways - if the envelope had been a person, it would have been one of all flash and no substance, heels too high, dress too colorful, cleavage cut too low and jewelry loud and noisy. Glitter was only meant for special occasions, like New Years or Halloween. Still, curiosity was an inherent trait of Kieran’s and there was no universe in which he didn’t open an envelope with his name carefully written on the front, even if the glitter felt gross under his fingertips. 

Alright, so not fan mail. An… invitation? Not surprising that Kieran would receive an invitation, his presence was basically what determined an event as mediocre or grand, but rather just surprising that it was mailed. Much like carefully handwritten praise and pleading for a chance, mailed invitations had mostly gone out of style except for shit like ugh, weddings. Luckily, this wasn’t an invitation to any wedding but to appear as a judge. Kieran did like judging things… As he curiously flipped the card, looking for further information on this supposed drag event, everything switched around. Now Kieran was sure (fine, 95% sure) that he hadn’t ingested anything that could have caused this. No, this was absolutely real - his apartment was gone and in its stead, what seemed to be a backstage dressing room. Kieran had dabbled in modeling, the setting was familiar to him. 

In front of one of the lightbulb studded mirrors, a young woman was being forced into a chair, some anxious stylist starting to work at her messy hair. Good, it was doing nothing for her at the moment. “Welcome!” A stranger with a headset and a clipboard greeted him, almost as if she had materialized out of thin air, and Kieran blinked. They didn’t bother waiting for a response, leading the faun over to the seat next to the annoyed looking woman. “Just a bit of powder, otherwise you are perfectly camera ready,” they informed, as if he didn’t already know. He’d been dressed for a night out, the sheer tank underneath the matching patterned dark jacket and trousers suiting him perfectly, but the fit was apparently going to get its mileage here in this… had Kieran been imagining it or had the word ‘worm’ appeared on the invitation? 

“You wouldn’t happen to know what’s going on?” Kieran asked the girl next to him, outwardly unfazed by these shenanigans and the stranger starting to pat his face down with some setting powder. As long as no one was trying to stick an iron knife in him, he’d go along - until he got bored, at least. 

—

It seemed Rory wasn’t the only one who was thrust into this weird ass situation. A man appeared seemingly out of thin air, leaving Rory to wonder if that was what she had looked like when she’d gone from standing outside her building to standing in some weird dressing room. This guy seemed willing to take the whole thing in stride, which lead Rory to wonder if he was a long-term resident of this weird ass town. Was this the kind of thing that happened often in Wicked’s Rest? Should she start planning her day around the possibility of being teleported to the backstage of some kind of drag show?

Someone was combing her hair, and Rory swatted at them irritably. She was reminded of being a kid, her mother trying desperately to tame her curls with a yank of her brush. This stylist was a lot gentler than her mom had been, but Rory wasn’t really in the mood for this. 

The man next to her asked if she knew what was going on, and Rory turned her head towards him, the stylist momentarily forgotten. “I have no fucking idea,” she griped, wincing as the person in charge of her hair took her distraction as an opportunity to yank the comb through.

“Sorry!” The stylist apologized. “It’s very thick.”

“Yeah, no shit,” Rory grumbled in response. “Can you tell us what the fuck this is supposed to be?”

The stylist blinked. “Oh! Didn’t you read the invitation?” Rory responded with a blank look. “It’s WormPaul’s Drag Race!”

—

It was cute, the woman’s frustration at the attempts to tame her hair. She clearly didn’t have the proper products to keep her hair in check and perhaps, depending on how this - whatever it was - went, Kieran might generously offer his advice later on. She seemed to possess both bark and bite and having those kinds of people on your good side could always come in handy down the line. Even just for now, in this far away place neither of them really knew. Although perhaps she was all spice and no knowledge… At least good enough to throw into the line of fire in case a threat presented itself. 

The stylist provided some further semblance of explanation, although her words left Kieran even more confused than before. Drag, of course, he was familiar with. Personally, he was fine dancing on the line of androgyny when it came to style choices and not straying too far into the realm of wigs and false eyebrows but it was an art form, a fashion movement, he appreciated all the same. No, what confused him was… well, every other word in that sentence. Most noticeably, the ‘worm’ part, but ‘race’ didn’t sound all that intriguing to the faun, either, no matter that he could go quite fast on his hooves if he so pleased. 

“Worm?” Kieran replied back, waving away the person picking at a single stray strand of hair and trying to tuck it back into place. In comparison, the other stylist made one final attempt to tear their brush through the messy curls. 

“Five minutes!” someone called and Kieran was being fitted with a microphone instead of receiving an answer to his question. He couldn’t see any worms, currently. He hoped it was simply a play on words but… well, this town was usually a bit on the nose, wasn’t it? “Alright, Kieran, Aurora, you two will be joined by guest judge Lady Worm. Remember, keep it sassy but light, don’t make our wormtestants cry, mm’kay?” 

—-

Rory had never heard of WormPaul’s Drag Race. She had heard of RuPaul’s Drag Race, which her sister used to watch until (in her words) it ‘sold out,’ but she was certain that this wasn’t that. Her hearing was far too good for her to allow herself to pretend she might have misheard what the stylist said, and the look the only other guy who didn’t seem to be in on all of this had on his face was proof enough that, yeah, they’d definitely said worm. 

“What is with this town and fucking worms?” Rory groaned, swatting at the stylist’s brush until they seemed to give up entirely. Her hair was tamer than it had been when she’d come in, but not by much. A mic pack was clipped to her shirt, and she was ushered quickly to her feet. “Rory,” she corrected, making a face when the person with the clipboard used her full name. “And what — who is Lady Worm? What are we supposed to —”

None of her questions were answered. Instead, Rory — and the guy whose name she figured must have been Kieran — were ushered out of the staging area and to a small table sat in front of what looked like a fashion runway. There were two empty chairs sat under a spotlight, a pitcher of water and three glasses sat at the table. Seated in the final chair, in front of one of those water glasses, was… a giant worm wearing a wig, a red sequin dress, bright red lipstick, and false lashes. Despite the lipstick and lashes, Rory saw no lips or eyes on the worm; it looked like a normal earthworm that someone had made large and dressed up. Rory thought it might have been the stupidest thing she’d ever seen in her life.

“Am I high?” She questioned, looking over to Kieran. “Is this, like — Did I smoke way too much and forget about it? What the fuck?” 

—

Camaraderie wasn’t a big priority for Kieran but currently, the faun did find some comfort in not being the only one here entirely confused by the whole farce. Rory looked just as out of the loop and it pushed Kieran into schooling his expression just so - he couldn’t seem more confused than this young thing with the unruly hair. “Lack of creativity?” Kieran responded but they weren’t given more time to ponder on the origin of this wonderfully insane town’s affinity for worms and shrimps - two not too dissimilar creatures, really, which further proved Kieran’s point about the lack of creativity. 

After a look shot towards the person hurriedly trying to escort them, Kieran was no longer being ushered via touching and he made a show of brushing off his jacket. Just as well, as it seemed him and Rory were about to be put under a spotlight - literally. Along with… oh. Kieran’s eyebrows furrowed as he took in the sight of the giant worm and at least he wasn’t bored, even if he wasn’t particularly interested in this whole thing, either. “Wow,” Kieran said simply. “Dress is kinda tacky,” he added and the worm shifted, almost as if it was looking his way now. 

Shrugging, Kieran strolled a few steps closer to the long table. “Even with a whole lot of weed, you wouldn’t have the imagination to make me up, so it seems this is happening. Best way out is through?” Morbid curiosity was still a form of curiosity Kieran wasn’t immune to. Besides, he wanted to take a seat before Rory did so he wouldn’t be forced to sit next to the giant worm. 

“Two minutes, people!” someone announced from the dark, everything but the stage quite hard to make out with the spotlight shining brightly towards their little judges’ table. Just as well, since the action was starting on the stage, with another much too large worm dressed in the… tube-version of a body suit with just about the longest lashes Kieran had ever seen was slithering onto the stage. “WormPaul is ready to start us off, judges prepare for introductions…” Well, as long as Kieran was being treated like a celebrity, he could go along with this for a little while longer. 

“Welcome, welcome, welcome everyone, back to season 36 of WormPaul’s Drag Race! Tonight’s episode is a very special one as this week’s theme is: Mammals! Boy do we have a treat for you all because of course our guest judges are on theme today. Let’s give a warm welcome to our furry and ferocious icon: Rory! Just don’t be caught outside with her on a full moon, wink wink. And joining her, he might have antlers but he sure is horny: Kieran! As always, Miss Worm is taking charge of keeping our guest judges in check, give your fans a wave, Miss Worm.” 

—-

Normally, Kieran wasn’t anything close to the sort of person Rory might consider an ally. Despite her affinity for looking down on everyone around her, she’d never done well with people she felt to be looking down on her in any way whatsoever. Normally, she would have bristled at the way Kieran looked her over with his nose turned up, would have zeroed in on any part of himself he might have been even the slightest bit insecure about and made sure to point it out. Rory was good at that, after all, had always been good at that. If there was a crack to find, she’d find it. She’d pick at it, would turn it into something wide enough to shatter.

But not right now. Right now, Kieran was an ally. He was the only other person here who didn’t seem to know exactly what was going on, and Rory kind of needed that in order to hold onto her own sanity. She snorted at his comment, glancing around them. “A worm-style ripoff of a bad reality show,” she commented. “Yeah, I’d say there’s a real lack of creativity going on here.” As if she didn’t find it odd at all, as if she wasn’t currently trying to figure out just how the fuck this was even happening. Shit like this never happened in New Mexico.

Lady Worm didn’t seem to appreciate Kieran’s comment about her dress, though Rory agreed with him. “Does it need that many sequins?” She questioned, raising a brow. “God, I’m probably going to find a million fucking sparkles all over me when I get home.” Which was decidedly not Rory’s style. Her hair might have been somewhat tamed, but she still wore her usual attire — a band tee and dark jeans with combat boots — which didn’t even almost fit in with Lady Worm’s extravagant getup. 

“I guess,” she relented with a sigh. She had no idea how to get home (because she had no idea where they were), which meant all she could do was just… play along and hope another magic envelope would drop her off at her apartment when the show was done. Plus, she’d be lying if she said she wasn’t curious to see just how this would go. 

And something was definitely starting up, with another worm taking the stage. Rory leaned over to Kieran, her only ally in this mess. “How are they getting around copyright strikes for this?” She murmured, nodding to WormPaul. When the worm spoke, she blinked in surprise — not because it was speaking, but because of what it was saying. “Season thirty-six?!?” How the hell were there thirty-six seasons of something called WormPaul’s Drag Race?!? She was so caught off guard that she nearly missed the next thing the worm said. Nearly. “You have antlers?” She asked Kieran, squinting at him. She didn’t see any antlers. 

When Lady Worm was addressed, she turned her wormy body behind her to look back into the stands, where she was met with thunderous applause. Rory turned back, too, looking out into a sea of worms. Which, of course, begged the question: how were worms clapping? They didn’t have hands. 

A voice sounded from above them; some kind of loudspeaker situation, Rory figured. “And now, let’s introduce our contestants! First off we have the always sexy Tara Rarium!” A worm slithered onto stage. It wore a long, flowing wig and a skintight dress with a train that trailed out farther than its tail, large fake lashes and sparkly blue lipstick on its face. It moved strangely, swaying back and forth as if swinging its hips. (Did worms have hips?) “Dude,” Rory hissed, elbowing Kieran. “What the hell?”

—

Whatever the deal was with his reluctant companion for the moment, Kieran was at least glad to find a fellow supporter against that amount of sequins. Even if Rory dressed like she’d fallen out of a thrift store from the nineties, there was the hint of some taste there. Poor thing looked grievously out of place next to Kieran and, admittedly, the giant tacky worm. “Maybe worms care less about copyright rules?” Everything was moving too fast to properly digest it, lights shifting and flashing and a voice booming out. A voice not-so-subtly hinting at Rory being, Kieran gathered from context clues, a werewolf? A secret reveal rivaled only by the consequent statement of the existence of his antlers, which had Kieran’s jaw tightening, ignoring Rory’s surprised statement at how many seasons had already been produced of this garbage. Kieran had learned decades ago not to let it shock him, the lengths humans (and apparently, worms?) would go to to keep themselves entertained all within the constraints of their self-made rules. It was harder to ignore Rory when she asked about his antlers directly, his head turning slightly to glance at her excitable form. 

She was peering at him as if it would suddenly cause his glamor to break and Kieran pointedly met her stare. “Do you howl at the moon?” he shot back, which in a roundabout way did answer her question. If the facts on her true form were accurate, it was a safe conclusion that the ones made about him were, too. 

For a brief moment, applause boomed loud enough to prevent any more talking, a positive in Kieran’s book. Less positive was the continuation of this show, which for some reason was capable of yanking random people here, as well as whoever was behind this having intimate knowledge of their true forms. Also, the initial amusing bit of shock factor of watching giant worms had swiftly worn off and Kieran started to find himself appalled by the bulges and wrinkles. He was slightly less appalled, but only incrementally so, by Rory elbowing him. “I have eyes, keep your hands to yourself,” he huffed, mood irreversibly soured now by the mention of his antlers - all without his permission. Granted, Rory’s question was a valid one. What the hell. 

“Sparkly blue with that dress color?” Kieran did finally comment, to Rory, mind you, but still his voice rang loud and clear through the speakers. Well then, might as well finish the thought. “And whoever styled that wig should never be allowed to touch one ever again, much less real hair.” 

—--

Did copyright rules even apply to worms? Rory wasn’t certain. “Maybe they go by, like… worm law,” she suggested. Of course, in order to sue these worms for copying their show, the creators of the original RuPaul’s Drag Race would need to know that this was happening. And… Rory couldn’t imagine they did. This was the kind of thing she was certain she would have heard about prior to being pulled in as a judge had its existence been known to anyone un-wormlike at all, and this was as much a shock to her as it seemed to be to Kieran. He was taking it in stride well enough, though Rory thought he was probably just acting. There was no way he wasn’t confused by all this; not if he was sane, which he generally seemed to be. (Snooty, sure, but sane.)

Her expression soured a bit when Kieran questioned whether or not she was prone to howling at the moon, though she supposed it was probably fair. It was a little rude to ask a guy if he had antlers or not, and she had been staring. She bit back the usual denial, mostly because she didn’t think they had time for a conversation now. Later, when the show was finished and she and Kieran were… back out of the land of the worms, or whatever, she’d explain to him the truth: that she was a balam rather than a werewolf, albeit one with certain quirks. If he had antlers, he probably knew about that kind of shit, anyway. And besides, they were, like, totally bonded by this whole worm thing. They were a unit here, for sure. A team. The only two humans (or, okay, human-adjacent people) in Wormville.

Applause filled the studio (was it a studio?), signifying the start of… something. Rory still only kind of understood what was actually going on here, but Kieran didn’t seem to be any more in the know than she was. The only one who seemed completely comfortable was the worm in the ugly sequined dress, and Rory wasn’t really looking to follow its lead. 

“I didn’t touch you with my hands,” Rory pointed out childishly. “That was my elbow. Do you know what’s going on here?” He obviously didn’t, but she felt the need to ask just in case. She was quickly distracted, of course, by Kieran’s comments on the worm on stage. “Dude, seriously,” she agreed. “That wig is bad. And the lipstick, like, does not look good against the worm skin. Also, that dress doesn’t even fit it right. It’s practically coming out of it.”

—

This is why Kieran hated children. Sure, Rory wasn’t technically a child, even though she dressed like a teenager and those were in some aspects, even worse than the children. Kieran appreciated the rebellious streak, the way they would break every rule to figure out where they wanted to stand but actually dealing with them? Horrible. They couldn’t break him like they seemed capable of managing with so many adults but it didn’t mean Kieran enjoyed their presence - not all on their own, at least. Under his guidance, they could cause a bit of delicious chaos but that was the beauty of his influence, almost anyone could become a joy to be around. 

Rory was still toeing the line as Kieran wasn’t instantly needing to make her more palatable with his hypnosis, which he had admittedly never needed to test whether worked on worms or not. He was tempted, though. “You think elbowing me is less crass?” Kieran huffed, contemplating Rory’s question. Even though she seemingly wasn’t all human, maybe she hadn’t lived a very wild life and was therefore more put off by this nonsense. Sure, Kieran wasn’t thrilled to be here but he wasn’t all that worried, either. Thankfully, any admission that Kieran actually had no clue how they’d gotten here or how to get back, was delayed by the fashion show. Drag show? 

To her credit, Rory was quick to chime in on the train wreck on stage, bringing a sly grin to Kieran’s face. The worm on stage seemed less pleased, their head drooping. 

“Our judges came in hot this evening, worms and germs,” the loud voice announced to a chorus of ooohs from the audience. Kieran leaned back in his chair, arms crossed, eyeing for an exit. The novelty of this had very quickly worn off. “Miss Worm, final thoughts?” 

Kieran pointedly ignored whatever the gigantic worm sharing their table was saying, face creasing as something very important dawned on him. “Actually, hello,” Kieran cut in, still lounging back in the chair as he tried to make eye contact - well, any sort of contact since eyes were a scarcity here - with anyone in charge. “Are we getting paid for this? I’ve never formally judged anything for free and this is already a mess so who’s going to compensate us for this?” Not that Kieran really cared whether Rory got paid, although her dress sense made it look like she could use the money, but there was power in the royal we. 

—-

“I’m just saying, my hands were kept to myself,” Rory replied, ever the baby sister. She found the bickering like a security blanket, like something heavy she could wrap around herself to provide a pressure that eased the quiet anxiety that came with being somewhere strange and unfamiliar. Kieran was not one of her brothers, but she could elbow him and bicker with him and annoy him like he was, and it made her feel better about being in a place she didn’t recognize surrounded by giant worms. (Which… okay, it wasn’t like she was freaking out or whatever, but she wasn’t not freaking out, either. Like, had they been kidnapped? Kieran looked rich. Would he pay her ransom, too? She’d be pissed if he left her with the worms.)

At least this place — whatever it was — had entertainment to offer. It wasn’t a dingy cell with stained concrete walls, and they weren’t chained to radiators. That had to be a good sign, she figured. Maybe the answer to getting out of this was a simple one: judge the worm drag show, go home when it was over. And Rory was great at judging things. She got the vibe that was something she and Kieran had in common.

She hadn’t known worms could look disappointed, but the one on stage definitely proved her wrong. It drooped as she and Kieran judged its outfit harshly, slithering off stage in a way that seemed dejected. Rory felt no guilt about the reaction, because why would she? It was a fucking worm. 

Did the announcer asking Miss Worm for final thoughts mean that this ordeal was almost over? Rory was somehow both relieved and disappointed. This was almost fun, in a weird way. (It probably would have been more fun if the contestants weren’t worms. Maybe she should look into worming (ha) her way into being a judge in an actual drag show? She’d be good at that.)

Before Miss Worm could give her final thoughts, though, Kieran stood, demanding information about payment. Which… was a good point, actually. Rory could always use a little more walking around money. She nodded profusely, leaning back and crossing her arms over her chest. On stage, the host looked… as surprised as a worm was capable of looking, she guessed.

“Oh!” He exclaimed, glancing up as if trying to make eye contact with someone unseen. “My apologies! I thought your compensation packages had already been discussed. Not to worry, I’m told it’s a generous package! Once we’ve finished filming, you can collect it backstage on your way out.”

“Out as in…?” Rory pressed, wanting concrete confirmation that they’d be going home when this was over and not to some other weird liminal space.

“Back to wherever you were before coming here, I suppose,” the worm replied with a motion that Rory might have called a shrug if it had had shoulders. “Now, can we get back to the show? You’ll be paid when it’s finished, dears, but not before!”

—

Kieran was pleased by Rory’s support, a silent companion to his very valid request. He didn’t have extensive experience with werewolves but he supposed it might come in handy to know one who was willing to back him up without hesitation, even if she was mildly annoying in a childish way, too. With the two of them staring down the worm host, it faltered for only a second, used to the spotlight and intense questions, clearly. Kieran’s eyebrows raised in scrutiny at the poor excuse but Rory cut in before he could press further. Right, where they’d go after this was probably more important. Just so. 

With that slightly uncertain guarantee given, Kieran glanced over at Rory before settling back into his chair with a sigh and a wave of his hand. If we must, the simple gesture said and it was hard to gauge without a face but the worm host seemed to dislike the faun. Fine by Kieran, he had no interest in these worms, either. So, more worms in varyingly awful dresses and tattered wigs were paraded out on the stage, with scathing commentary from the two “humans” and some slight balm on the wounds from Miss Worm’s ethereal voice in the speaker system, presumably. Kieran was just about ready to withdraw from this deal he hadn’t technically agreed to when one of the worms let off glitter cannons from its fake tits, sprinkling tiny flakes of glitter all over the judges. 

“Talk about going out with a bang! Miss Nema-titty makes sure to leave a lasting impression as our final contestant of the night. Judges?” 

Kieran huffed, brushing some colorful glitter from the top of his head before speaking. “Lasting impression doesn’t always mean good,” he deadpanned simply, arms crossing and making more glitter fall to the floor around them. “And your corset top doesn’t fit you.” 

—-

The competition was strange. None of the worms looked particularly good in their oddly-sized dresses and synthetic wigs, though Rory thought it was probably hard to make a worm look good in anything. She wasn’t familiar with fashion catwalks or how models were meant to move, but she didn’t think the way the worms slithered across the stage was particularly fitting for a runway, either. But she understood the rules as they’d been set out for them — the pair of them had to do what they’d come here to do before they’d be allowed to collect their paychecks and go home. And since Rory had no idea how to get out of this place otherwise, and was assuming Kieran didn’t either, that meant playing by the wormy, wormy rules.

Of course, neither she nor Kieran were kind in their judgment. How could they be? Their worm co-judge offered compliments that Rory couldn’t begin to understand, because these worms did not look ‘fierce’ and were not ‘slaying.’ They were worms. Slimy, and ugly, and — well, this one was sporting the worst fake tits she’d ever seen. She was about to comment on that when said tits exploded glitter onto the judges’ table, prompting Rory to spit a few pieces out with a sputter. At least this worm was the final contestant.

“Yeah, no, that was ass,” she replied, flicking a bit of glitter off her sleeve. “Your tits are supposed to be the same color as the rest of you, by the way.” The worm hung its presumed head and slunk off stage in disgrace; Rory couldn’t bring herself to care.

The announcer was back now, in the center of the stage with a spotlight shining down. “All right, folks! We’ve seen the contestants. We’ve heard the judges’ commentary. It’s time for the moment you’ve all been waiting for. If the judges would join me on stage, we’re ready to crown the winner of WormPaul’s Drag Race!”

—

Kieran was more than ready for this freak show to be over with, eager to wash off the disgusting worm boob glitter (three words he hadn’t imagined ever stringing together and it made him realize new wasn’t always good). “I’m going to make an effort to step on every worm I see from here on,” Kieran muttered under his breath to Rory as they were forced from their uncomfortable chairs to move to the stage. Taking his annoyed place next to Miss Worm, Kieran tried to recall a single contestant’s name, finding that he’d immediately burned every single one from his mind. 

Luckily, it seemed they weren’t the ones announcing the winner, with Miss Worm going into a spiel about everyone’s best effort and we’re all winners as long as we keep slaying. Kieran distractedly picked glitter off his jacket sleeve as the ramble went on until finally, a drumroll and the name of a winner. Tara Rarium. Sure, whatever. A sash was thrust into Kieran’s hands (how had that worm even been holding it?) and on the other side of the stage, a crown was dropped in Rory’s hands. The worm in the tacky dress was appearing down the runway and there was not a chance in hell Kieran was getting within touching distance of that thing. 

“Congratulations,” he said dryly, tossing the sash towards the worm from a safe distance - it looped around the worm but seeing as it was a worm, the sash drooped to the ground and dragged behind the worm as it slithered forward. “Can we go now?”

—-

Rory snorted at Kieran’s statement, nodding her head in agreement. Between this and the giant chocolate worm she and Regan had faced off against in the basement of the chocolate shop, she was definitely positioning herself firmly in an anti-worm stance. Stepping on worms was about to be her fucking life’s mission, frankly. The worms on stage were lucky she wasn’t starting now, but she really didn’t want to accidentally trap herself (and, fine, Kieran, too) in the world of WormPaul’s Drag Race. So for now, Rory climbed dutifully onto the stage with Kieran and Miss Worm.

Aforementioned Miss Worm seemed to be the one in charge of actually revealing the winner, going on some long spiel ahead of time to really drag things out. Typical, for a show like this. Rory was half-expecting them to cut to commercial before the big reveal, but she figured they’d probably add that bit in post. (Which, actually… was this event televised? Were there even any cameras here? Rory felt as if she was going insane.) Finally, the winner was announced, with Kieran being handed a sash and Rory a crown. She followed her companion’s lead and tossed the crown; somehow, it landed perfectly on the worm’s head. The sash Kieran tossed also floated down and over the worm’s body, falling to the ground around it with no shoulders to drape itself over. Whatever. 

WormPaul, ignoring Kieran, slithered forward. “That’s our show, Ladies and gentleworms! Tune in next time for another exciting episode. And remember… stay fabulous!” As the last words were uttered, the lights all went out. For a moment, Rory stood in utter darkness. Then, she blinked. When she opened her eyes, she found herself back at the mouth of the alley that housed the dumpster she’d been moving towards to throw out her junk mail. The sun was in the same position in the sky it had been in when she’d left. The only thing different was that, instead of an envelope in her hand, there was a small cloth bag.

Compensation. The worms had said they’d been generously compensated for their participation in the show. Rory grinned, imagining the inevitable takeout she’d treat herself to with whatever earnings she’d made from this shitshow. She opened the bag, peering inside to find…

“...a fucking bag full of worms?!?!”

Darcy wasn’t an idiot. Well, not in the usual sense. She knew that people didn’t go online asking about chains, citing the reasoning being sex. Not unless they were fucked up. Then again, maybe Rory was fucked up. Maybe it was a dare, maybe it was something else. Who the fuck knew. What Darcy did know, though, was where to get chains that were foolproof. For free. 

The question of just how much time she spent in cemeteries had gone severely underanswered. Not a lot of time, had been a lie. Surprisingly, she spent more time in them before, back when she didn’t have anyone to bury, than she did now. She wasn’t sure what was more fucked up. The before, or the after. To anyone else, it was probably the after. Darcy waited in front of The Wormhole; a fucked up bar that not even she and Cricket bothered wandering into. The thought of Cricket acted like a sledgehammer, practically knocking the air out of her. Darcy sucked in a breath, watching as who she presumed to be Rory, headed towards the passenger side door of her jeep. She reached over, struggling slightly to throw it open for the other woman. 

“Hey. Ready to get kinky?” She waited for Rory to buckle her seatbelt before she pulled away, heading in the direction of Gallow’s Grove. It wasn’t that far from where Rory worked, so if she got cold feet, she could run off. Darcy would probably go in and get the chains anyway, dropping them off at her workplace, especially since now she knew where to find Rory.

— 

Rory knew she needed an immediate solution to her werewolf problem. Talia had promised to help her learn control, and that was all well and good, but that was a long term thing. Control would take practice; control would take time. Rory wanted to get there eventually, of course. She wanted to be able to shift without putting anyone in danger, wanted to be able to spend her months not worrying about what she might do when the moon was full or worrying that an unexpected shift might leave her with someone else’s blood in her mouth, but she wasn’t there yet. She needed something for the short term; she needed something to bridge the gap.

So… chains. It wasn’t a perfect solution. She could really only chain herself up on the full moon, when she knew a shift was coming, and there was no guarantee the chains would hold. She’d seen enough movies and television to know that a werewolf breaking containment was a super common trope, and it stood to reason that it would be a risk in real life, too. But, fuck, wasn’t it better than nothing? Wasn’t doing something a better option than just crossing her fingers and hoping her wolf wouldn’t eat anyone this week? This was some version of Rory taking responsibility. This was Rory doing the best she could. 

Luckily, she’d found someone willing to help her out. It had taken a little bit of time to schedule the trip to the graveyard — Rory hadn’t been able to get off Talia’s couch for more than a few minutes at a time until after the full moon healed her gunshot wound — but today, Darcy-from-the-internet was picking her up at the Wormhole after work and taking her to check out some chains from a graveyard. Sketchy as hell, sure, but Rory wasn’t super worried. She ate people, apparently. She could probably handle whatever. 

Sliding into Darcy’s car, Rory buckled up and offered the other woman a nod. “Ready,” she agreed. The car pulled forward, and Rory let herself lean against the seat. “So, you spend a lot of time shopping in graveyards? How’d you come across chains?” 

—

Something animalistic had been carried in with Rory, but Darcy didn’t bother to point it out. She didn’t really give a fuck if the person beside her was a shifter, or if they owned a bunch of dogs at home. She rolled down her window, grabbing her vape from the cupholder. Drawing it to her lips, she took a long puff, expelling the vapor into the air. The smell of cotton candy filled the cab of her jeep, anyway. At Rory’s question, she grinned. “Hey, if the shit’s abandoned, it’s finder’s keeper’s, you know?” She looked at the brunette out of the corner of her eye, then back to the road. “They use them for the gates. It’s supposed to keep people out, or keep people in– I don’t really know, but they’ve got loads of shit.” 

Maybe it was bad karma, picking through the leftovers of something abandoned, but Darcy didn’t give a shit about that, either. The drive was a short one, and eventually, she pulled up to the already open gates of the cemetery. It was covered in ivy that’d yet to regrow from winter’s blow, and Darcy had to admit, she liked the vibe it gave off. It was favorable to when the green stuff was there. That meant it was alive, and a cemetery was better left off to things that were dead, weren’t they? 

She took another puff from her vape before dropping it back into the cupholder. The winding road that led to the mouth of the storage shed was overgrown, and potholes practically covered every couple of feet. It wasn’t anything her jeep couldn’t handle, at least. Plus, she’d done this hundreds of times. Usually with somebody else in the passenger seat. “Used to come here a lot, it was a good spot to run to and get high in.” Finally, the storage shed was ahead of them. Darcy could see the drab green roof. “Alright.” Putting the jeep into park, she twisted around to look at Rory. “We’ve got… what, two hours ‘till it’s dark?” She wasn’t worried about what crept in the dark, but she wasn’t necessarily trying to get anyone killed, either. There was a good chance Rory was a shifter like her, but there was no telling the type, or if she’d be willing to fight, and Darcy really wasn’t trying to die today. 

—- 

She got a whiff of it, the animal-scent that clung to Darcy. She knew it was mostly in her head, but Rory swore her nose had gotten better since she’d realized what she was, like her brain now understood the enhanced scent a little better and allowed her to use it a little more. Darcy was probably some kind of shifter, and there was a little bit of relief that came with that realization, as if someone being a shifter made them automatically a little more trustworthy. It didn’t. Rory knew that. There were probably plenty of shifters out there who were, like, cartoonishly evil for one reason or another, just like there were humans who were like that or vampires who’d trap you in a basement and torture you for no reason at all. Someone’s nature didn’t make them good or bad. Rory knew that. Still… at least she could rest easy in the fact that Darcy wasn’t a hunter with a silver bullet ready and waiting. That was an experience Rory really didn’t want to repeat any time soon. Or, like, ever. 

“I mean, I guess,” she allowed with a shrug. She had no moral qualms about snatching things from graveyards, though she had no real stake in the matter. The only person Rory knew who was buried in a graveyard was her grandfather, who’d died when she was far too young to actually remember him. She thought with a pang of Guillermo and Oliver, but quickly shoved both from her mind. She found it far easier not to think of them, of the fact that neither was really buried anywhere at all. “Keep people in? What is this, a B horror movie? Nobody’s keeping anything in the cemeteries.” Mostly because the monsters in Wicked’s Rest wandered the streets just fine. Some of them weren’t even dead monsters — Rory figured she was probably proof of that.

The drive was decent. Wicked’s Rest was a nice, scenic town, which probably explained some of the tourism. Rory liked the views, even if she wasn’t entirely certain she liked the rest of the town very much anymore. “Did you grow up here?” She asked, curiosity clear in her tone. “I didn’t. Back where I’m from, it was an old sawmill we’d use to run off and get high at. I guess a cemetery is probably more… thematic, or whatever. And less dusty, probably.” She unbuckled her seatbelt, nodding her head. Part of her wanted to ask what happened when it got dark, but… she kind of already knew the answer to that. She’d seen plenty, in her time here. “Okay,” she agreed. “Lead the way, then. Show me where all the best stuff is. You will be judged based on our findings, so better make it good.”

—

Darcy pushed her tongue against the back of her upper lip, sounding off with a soft click. “You’d be fucking surprised.” She had grown up with so much information being pushed into her brain from a young age that it was hard to not think about all of the things that went bump in the night. Of course, most of the time, Darcy thought of them as source material. She knew it was different for others, though. Deciding now was not the time to think about Corey and Bridget. She unbuckled her seatbelt, eyeing her vape. There wasn’t any real reason to bring it along, but she pocketed it anyway. “This town has a lot of shit it’s trying to keep under lock and key, whether it actually wants to put that effort into it or not.” Maybe with the magic of Wicked’s Rest faltering that didn’t hold true anymore, but growing up it did, and what else was she other than her teachings? 

“Yup.” Darcy gave Rory a once-over. “You seem the type to choose a sawmill. You’re looking for chains for the whole sex thing, so I mean…” She didn’t bother elaborating. Whether or not Rory wanted to come clean about what the chains were really needed for was her own decision. All Darcy was here for was helping her get them. That, and a chance to take her mind off of the utter bullshit her life had been thrown into. “I always get a five-star rating, babe.” She unbuckled her own seatbelt, getting out of the jeep. She wondered how comical it looked, a girl her stature (and really, Rory’s), getting out of the vehicle she’d chosen as her own. “Alright, let’s get this show on the road.” She waited for Rory at the door. It was already cracked open, and once she pushed it open further, a few rats skittered away from the light that flooded in. 

Darcy moved towards the back door of the shed. It was unassuming when standing outside. One would think that it was just a single story building, but underneath was where most of the items were held. The upstairs was in disrepair; an old wooden desk with initials carved into it and cigarette burn marks, as well as a few chairs that had broken legs. It wasn’t anything to write home about, and Darcy figured Rory was already judging her. “This way.” The door was small, matching herself and Rory almost perfectly. (It was also comical, really.) “Do you need a light, or…?” Not every shifter had a sight meant for the dark, after all. “If you do, just use your phone.” There were a couple of things that had made their home in the expansive basement, but none of which were lethal, or dangerous at all, especially when you knew how to handle them.

—- 

Maybe trying was the key word there, then. Wicked’s Rest wanted things to stay locked away, but it didn’t do a very good job of keeping them that way. Wasn’t Rory kind of proof of that? Hadn’t she carved a bloody path through this town without even knowing it? She wondered if it was a lost cause, trying to find chains to wrap around herself every full moon. What were the odds that it would even work? And what about the unexpected shifts that had been growing more and more common, like the one that had seen her running through the woods for Daiyu to take a shot at? “Cemeteries, though?” She questioned, still a little hung up on that aspect of things. Undead shit was real, apparently, but Rory’s only experience with them had been Mateo, who certainly didn’t need to be chained up in any kind of cemetery. 

She rolled her eyes, biting her tongue to keep from asking what the hell that was supposed to mean. She had advertised that her chains were for a sex thing, though she wondered if this other shifter might now suspect that this wasn’t quite the case. What kind of shifter was she, exactly? Not a werewolf and not a balam, but other scents were still newer to Rory. She hadn’t quite learned how to tell from a single whiff. Had this woman? Did she know what Rory was, just sitting in the car with her? If she didn’t, was it safe to tell her? Rory didn’t trust strangers as easily as she used to; this town had done a lot of work there, making sure she understood the consequences of blind trust pretty fucking intimately. “You’re not going to be a prude about that, are you? Totally didn’t take you for the type.” They could dance around the subject, she figured. If the other shifter brought it up, Rory wouldn’t deny it. But she wasn’t sure she wanted to bring it up first, either. 

Sliding out of the jeep and closing the door behind her, Rory followed Darcy to the shed. It didn’t look like much from the outside, really; a big, dusty shed in the middle of a big, dusty cemetery. She kind of doubted they’d actually find anything decent inside, but she’d decided to trust Darcy enough to check it out, anyway. Maybe there would be something worth taking home; maybe it would just give her a good story. Either way, Rory was in it, she guessed. “I don’t need a light,” she replied as her eyes adjusted to the darkness. She could have taken out her phone for show, but it felt a little pointless. “Do you?” She wondered if that narrowed down what kind of shifter the other girl was. Maybe it would have, if Rory had known a little more about all the various types. “So, are there any spooky things in here I should be on the lookout for?”

—

Darcy snorted at Rory’s question of whether or not she was a prude. “Sorry, did I come across like one?” With a shake of her head, she turned around to face the other girl. It was impossible to say exactly what she was– the majority of shifters that Darcy had spent her time around had been other bugbears, but it wasn’t possible that she was mistaking the strangely familiar animalistic scent as some kind of kin to her. Her father had always told her to treat other shifters with respect, that despite their differences, they were all in this world together, fighting the same battles. It was an interesting take, considering he married a ranger of all people. But then again, even the ranger side of things hadn’t been exactly… normal either. 

“But no, I don’t actually give a shit. I hope you have fun. I’ll try and make sure they’re clean, at least. Wouldn’t want you needing a tetanus shot or something after using them, right?” It was a little funny to Darcy, she had to admit, that somebody like Rory would advertise needing chains for sex in the hopes of saving face. Darcy had to commend her boldness. 

“Hmm? Nope.” She pushed further into the stairwell, grabbing the rusted over padlock, twisting it slightly so that it easily came undone. The actual mechanism that kept it locked had broken a long time ago, and really, it was just for show. Even if it’d been locked, Darcy had perfected lockpicking a long time ago. At Rory’s question, she shrugged. “I mean, it depends on your definition of spooky. Do you get scared easily?” Maybe that wouldn’t be so bad, maybe she’d have a bit of a snack. She’d take it as repayment for her services. Besides, it wasn’t like her dad was here to scold her anymore, anyway. 

— 

“Not at all, actually. That’s why I didn’t take you for the type.” She actually kind of liked Darcy’s vibes, though she was careful to stuff the thought down deep. The last shifter around her age whose vibes had been acceptable enough to consider friendship with had been Clem, and that had crashed and burned pretty spectacularly in a way that was pretty much entirely Rory’s fault. (Though looking back, she wasn’t sure that friendship ever could have lasted in a long term sense; there was that hazy memory of her teeth tearing into Clem’s flesh, the uncomfortable implication that came with it. That friendship was always bound to fail, she figured; it was probably better it had happened sooner rather than later, even if she probably did still need to bite the bullet and tell Clem the rest of what she’d learned.

Things with Darcy, at least, couldn’t possibly be that kind of complicated. Whatever she was, she wasn’t a werewolf, and that meant Rory definitely played no part in her becoming this. More likely, this was the way she’d been born, like Rory and her siblings. That was some quiet comfort, at least. “Clean is definitely preferable,” she agreed. “Though, like, totally going to disinfect the shit out of them, obviously. Even if there’s no risk of tetanus, I do not want to know what kind of diseases I could get from using graveyard chains without making sure they’re cleaned first.”

So she didn’t need a flashlight in the dark. That… might have narrowed things down, if Rory knew anything about anything that wasn’t a balam or a werewolf. Maybe she should just ask, but that felt a little rude. “Definitely don’t get scared easily,” she replied with a snort, as if the idea was preposterous. Sure, she got scared sometimes; who didn’t? But only in the face of life threatening danger, really. She’d been scared in the vampire’s basement, when she’d thought she was going to die; she’d been afraid, too, when she shifted back into human form on Talia’s porch with Daiyu’s silver bullet stuck in her gut. But a graveyard? There was nothing scary about that. “Do you?”

—

“Shit, at least my reputation is intact.” Darcy didn’t care about what Rory thought of her, not at a baseline. Of course, things were a little different now that she knew the other woman to be a shifter, but it didn’t shift things too dramatically in her head. If anything, it just meant that there was another person who could think she was deeply flawed for the way she was brought up. But then again, Rory was the one seeking out chains, so maybe she wouldn’t exactly give a shit, especially if Darcy let on that there was no need to worry; that any feasible threat had already been put down. It was a fucked up way of thinking, and she knew that much, but disconnecting herself from her situation was easier than facing it head on. 

Darcy nodded, “don’t worry, we’ll find you what you need.” She hoped so, at least. She was talking big for not having stepped foot behind the storage door in quite some time, but she remembered the pile of varying chains, all meant to keep the front gate and certain mausoleums locked up tight. “A friend and I used to come and smoke here, it’s why I know about it.” Cricket’s name dies at the back of her throat, a shattered object that Darcy’s still struggling to pick up the pieces of. “But yeah, definitely suggest soaking them. Who knows what kind of freaky shit goes on here.” 

She pushed the door open, revealing a series of shelves, all stacked with varying items best kept in a graveyard. Slabs of concrete, granite, and plastic casings sat in the corner of the room, while on the opposite end of the wall were a series of chains hanging from both the ceiling, and the wall itself. Some were evidently rusted over, while others looked as though they’d never done anything other than be submerged in the darkness. It wasn’t as damp inside as she remembered, either. “There you go.” She pointed towards the wall, then made her way to one of the shelves that had a couple of different items, some of which were probably cursed. “Nah. Nothing really scary about a place like this, especially not when I know it pretty well. I can map it out, even with my eyes closed.” Turning around, she leaned against the wall as she observed Rory, “you can probably pick whichever ones.” They all looked equipped to handle whatever Rory needed them for. 

—- 

“That’s the important thing here,” Rory agreed, half a grin ghosting her features. Darcy didn’t seem like the kind of person to concern herself with her reputation in earnest, which made Rory like her all the more. She’d always had a soft spot for other shifters; call it a quiet desperation for belonging after growing up in a house where she didn’t, always the odd man out of everything even before she’d learned she was literally a different fucking species than the rest of her family. She wanted Darcy to like her the same way she wanted every shifter to like her. It felt more intense now than it had back when she’d felt secure in knowing she was a balam, with a spirit in her chest that would never leave her. These days, she mostly just felt alone.

She wondered if she wasn’t the only one who felt that way. It was something in the expression on Darcy’s face, something in the way her features shifted ever so slightly when she talked about coming here to smoke with her friend. Rory wouldn’t have seen it if she hadn’t been looking for it, but there was definitely something there. Some part of her wanted to ask; a larger part knew she shouldn’t. She forced herself to sit in the latter, letting the moment pass. No way was she going to have Darcy thinking she was nosy. “Yeah, for sure. I’m not afraid of ghosts, but I’m not looking to get tetanus, either,” she joked, hoping the jovial nature of the conversation could… help Darcy, somehow. As stupid as that probably was to hope for.

The inside of the storage shed was a little creepy, Rory had to admit. She was more amused than put off, though, running a finger absently over a tarp in the corner. “This place looks like something out of Dexter,” she commented. “Totally a serial killer’s lair.” But also totally a jackpot. She moved towards the chains hanging down from the wall, grabbing the one that looked the cleanest and testing its strength absently. “How did you even find all this? I mean, I know you said you used to smoke here, but… You just stumbled in one day?”

—

“I don’t know which one you should be more afraid of in a place like this.” Darcy figured that if Rory were a shifter, she definitely knew about other things, and ghosts were just the tip of the iceberg, and it wasn’t like she had been sworn to any kind of secrecy; it had only ever been about protecting herself. They were complicated feelings, that much she knew. It was hard, finding that line drawn in the sand, and most days, she hated herself for it, especially because she often spent time stepping over it. It was like she was asking for trouble. 

Ignorant to Rory’s gaze, Darcy kept her own trained on the wall, sweeping over each individual chain, trying to pick out the most appropriate. But it wasn’t really her right to do so, was it? She was just here to help. “Dexter? What’s that?” Evidently, it was something ‘creepy’. “Sorry, I didn’t really keep up with shows and shit like that, not really my speed.” Most of her time was spent either outdoors, or by Cricket’s side, and most of what they discussed had been music. 

“Huh? Yeah, I guess.” She paused, looking around. Not much had changed from those days. The only thing that did was her company. Darcy reached up, scrubbing her hair out of her eyes, resting her palm atop her head. “There’s not a whole lot to do here, you know? So kids get into places they shouldn’t, and that’s how it happened.” Darcy walked over to one of the shelves, moving it slightly. “Here’s where everyone used to check in. Looks like it hasn’t been added to in ages, though.” She ran her fingers over the etchings and permanent marker. In the corner were her and Cricket’s names. “You wanna add yours, too? Talk about the sex dungeon you’re building?” 

— 

Ghosts were something her family had spoken of, on occasion. They could see them only if they shifted to the point of doing so; it was something her sisters had used to tease her when she was a kid. She could recall it now, Celeste’s eyes glowing a catlike yellow as she’d gasped. There’s a ghost right behind you! She’d screech theatrically, and Rory would whirl around and will her eyes to shift, too. Never to any avail, of course. After a while, she’d come to understand that her sister was only fucking around. Better still, when she’d asked her brother about ghosts, he’d shrugged. I haven’t even seen many, he admitted. Most of them don’t want to hurt people, I guess. Only the ones who are really pissed off. Tetanus was definitely more of a threat, and so she only shrugged off Darcy’s warning. 

She wondered if Darcy knew more about ghosts than she did. She wasn’t sure what all kinds of shifters had the capability of seeing ghosts, didn’t know which of them could do what her siblings had been able to do or how they had to bend themselves to do it. She knew so little about other shifters. Even werewolves, she knew only what Talia had told her and what she’d experienced herself. Glancing over at Darcy, she shrugged. “It’s a show about a serial killer. It’s…” She bit back the urge to say stupid, to pretend she didn’t like something she did just to avoid even the barest amount of vulnerability. “...pretty good, actually.”

Small towns with nothing to do were familiar to Rory, who had grown up somewhere similar. She wondered if it was a universal thing, kids wandering into places they probably shouldn’t have been in in search of some way to pass the time. Probably. Curiously, she followed Darcy over to the shelf, smiling faintly as the other revealed the names scrawled onto the wall. “Yeah,” she said. “Yeah, actually, that would be cool. You got a marker?”

—

Darcy realized in that moment as she watched Rory’s back that she could play into the situation; that she could stretch illusionary fingers towards her, scrape them through the parts of Rory’s mind that thought she was immune to the fear this place could inhibit. The desire to deal with the aftermath, though, quickly became something exhausting, even if only in thought. Pressing her lips together, she fished the vape out of her pocket, puffing on it, sending the vapor in the opposite direction. Still, it hung in the air. The scent of cotton candy, hot and sticky paired with their summer evening, stuck to Darcy like a ghost of its own making as she watched Rory. 

“Huh. So you like creepy shit, too, then?” She was definitely not a bugbear– Darcy could tell that much by just looking at her, paired with the fact that she smelled a little more damp than she did woodsy in the way that other bugbears did. Was it dander? She couldn’t be sure. She took another puff off of the vape, sliding it back into her pocket. Exhaling, she didn’t bother turning her face this time. “I’ll give it a watch, let you know what I think.” Nothing ordinarily frightening did anything to her, so she wondered if the story would be compelling enough to keep up with. 

“Nah, but I have my keys.” She unhooked them from her beltloop, handing over the keychain to Rory. On them were several keys that hadn’t been used since the fire, as well as several beaten and faded keychains. “Use that one.” She pointed to the longest key; the one that used to open her front door. “It’s the sharpest.” Darcy chewed on her nail as she brought her fingers to her lips, watching Rory in quiet anticipation. “You shouldn’t have to carve that too hard,” she mumbled around her thumb, “the walls are pretty fragile.” 

—- 

“Sometimes,” Rory replied with a shrug. The cotton candy scent of the vape filled the air around her, reminding her briefly of her teens. Rory had been more fond of cigarettes — choosing aesthetic over taste — but her oldest sister had vaped. The smell of Darcy’s reminded her of laughing when Cordelia made her swear not to tell their mother about the collection of vape pens in her bedside table, forcing Rory into a promise she wouldn’t have broken even without the threat of Cordelia breaking her pinky implied alongside it. “I like horror, but I wouldn’t really call this show that. It’s more… drama, I guess.” Horror was the shit that made you feel unsettled, made it hard to sleep at night. Serial killers, for Rory, were almost mundane, at this point. The popularity of true crime — a genre Rory didn’t really care for herself, despite Celeste’s fondness for it — took away some of the impact that the concept of a serial killer might otherwise carry.

She wondered if part of that was because of her own activities, the ones she hadn’t recalled until recently. What reason did a serial killer have to be afraid of other serial killers? Maybe her subconscious had always been aware of what she was, had always tightened it around her like a life vest she didn’t want. She pushed the thought away now, not wanting to dwell on it much longer. She had far better things to focus on here; she wanted to let herself focus on them.

Darcy offered her a key, and Rory took it. Dutifully, she selected the longest key and moved to position herself beside the wall, scraping it experimentally against the wall. Darcy was right; it carved into the material with ease. Rory grinned, scraping her name beneath where Darcy’s sat beside another — Cricket. Rory didn’t ask for clarification, even if the curiosity tugged at her gut. When she’d finished adding her name, she leaned back to inspect her work. It was messy, but legible. Not bad. “Guess it’s immortalized now,” she said, offering Darcy her keys back. “Rory was here. Everyone will know it… until this building collapses, or whatever.”

—

Darcy paused, looking at Rory. She didn’t seem the fragile type, but the bugbear knew that any discussion of not being scared wouldn’t really go in the other shifter’s favor. There was no point in comparing it. “Drama?” Darcy pushed her tongue against her back left molar. “I’ll give it a watch, let you know what I think.” Were they going to speak after this? Probably. After all, Darcy was helping Rory find something for restraint, and whether it was for herself, or somebody else– that question hadn’t been brought up, and really, she didn’t need to know the answer, but did you really just go on to be strangers after an interaction like this? Maybe, actually. 

But Rory was carving her name into the wall, just next to where Cricket’s was; a faded memory that still felt fresh. She thought of the moment that Cricket had written her name– fuck, Darcy could even remember the way her hair had been pulled to the side, and the way a sheen of sweat beaded off of the nape of her neck, how Darcy had flicked the visible skin, making fun of her for nothing other than taking too long. Having Rory here with her now– her name being carved into the same wall… surely it meant they would be in each other’s lives past this moment. 

“Yup, that’s the point.” Darcy took her keys, hooking them back around her belt loop. “One day we’ll be forgotten, blah blah blah, but these walls will always remember us, blah blah blah.” Darcy put on a monotone voice, reaching up to create a talking gesture with her hand. “Sounds like some corny teen movie, right?” Even if she didn’t know the shows all too well, she at least knew the movies dredged up from the 80’s and 90’s, all thanks to The Video Vault. “Alright, well let’s get your shit and leave before someone else decides to show up.” The last thing she wanted to deal with was company, even if she was sure it wouldn’t be that much of an issue; after all, they were two shifters, after all. 

—

There was a quiet thrill at the idea of Darcy letting her know what she thought, though Rory didn’t let it show. She shrugged as though it meant nothing, as if she weren’t forever the youngest sister trailing uncertainly behind six older siblings begging for a belonging she couldn’t achieve. Darcy was not one of her siblings, but there was something similar in the way she, too, was a shifter; like Rory, but not like Rory. The same, but different. Maybe that was the best she could really hope for outside of people like Jackie.

Darcy spoke like a cliche that knew it was a cliche, and Rory laughed like someone who was in on the joke. It did sound like something out of a cheesy movie, and she liked that. She liked, too, how her name looked beside Darcy’s, liked how it looked beside Cricket’s even if she didn’t know Cricket at all. She liked the idea of some part of her still being here, even after she had moved on. 

She didn’t let herself look at it for long. They’d come here for a purpose; Rory intended to achieve it. Wiping her hands on her pants, she handed Darcy her keys back and moved back to the chains. “Yeah,” she agreed, “we should finish up here.” The time of feeling like a person ended the moment she looked back to the chains hanging from the wall. She was a monster once more, a thing in need of confinement. But with Darcy’s presence beside her, she felt a little more at ease.

Darcy leaned against the wall, pulling her vape away from her lips, holding it securely in an enclosed fist. The smell of cotton candy was carried by the wind, rushing towards the girl who was heading her way on a scooter. The air was warm now with a lack of urgency. That had been left behind as soon as the last snow had melted. She was glad for it. The cold was a reminder of things she couldn’t fix, anyway. She kept the bag of popcorn at her side, taking another puff of her vape. She wasn’t sure why the fuck somebody would order just the popcorn from the drive-in. The corndogs were superior in her opinion, but what did it matter? It was a slow night. Gobf Girl was playing, and Darcy had largely ignored it, choosing to flip through a stack of magazines Cricket had brought her months ago. It was only just now she was getting to them. 

When the girl on the scooter stopped just ahead of her, and she began to hear yelling, only then did Darcy look onward with mild interest. Her expression, however, stayed largely blank. She pushed her tongue against her upper lip, cocking her head to the side to see if she could get a better look at the woman who was yelling at her. Something about her order taking longer than expected? So maybe not her delivery girl, then. 

— 

Perhaps Monica shouldn’t have accepted the delivery job in the middle of the woods when her only form of transportation was a scooter, but money was not going to make itself. As quickly as she’d scoot her way in there, she’d scoot herself out — well, as quickly as one could scoot on dirt and sticks. To her surprise (and momentary relief), a pretty lady had opened the door of the lonely shack. Oh good! She wasn’t going to die. Monica had a grin on her face as she handed the woman the bag, though it faltered slightly as she watched her open up her food right there at the front door. Strange, she’d never had a customer who was so hungry that they had to eat as soon as the food was in their hands. However, Monica’s smile disappeared entirely when she watched the woman pick up a raw steak with her bare hands. “Oh my gosh! They forgot to cook it! I’m so sorry, ma’am. They handed it to me that way, I swe–” She started babbling, only to be stunned into silence when the woman took a big bite out of the raw meat, two pointy teeth peeking out as she licked her lips. 

So that was clearly Monica’s sign to get the hell out of there, dragging her useless scooter behind her as she sprinted back onto the main road. And of course, straight out of some horror movie, the pretty but scary lady was following her. Back into as much civilization as one could get in The Pines, Monica scooted into the first populated area that she came across — the drive-in. 

She shouted apologies to the box office clerk as she zoomed past without buying anything, and great, now she potentially had two people chasing after her for two different reasons. Monica picked up speed as she got back on her scooter, following the wafting scent of buttery popcorn and cotton candy to what she assumed was the concession building. “Hey! Don’t worry about my ticket, I’m not staying long!” She shouted frantically to the first worker she saw. “I’m just, like, hiding here. This lady was totally chasing me, but I think I lost her by coming in here. Right?

This seems like a good place to hide. Unless she can, like, smell me or something…oh my gosh, what if she can smell me?”

—

It took Darcy a moment to realize she was being spoken to, not because of the actual words that were being said, but because the fear grew larger, and far harder to ignore. “I don’t care.” She looked past the woman with the scooter to the two who were following after her. One was one of her co-workers, and the other was a woman with a crazed expression. Ah. Here we go. She sighed, looking towards Paulie who had his head on a swivel. “You seen a lass run this way?” His Scottish accent was thick, and he kept shooting glances at the woman who was with him. Darcy contemplated for a moment. The fear that ran along her tongue from the individual hiding behind her was swallowed back and she let out a breath. “Nope.” He looked mildly disappointed, but the woman didn’t seem as convinced as him. “Sorry ma’am, looks like you may have been hoodwinked.” 

The woman with the scooter was just inside of the door. In fact, if Darcy turned around, she’d easily bump into her. It’d be easier turning her in, to heighten the fear, to eat it before eventually helping her out of whatever predicament she’d gotten herself into. She was bored, after all, and whoever had come to pick up the popcorn order wasn’t there yet. She looked the woman up and down, noticing the hunger in her eyes. So the hideaway had probable cause for running, more than likely. The fear wet Darcy’s tongue, and she swallowed it back again. It tasted sweet, and it was a welcome addition to her practical and boring night. “Yup. Fucking hoodwinked. Paulie, can you take this popcorn to the front gate with you? Should have a driver coming by for it soon.” The man looked a little annoyed she was asking that of him, but took the bag from her, anyway. 

The woman looked like she didn’t want to leave. Darcy looked towards her, an expectant expression pulling over her features. “Can I help you?” 

— 

Monica hated the words I don’t care, because how lame was it to not care. Screw being nonchalant! She strived to be as chalant as possible! However, in this one instance, she couldn’t have been more glad to hear the words I don’t care uttered from the other girl’s mouth. “Oh thank you, thank you, thank you!” She repeated, the last one coming out as a harsh whisper once she spotted the two figures following her in her peripheral. “Eek!” Throwing herself through the entrance and past the girl, the doppelganger threw herself and her scooter behind the wall. 

There were a few beats of silence, then Monica could hear more footsteps joining just outside the door. When the disgruntled box office employee spoke, the doppelganger felt a snicker bubbling in her throat despite the fear. Ha, lass. Scottish people, funny. She clapped a hand over her mouth before any sound could come out. She did not go through all of this effort to hide just to get found out, and she especially wasn’t going to throw away her new friend’s efforts in keeping her cover. Well, she had barely said more than a sentence to her, but the fact that she was covering her ass made her a friend in Monica’s mind. Her new friend was being so strong and brave standing up to the scary Twilight-looking lady! 

The doppelganger peaked out from a tiny gap in the curtains. The Scottish man was leaving, but Pretty Fangs (her new assigned nickname) was still staring the other girl down. “As your colleague said, I’m looking for a young lass who came through here. And I am quite certain that she came through here.” Monica watched Pretty Fangs lick her lips. “You see, there was a mix-up with my delivery order, and I’d just like to set the record with her. That’s all.” The doppelganger clamoured back down beneath the window sill, terror shaking her to the core. Why was Pretty Fangs obsessed with her? Had the lady imprinted on her? Oh god, this really was like Twilight, and she was the Renesmee to Pretty Fang’s Jacob. Or something like that.

—

Darcy shrugged, keeping her gaze level with the woman that was ahead of her. If she were to look back and give any inclination that there was somebody behind her, surely the person that was hiding so desperately would be found out. When Darcy had said she didn’t care, she had meant it, but the lady ahead of her was so self-righteous that it was beginning to make Darcy actually give a semblance of a fuck. 

“Uh, what the hell did I just tell you, man?” She pushed away from the wall, kicking the toe of her boot against the ground, sending a small spray of sand and grit towards the woman’s feet. Her perfectly manicured toes immediately became dusted, and a scoff left the woman. “If you had a mix-up, why not just reach out to the restaurant? Can’t be that hard. You look like you have a lot of money, so I’m sure this won’t break your bank to lose out on food.” Darcy was talking out of her ass, now. She rarely, if ever, ordered food for delivery, so she didn’t quite understand the pain that came with that kind of mix-up. 

“Besides,” Darcy continued, “why the hell would I hide some lass here, anyway? It’s a drive-in theatre. If I see her, I’ll give you her message. I’m sure the app has something to connect you back to each other, right? Can you go now?” 

—

Sometimes a knight in shining armour came in the form of a moody young adult working at a run-down drive-in. Monica clasped her hands together as she listened to how fiercely this girl was defending her. Well, she was using the words fiercely and defending very loosely here. More like her new friend here was getting a kick out of provoking Pretty Fangs, which the doppelganger really wasn’t mad about either. As pretty as the lady was, she probably wanted to drink Monica’s blood, and that was a huge red flag.

Feeling brave enough again to peek through the curtain, Monica watched as Pretty Fangs shook the grit out of her shoes. “These disrespectful youth…” The scary woman said as she subsequently let out an unimpressed tsk. She grumbled something under her breath that Monica couldn’t make out from her hiding spot, then Pretty Fangs turned on her heels, pushing past Scottish Man as she made her way towards the exit. Scottish Man grumbled a few words to his co-worker himself, then followed suit back towards his post. 

Once the crunching of sand beneath shoes had finally faded from earshot, Monica allowed herself to crawl closer to the doorway. She peaked her head to the outside, making eye contact with her saviour as she turned back towards the concession building. “Holy crap, thank you sooo much!” The doppelganger looked at the other girl with wide eyes, a look of awe on her face. “You, like, totally defeated her with the power of logic. Like, duh! If you have enough money to wear diamonds, then you can probably afford another meal!” Monica had long concluded that Pretty Fangs had purposely ordered her steak like that, but that was neither here nor there. 

“And you were so right about the app thing, like just…” The fae suddenly paused, the realization hitting her mid-sentence. “Wait! She probably can find me again through the app, right? Oh my god, I’m screwed!” Monica leapt up from her spot on the floor, frantically pulling her phone out of her pocket so that she could check the delivery app, though her shaking hands were slowing her down. “Ah! AH! Oh my god, my heart feels like it’s gonna fall out of my ass!”

—

Darcy rolled her eyes at the snide remark, and though she was a little late in doing so, she threw up the middle finger to the woman’s turned back. It would’ve been better had she seen it, but maybe, just maybe, for the sake of her company, it was better if she hadn’t. With a sigh, she watched as the woman’s figure retreated, then as the car she had arrived in disappeared. Darcy could no longer smell the strong perfume, either. It was like a distant memory– too sweet and mixed with sweat. It didn’t accompany the taste of the fear at all. 

Oh, right. Darcy turned around to look towards the doorway, noticing how relieved the girl looked. “Uh, sure.” What kind of predicament could a delivery driver get themselves into that’d cost hiding in a storage room? “She was probably just some Karen, wanted to give you a hard time because she fought with her husband or some shit. It was cringe.” Crossing her arms over her chest, she observed her company a while longer, looking past her to see the scooter. “You rode that thing all the way here?” That in itself, was impressive. Though, it looked electric. Maybe not as impressive as she thought. 

“Did you really just fuck up her order?” Darcy watched as the woman pulled out her phone, the fear emitting from her still a sweet, sticky thing. Running her tongue across her teeth, then prodding it against her cheek, Darcy reached forward, plucking the phone from her hands. The delivery information was there, as was the woman’s profile. “Can’t you just block her? That seems like the easiest way to deal with this bullshit, doesn’t it?” She looked over the phone at the woman, then took note of the name in the corner of the app. “Monica, you really shouldn’t let people push you around like that.” 

— 

“Cringe,” Monica nodded vehemently, dragging out the last syllable of the word. “Totally! Karens and cringe go hand in hand. Like, life’s too short to be so grumpy.” It was a sentiment that she wholeheartedly believed, though she knew very well that her latest customer hadn’t been just any normal Karen. Maybe Pretty Fangs had been upset because her husband tried to eat garlic, or maybe he hadn’t made her steak to her liking which was why she had to order out in the first place. Either way, Monica didn’t think she deserved to be on the receiving end of her wrath — it wasn’t like she went around making everyone miserable because of her own blob problems. 

She watched her new friend’s gaze fall to her scooter and Monica beamed proudly. “This? Yup! No ride more reliable than this thing,” she said as if she hadn’t just struggled to scoot across the forest mulch ten minutes ago. Picking the scooter up from where she’d tossed it onto the ground, the doppelganger stomped hard on the deck a few times until the flashing lights turned on in the wheels. “Ta-da! Now that I think about it, thank god I didn’t have these on earlier. Like imagine trying to run from a scary vam– uh, a scary lady, with flashing lights on your back. Might as well scream your location from the top of your lungs!”

The employee took her phone, observing the profile functions that Monica had never really bothered to. “Oh! You’re so right. Hopefully she hasn’t already taken note of anything…” the girl trailed off wearily. Her eyes widened when the employee suddenly said her name, a mild panic running through her before remembering what she could see in the app. “I rarely do, I swear! And I totally did not fuck up her order, for the record. She just opened the box and it was this raw steak. And I was like, ‘oh my gosh, I’m so sorry!’ Like I swear that’s how the restaurant gave it to me. And then she didn’t say anything before biting into it. Raw!” Monica recalled the baffling moment, arms moving frantically as she explained. She wasn’t sure how much to reveal, and it seemed unlikely that her new friend was going to buy the explanation of a potential vampire anyways. “Then I think she was, like, totally embarrassed that I saw her, because she started chasing after me when I bolted. Spooky shit, right?!”

—

“Right.” Darcy wasn’t exactly the most enthusiastic person, but the slight towards grumpy people didn’t hit any kind of nerve. It seemed like the delivery driver– Monica, was an exuberant person, practically bouncing on the balls of her feet, waiting for her next move. Truth be told, Darcy couldn’t remember the last time she’d been around somebody as enthusiastic as her. It was a little draining, to say the least. Or maybe it was the situation that had occurred before them– empty threats only said with a gaze and set of a jaw. Either way, she was ready to send Monica on her way now that the situation was resolved. 

Though, she knew it to never be that easy. The light from the scooter’s wheels came to life and Darcy blinked at the sudden influx of brightness. The dots in her vision stayed as she lifted her gaze up to meet Monica’s. “You’re literally a walking flashbang.” With a sigh, Darcy carded her fingers through her hair. At least her company knew how to be amusing. “The scooter isn’t really recognizable past that, so it’s definitely for the better.” Darcy regarded the scooter without much interest, gaze flickering to the dancing lights. “Can you turn them off?” 

As Monica went on to explain the situation, Darcy snorted. “Raw steak? Seriously?” That was what this was about? The woman had been stupid enough to open the box, and eat it in front of the delivery driver, and gotten upset about it? “People have dietary restrictions or whatever, you could’ve just lied and said you eat raw steak all the time.” In fact, Darcy had been a frequenter of raw steak in the past, typically while shifted, but did that really matter? She could relate. Though, she wouldn’t chase somebody over being caught indulging in it. “Beef tartar exists.” Not that she’d ever had it, but that also didn’t matter. “Man, you just got yourself into a ton of shit for no reason, didn’t you?” Darcy shook her head, chuckling. “Whatever. I guess if you see her again, keep your distance? Wouldn’t want to piss her off again.” It wasn’t lost on her that the woman in question could’ve been something looking for another meal in Monica, but did Darcy really need to tell her that? It was clear by her fear that she knew something weird was up. 

—

Not everyone could match her enthusiasm, and that was okay! Monica nodded dutifully, shaking the scooter until the lights turned off. They were kind of a lot in the enclosed space they were in. At least she seemed to be finding amusement in her story, which was kind of funny now that she was presumably safe. Of course, the threat of Pretty Fangs currently making a plan to track her down still terrified her, but that would be a problem for future Monica to deal with. 

“Right? Or just, like, say you’re gonna bring it in and cook it and bam! Problem solved! Or even if you’re gonna eat it raw, like, I don’t care! Whatever floats your boat! Why did she do all of that, god…” There was a tiny jolt of pain in Monica’s tummy at the lie — granted, not a huge lie, but the fact that she was feigning ignorance over something she clearly knew the reason behind was enough to upset her fae body.

Getting herself into ‘a ton of shit for no reason’ seemed to be the story of her life, but this specific situation could be her biggest situation yet if she wasn’t careful. “Oh trust me, I will never willingly approach that lady ever again! And I think I’m definitely gonna stop taking deliveries from addresses in the middle of the woods…” Monica shivered, a chill going down her spine at the thought of another fanged individual chasing her. “But thank you, nameless girl at the drive-in concession stand! You have literally saved my life today and I owe you biiiig time.”

Hearing a sound from outside, the girl peeked through the window to see the drive-in’s screen flicker to life with trailers. “Oh! I guess the movie’s about to start. I should get going,” she said as she clutched the scooter’s handlebars tightly, shuffling towards the doorway of the building. “Of course, it would be a shame not to watch the movie as long as I’m here. But I don’t have a ticket. What a waste! Ugh, what a shame…” Monica sighed dramatically as her head dropped, unable to bring her feet over the threshold of the exit. Sneaking a glance at the drive-in employee, she wondered if the other girl was catching her drift. “Oh, how I would love to watch Gobf Girl right now…but I am ticketless and I should go…”

—

“Some people are just weird and want to make it other people’s problem, I guess.” Darcy didn’t mean Monica in this situation, but she also didn’t bother to clarify. It wasn’t her issue now that the woman had left, and Monica was out of the red. Then again, it hadn’t ever been her issue to begin with, so why had she gotten involved? Maybe she was growing soft. With a sigh, she reached up to spin her earring absentmindedly. 

“Yeah, sure. Hopefully you won’t end up on the news or some shit.” It didn’t seem like Monica was exactly the careful type, given her general demeanor, but Darcy wasn’t about to go and police somebody on their way of living, especially when her own was just as catastrophic, just in a different way. She wasn’t sure if it was worth anything, especially given the fact that she’d probably never see her again, but she decided that exchanging names was the least she could do. “You can make out the check to Darcy.” She jutted her thumb towards the storage room, “you know, for the housing fee.” She was clearly kidding. “But sure, yeah. You owe me.” She offered a smile, less tired than the last. 

Going to the library for information was probably a bad idea. It was also kind of a pointless venture, since Rory could just as easily ask Talia any questions she might have had about werewolves. But… she felt bad, leaning on Talia as much as she had been, and there was something to be said for the illusion of normalcy, too. Going to the library would make her feel normal. Checking out books about werewolves would make her feel normal. Trying to understand what she was without anyone else’s help or input would help her feel independent, too, which was a sensation she felt was sorely needed right now. She hated relying on other people, hated feeling like she needed someone else to tell her what was going on. So, library. Bad idea, but also good idea. Most of Rory’s ideas were like that.

She had a bundle of books in her arms. Most were about werewolves, though she’d gathered a few about other topics, too, in some attempt to make herself look less suspicious. She made her way over to the counter, preparing some excuse about a school project to better explain the selection to the librarian behind the counter. But then, the librarian behind the counter straightened enough for Rory to get a good look at his face, and that armful of books she’d been toting fell to the ground all at once.

She recognized him. The memory was hazy; most of her shifted memories were. She thought it had been during the surge, maybe, when she was angry and hungry and not much else. She remembered chasing him, remembered attacking him, remembered how badly she’d wanted to kill him. She remembered after, too; the sound of a scream in the distance that drew her in, the way she’d lifted a half-dead stranger into her jaws, the librarian — feathered and strange — forcing her to drop the stranger only so he could snatch the heart from their chest and take it for himself. She was afraid of what she had done to this man, but she was afraid of this man, too. The two fears warred with each other somewhere deep in her gut, and she couldn’t help but stare at him in response.

—

It had been a quiet start to the summer — perhaps suspiciously quiet, but Eden wasn’t going to complain. He’d always been a person to dwell in the past or worry about the future, rarely letting himself live in the moment. So what if this period of peace was potentially the calm before the storm? The least he could do was enjoy his respite for now; it wasn’t like he could predict anything that happened in this strange town anyways. 

He could, however, predict what was going to happen at the library on a day-to-day basis. Helen was going to complain about technology or the ghost that they never fully managed to get rid of. Mrs. Jones was going to roam around the place with her eerie aura and send a chill down his spine. Some teenagers were going to come in and make a mess of some sort, leaving books out on the tables or throwing stationary at each other. Eden had had his fair share of encounters at the library, but he was grateful that his shifts were largely monotonous and mundane. That was why he’d chosen this job, after all. 

A young person approached the circulation desk with an armful of books, and Eden sat up in his chair. “Hello. Please give me one moment,” he said as he tore his eyes away from the computer for a second, nodding in acknowledgement to the patron before focusing back on the email he was typing. Whoever had put in the order for a new shipment of Heated Rivalry had put down 100 instead of 10, and the siren was frantically trying to reverse the order before they got shipped out. In the meantime, he heard several thumps from the other side of the counter as the waiting patron’s collection of books fell onto the ground. Eden winced ever so slightly, hoping that the fallen items didn’t include one of the old books that could be brought apart by one wrong breath. 

He hurriedly typed out the rest of his message and pressed send, expecting to see the patron picking her books up off of the ground when he spun towards her. Instead, she was staring at him like a deer in headlights, and Eden raised an eyebrow quizzically. “Are…you okay, miss? You look like you’re scared that you just murdered the books. I assure you that most of them can survive a tiny tumble.” It was his attempt at incorporating more humour into his professional demeanor, as per Barb’s request. 

—

He seemed so normal now. He was typing away at his keyboard, he was talking to her without looking, he was all furrowed brows and concentration as he leaned closer to the screen. He didn’t look like someone who sprouted feathers and ate hearts. He didn’t look like someone who was dangerous; he didn’t look like a murderer.

Of course, neither did Rory. 

It was stupid, she knew, to be afraid of this man. It was insulting, even. She was the monster under the bed, the thing that chased him through the woods unprompted. He had been terrifying after, but one could argue that at least some of it had been in self defense. (Not the… heart eating part, though. That part, Rory thought, was something else. But could she really judge him for it when she knew she’d done far worse? Her heart was pounding, and it didn’t deserve to be. Her hands were shaking, and it wasn’t really fair. She was the one who had attacked him first. 

And still, her books tumbled to the floor in a way that seemed louder than it should have been, the sound of the impact echoing sharply through the library. Her fear didn’t care what logic had to say; her fear knew only that this man had scared her once, not that she had scared him, too.

He finally looked up at her, his expression a little confused but not at all unkind. Would it have been easier if it had been? If he’d been looking at her like he had in the woods, when he’d snatched the body from her jaws and pulled the heart from its chest? She swallowed, trying to make herself look a little less afraid. She still wanted these books, but she also didn’t want to give away that she was the one who’d chased him in the woods. The phantom pain of the silver bullet that had torn through her gut reminded her how dangerous people could be when they knew what you were. “Um, sorry,” she mumbled. “I thought I saw a mouse, and I’m, like, super afraid of mice.” A lie, but a necessary one. She needed some kind of an excuse here. “Do you, uh… Do you have any more books like this? I’m working on a project. For college.”

—

For a split second, Eden was concerned that this was a silence of recognition. There was a low chance that she was a fan of his, but then again, it wasn’t something he could entirely rule out. However, the longer they stared at each other in silence, it was clear that she was frozen out of something much less pleasant than awe. 

“Uh…” he said hesitantly, unsure of what more to say, really. He didn’t want to seem pushy, but if this patron didn’t need anything from him, then he would appreciate not being stared at as he tried to work. When she finally did speak though, a part of him wished that she’d take it back. “A mouse?!” Eden couldn’t help how shrilly that came out, immediately clearing his throat to retain some sort of composure. “Where exactly did you see it? Or, thought you saw it? Just so I can make sure that you really did not see a rodent.” Standing up from his chair and smoothing out the front of his shirt, Eden emerged from behind the desk with a slightly panicked look in his eye. He scanned the perimeters of the circulation desk, then the nearby aisles until he was absolutely positive that there were no little movements. 

“Books, right. Let’s get you some books…” he said when he felt a bit more settled, although he made a mental note to do a thorough sweep of the place when he was closing tonight. Eden knelt down, stacking the dropped book in his arms as he looked at each title. “Let’s see. Heated Rivalry…” Huh. Maybe the library did need 100 more orders of the book. “The Werewolf in Lore and Legend, some vegan cookbook, A Lycanthropy Reader…” He mumbled the titles to himself, squinting at the odd combination of books for a school project. Though as he picked up the remaining few off of the ground, Eden was beginning to notice the predominantly furry focus. “I’m assuming your project is about werewolves? Supernatural happenings? I’m sure we can find you something in our folklore section.” He placed the girl’s books behind his desk for later, then ushering her towards a section near the back of the library. “My name is Eden, by the way. Hopefully I can be of help today.”

—

There was something almost comical about seeing him react to an imaginary rodent she hadn’t actually seen. Here was a man who she’d seen, in a hazy, half remembered moment, pluck a still-warm heart from a dead chest and swallow it down his throat. He was a monstrous thing in the same way she was, a dangerous one. And yet, the mention of a mouse on the floor was enough for him to shriek out something shrill enough to make her ears hurt a little. 

“Uh…” She looked down as if searching for a mouse she’d never seen to begin with, then shrugged. “It’s gone now. So. I guess you guys should set out traps or something.” Sure, those traps would probably never catch anything, but that was no skin off Rory’s back. She had no real intention of coming back here after this, not now that she knew this guy worked here. Rory defaulted to avoidance when uncomfortable, and seeing a guy who belonged in a memory she was trying really hard to forget entirely took her to a place beyond uncomfortable. 

She tensed a little as the man came out from behind the desk, heart pounding in a way she hoped he couldn’t hear. (Would he chalk it up to the imagined mouse? Or could he tell it was her, somehow? Rory recognized people, sometimes, even if they’d looked different the first time she saw them. A werewolf’s nose was an impressive thing, but she had no idea if a siren’s nose was similar. Did he know it was her? What would he do if he did? She’d attacked him. He might have something to say about that, might want some kind of revenge. Or — or he might want to ensure her silence, since she’d watched him eat a fucking heart. The scar on her gut where Daiyu’s silver bullet tore through her ached faintly, as if in warning. This world was far more dangerous than Rory used to think it was.)

While she didn’t really want to spend any more time with this guy, she also didn’t want to tip him off. She let him flip through her books, nodding absently. “Uh, yeah. Werewolves. Shapeshifters.” She let the second one hang for a moment, wondering if it would get a reaction out of him. “Folklore is probably a good place to start.” She followed him to the section, drumming her fingers against her thigh absently. “I’m Rory.” 

—

“Traps. Of course. Excellent suggestion, thank you,” he nodded affirmatively, adding it to his mental checklist. He did not want to think about who was going to be emptying the traps if they were to catch something, but that was an issue for future him. For now, Eden’s focus was on helping this patron, even if her current on-edge behaviour was slightly questionable.

The folklore section was spread across four aisles located near the back of the building. Despite its relatively tucked away location, it was one of the most popular sections in the library — second only to the ‘romantasy’ section that he was still mildly terrified of. “Well Rory, folklore spans from here to there, but creature-specific books should be all throughout this aisle…” he said, slowly scanning over all of the shelves with the ‘supernatural’ labels. Of course Eden knew exactly where the books about shapeshifters were; he’d spent plenty of closing shifts taking pictures of pages, trying to learn more about sirens and others like him in general. Wasn’t that his whole reasoning for joining the library in the first place? 

But he didn’t want Rory to know about his familiarity with these books, God forbid she asked him why he knew so much. So Eden spent a minute pretending to fumble around the shelves, running his finger across tattered spines as he muttered the different topics out loud. “Vampires…cryptids…ah, here we go. Supernatural: A Guide To The Creatures Who Roam The Night.” Well that was just an insulting title, wasn’t it? The cartoonish stereotype that all ‘creatures’ stalked around in the dark was why humans were so scared of them. (Then again, could he really blame them after the things that he’d seen himself?) Eden suppressed his look of distaste as he handed the book to Rory, then turning to busy himself with the next shelf. “That one seems like a general overview. You look that over and I’ll try and find a specific werewolf book for you. What sort of project is this? Research paper? Argumentative essay?”

—

She couldn’t determine whether the librarian was being genuine or sarcastic. Maybe if she hadn’t been so caught off guard at the sight of him, she would have known. She hated that thought, hated feeling flustered at the idea that this was another person she’d hurt. It felt daunting here in a way that it didn’t with Madison or Clem, who she at least knew. This man was a stranger. Not only did she have to swallow the guilt of knowing she’d gone after him, she also had to contend with the question of whether or not he’d feel the need to seek vengeance for it.

In any case, he didn’t seem in a hurry to attack her, and he probably wouldn’t do it in his place of work. In the library, she was likely as safe as she could be, even if she felt unsafe. She followed Eden to the folklore section, which was far bigger than she’d expected it to be. She looked at all the shelves, feeling a little overwhelmed at the sheer volume of things. “There’s… a lot of books here,” she commented, which felt like a stupid thing to say in a library. Of course there were a lot of books in a library; wasn’t that the entire point? 

Eden scanned the shelf carefully, as if taking in the titles for the first time. She took the book he indicated, flipping through it absently. “Uh, it’s, like… a research paper. Historical.” That was probably her best bet here, wasn’t it? There was some truth to the stories people wrote about the supernatural. Werewolves were affected by the full moon, vampires drank blood. Rory quickly flipped past a page about the latter, trying not to think about the crazy vampire’s basement she’d found herself locked in, the one where Brigit had died. Flipping from that page to another found her staring down at a different image instead — a creature half bird, half person, with an impressive wingspan and a feathered face. Subtly, Rory glanced up at Eden. It didn’t look exactly like he had, though it was similar enough. 

“‘Sirens are creatures from Greek mythology,’” she read aloud. “‘Typically depicted as humanoid females, they have alluring voices and are sometimes shown to have wings and other birdlike features. Some mythology depicts them as mermaid-like.’ Wow. You hear less about those than werewolves or vampires, huh?” She eyed Eden, trying to gauge his reaction.

—

Eden chuckled at the girl’s observation. Books in a library was an obvious thing, but he’d actually had a similar revelation that she’d had when he first arrived here. The Wicked’s Rest library was more thoroughly stocked than he had expected, but its folklore section was what was most impressive. Of course, it had started making more sense once the town’s nature had revealed itself to him.

“Ah, well lots of sources needed for a research paper. We better stock you up,” he said as he started scanning from the top shelf, brow furrowing when he remembered that most of the creature books were organized alphabetically by author, not by species. Considering the sheer amount of species, perhaps it’d be worth spending time reorganizing the space. 

“Now what is this doing here…” Eden frowned again as he plucked out a copy of Twilight from the shelf, definitely not the genre of folklore that they were looking for. “I’ve never actually read this myself, but I know there’s werewolves involved if you’re interested,” he said sheepishly, trying out another attempt at humour. Luckily for him, it seemed like Rory was more focused on whatever passage that she’d just come across than listening to his bad joke. He put Twilight aside so that he could reshelve it later, straightening up when she looked like she wanted to say something. The girl hadn’t been overly chatty like some patrons were; he liked that. 

The next few words out of her mouth, however, he liked much less, as she started reading a paragraph that he’d undoubtedly read himself before. His hand that was reaching out to the shelf wavered ever so slightly as Eden’s instinct to freeze took over. It wasn’t the first time that he’d heard talk about sirens out in public, but there was something about this situation specifically that was putting him on edge. Perhaps it was the fact that he was being directly addressed, or that the quiet nature of the library meant that anyone could overhear their chatter. What an unfortunate coincidence that that had been the passage she’d chosen to read out loud out of any of the other hundreds of pages. 

“Hm, yes. Not a common creature, it seems.” Eden rolled his shoulders back, forcing his body to relax as he did his best to keep his expression neutral. Acting may have been second nature to him, but it didn’t mean he was immune to shock. All he could do was recover as quickly as possible, hopefully before anyone could notice anything off about him. “But all myths at the end of the day, right? Vampires, werewolves, sirens, anything of the sort,” he said firmly, turning back to the shelf as he swallowed down the increasing desire to hide himself.

—

The lie she’d banked on seemed to be a good one. A research paper would explain a wide variety of books being checked out, and wasn’t likely to raise any eyebrows. That was a good thing. If he didn’t know what — or, more importantly, who — she was already, Rory didn’t want to clue him in with something as simple as checking out one too many books about it. 

She glanced over as he removed a rogue book — Twilight, classic — Rory snorted. “Yeah,” she said, shaking her head, “I don’t think that’s what I’m after.” She’d never read the book, but she had watched the movies when they’d seen a resurgence in popularity in recent years, mostly in the interest of watching a film that was bad. She definitely knew enough to know that the werewolves in that story (and the vampires, for that matter) were pretty far removed from reality. Whatever she turned into, she knew it wasn’t a literal wolf. (Maybe it would have been easier for her to wrap her mind around if it had been. After all, her siblings turned into literal ocelots, and that went over just fine. A literal wolf would have been closer, at least, to what they all had going on.) 

She watched Eden carefully as she read aloud from the book in her hand, though she was just as careful to make it look like she wasn’t watching him. Sure enough, there was the briefest wavering as her words reached him. It was a subtle thing — she’d have missed it if she weren’t looking at him — but it was certainly there. Was it a good sign? The fact that he hadn’t expected her to know he was a siren meant he probably didn’t know that she’d seen his feathers firsthand, didn’t it? It did little to quell the quiet anxiety thrumming in Rory’s chest, but she filed it away all the same. 

“No romantasy books about them that I’ve seen, anyway,” she commented, as if she assumed that was what he meant by ‘common.’ In her head, though, she was wondering if he meant the more realistic version. Were sirens rare, like balam? She’d met two in town already — Eden and Ishan — but was that an unexpected thing? Maybe she’d ask Ishan about it. She didn’t think she’d ask Eden. “Yeah,” she agreed, “all myths. Obviously. If there were people running around the woods with feathers, we’d probably know it. Right?”

—

The urge to check if Rory was looking at him was too great, and Eden snuck a glance at the girl from where he’d settled himself at the shelf. She was looking back down at the book, seemingly unaware of any strange behaviour on his part. The fact only did a little to calm his creeping anxiety. “Good for them, staying away from the monopoly that romantasy has had on the supernatural genre,” he said, trying to convey his words with an air of lightheartedness that would hopefully pass as humour once again. 

Turning his attention back to the task at hand, the librarian continued to scan for any werewolf-specific books. Of course, his gaze coincidentally landed on one about sirens instead. Even if this specific text was about their inaccurate oceanic counterparts, just seeing the word was enough to spook Eden after the last few minutes. He couldn’t help but push that book deeper back into the shelf, as if trying to hide it away from Rory’s view. She’d hadn’t lingered on the topic of sirens which was a good sign, but now that she’d been introduced to the concept, he couldn’t risk anything else catching her attention. 

“Right, we would know if people were running around the woods with feathers,” he repeated after her with an affirmative nod. “Or I guess in your case, with fur.” Only he did know about those people — he’d seen it with his own eyes and experienced it in his own body. It was necessary for Eden to shut down the narrative; it was survival. However, every time he pushed his existence down, the more ashamed he felt of simply existing as he was. 

“Ah! Here we go,” he said suddenly, a genuine excitement in his voice as he pulled out a book with a werewolf on the cover. He was excited that he finally found something potentially helpful, but he was mostly excited that they could now pull the conversation as far away from sirens as possible. Eden stared down at the cover, fingers grazing the image of the werewolf as he studied it. The creature looked very similar to the one that had attacked him in the winter. He let out an involuntary shudder at the memory, recalling the adrenaline of the moment and the emotional weight of the subsequent comedown. “Wouldn’t want to be the protagonist in the movie getting chased around by this thing,” he said with an awkward laugh, trying to play off the shudder as one stemming from his vivid imagination.

—

“Unless they could use the good press,” she replied. Were she more daring — which was to say, were she the version of herself she had been months ago, the one who thought she knew all there was to know about what she was and was confident in herself because of it — she might have thrown in a not-so-subtle comment about hearts just to see how he’d react. But that Rory had died when a silver bullet tore through her, and the Rory left now was not as daring. This Rory didn’t want to see the librarian squirm, lest that squirming cause him to look a little closer in her direction. This Rory wanted, mostly, to get the books she was after and leave rather than start problems. She wasn’t sure she liked this Rory very much.

She continued watching Eden out of the corner of her eye, continued tracking his movements. He pushed one book a little further back onto the shelf, obstructing it from view; Rory had a feeling it wasn’t a book about werewolves, and so she made no effort to retrieve it. Let Eden hold onto his secrets; fuck knew Rory intended to hold onto hers. 

For a moment, Eden turned her game back on her. He said in her case and there was a heartbeat where she felt certain this meant he knew. But would he be so calm if he did? She wasn’t exactly skilled in reading heartbeats — she could hear them, sure, but she wasn’t a comic book superhero who could interpret what they meant — but she didn’t think Eden’s spoke of someone planning an attack. She forced herself not to react to the comment with anything more than a shrug, even if her own heart stuttered a little. 

The moment passed quickly enough, as Eden pulled down a book with a promising cover. Rory shut the one she'd been flipping through, which had still been open to the page with sirens. She peered over Eden’s shoulder at the werewolf pictured, trying to match it with her hazy memories. Did it look like Clem had, or Talia? Did Rory look like that, when she was shifted? For a moment, she simply stared at the illustration, breath caught in her throat. “Uh, yeah,” she said belatedly. “I bet it puts up a crazy chase. Probably pretty hard to get away from.” Her chest ached, and she pushed away the memories of people she’d chased who hadn’t escaped in the way Eden had. “This is great.”

—

“I think they are satisfied with the way that they’re represented now,” he said, quickly biting his tongue as soon as the words left his mouth. Pausing, he forced himself to carefully think about how he was going to phrase his next sentence. “I mean, look at how out of hand the depiction of vampires and werewolves has gotten. I’m sure the sirens enjoy the peace and quiet from the limelight. If they were real. If any of this were real.” He was really talking himself into a hole now, something that tended to happen when his heart started racing.

Eden looked down at the book’s cover like it was the most interesting thing in the world, trying to buy some time to compose himself. Once handing it off to Rory though, he was too far gone in the memory of his personal werewolf encounter. The creature on the cover stared back at them with piercing eyes, sharp teeth bared as it prepared to take its next victim. Eden remembered looking at a face just like it in the woods that night — a face that would’ve killed him had he not been able to protect himself. “Yeah, surely. Real slim chance of getting away,” he nodded halfheartedly, eyes now staring off into the distance as he tried not to ruminate. 

Catching a glimpse of the circulation desk down the aisle, Eden decided that it was time to wrap things up. He always strived to do his job thoroughly, but in this case, he wanted to send Rory on her way as soon as possible. Between the coincidental siren conversation (that his paranoia was starting to convince him was not a coincidence; perhaps she was a mole sent by his blackmailer) and his resurfacing feelings about werewolves, he wanted nothing more than to get back to his desk. Doing one more speedy scan of the shelves, Eden picked out two more books — one werewolf-specific book and one about the supernatural in general — and waved them in front of Rory. “I think these four seem like a good start, plus the others you have up front. Don’t want to overwhelm your brain with too much knowledge at once, right?”

Without waiting for an answer, Eden started walking down the aisle back into the main area. He hadn’t realized how dark it was in the folklore section in comparison to the rest of the library, but once the overwhelming fluorescent lights hit his face once more, he let out a breath he didn’t remember holding. He glanced over his shoulder just to make sure that Rory was actually following him, then once at his desk, added the new books to the stack that she’d dropped earlier. “Do you have a library card? If not, we’ll just have to make you one real quick,” he said as he settled back into the familiar comfort of his chair. “I’ll need your full name, address, contact information…oh, and a picture.” Eden tapped the webcam perched on top of his computer. “Don’t worry, we don’t scan your face or anything. It’s just to prevent identity theft.” Lord knows how many people had tried impersonating him before.

—

If she hadn’t known what he was already, she liked to think this particular reaction would have revealed it to her. That was probably an unrealistic thought, or an arrogant one. Rory had never been particularly observant; if she had been, she might have figured out she was something different than the rest of her family before she got to her twenties, might have realized she was the odd one out before there was no one around for her to look to for the comparison anymore. Still, her default was to cockily assume Eden had given himself away, as if she were some great detective. He spoke about sirens as if he knew them firsthand, and wasn’t that a tell? If she tried, she could convince herself it was something more than confirmation bias. She knew, deep down, that that wasn’t the truth. She decided to let him off the hook, anyway, shrugged a shoulder and nodded in some nonsensical combination of gestures. “Right,” she agreed. “If any of this were real.”

It was real. They both knew that. She watched him without watching him, observing him while making it look as though she was still looking at the book. The way he’d looked at the cover, the way he’d handed it over with some haunted look in his eye… Was he remembering the same thing she was? Rory felt haunted by the hazy memories that had come back to her with Daiyu’s bullet but to Eden, she was the ghost. To Eden, she was the monster under the bed, the thing that had chased him through the woods and terrified him. And he was a monster, too, maybe — she could still see that heart disappearing down his throat in her mind’s eye — but that didn’t make Rory any less monstrous. Nothing he’d done could excuse what she was. She knew that. 

Eden seemed to want to rush her out, and it felt like a relief. She was glad for it, found that she no longer wanted to be here, no longer wanted to be doing this. She wanted to go home and read these books and try to find some way to understand herself even though understanding herself felt like some large, impossible venture. She wanted to never see Eden again even if she was the monster and he was the victim, even if she’d goaded him with the book just to see what might happen. She followed him towards the circulation desk without argument, the two new books tucked under her arm. “Right,” she agreed. “I’m not much of a reader, so… It’s probably going to take me years to read these, anyway.” And she’d have Madison return them for her when she was finished, she thought. She didn’t want to run into Eden again.

There was the matter of a library card, which Rory actually didn’t have. (Last time she’d been here, it had been with the intention of stealing a book. Which, okay, she had, but only because said book had been sentient and a little bit of a misogynistic asshole. Anyone would’ve done it.) “Oh,” she said, shrugging. “Uh, right.” She filled out the information, messy scrawl hard to read but not impossible. And the, she positioned herself in front of the webcam for a photograph. “Ready when you are, I guess.”

—

He liked the idea that he was helping encourage young people to read, even if it was only for the sake of a project. Eden just hoped that werewolves were something that Rory was actually somewhat interested in. “Well, everyone’s got to start somewhere. Just remember to come back and renew them if you need more time past the loan period. The late fee isn’t massive, but it’ll add up with this collection you have,” he said calmly, feeling his creeping panic starting to dissipate as he snapped back into work mode. It made him feel more like himself — more human, less like a monster hiding in plain sight. 

Eden took the form, reaching for his discarded glasses as soon as he saw the scrawl. It wasn’t the worst he’d ever seen, but still unfathomable for someone who prided himself on neat handwriting. Then again, he had learned English from the best tutors in Shanghai, ones who didn’t give him the choice of illegible script when he was repeatedly writing down pages of sentences. Eden tried not to squint too much as he typed up each line, not wanting to make the girl feel ashamed of her messy penmanship. 

“Alright, I’ll give you a countdown,” he said as he navigated to the webcam app, counting down and giving the girl a thumbs up once the picture had been taken. “Now just give it a second to run through the system.” Eden drummed his fingers on the desk as he waited for the printer to spit out the card. For some reason, the settled silence always felt much less awkward when he was on this side of the desk, as if it was a barrier protecting him. “There we go,” he smiled once the card popped out, looking it over to make sure that everything was correct. The picture was clear — much clearer than they used to be, thanks to the new webcam he begged Barb to let him get. Now pictures weren’t a grainy, blurry mess, and he could actually make out the patron’s features. 

Eden wanted to tell Rory that he was admiring the new webcam quality, not creepily staring at her face. However, his breath hitched when he looked into picture-Rory’s eyes. There was a familiarity there that he couldn’t quite place, one that he hadn’t noticed earlier as he was too busy with the books to get a good look at the girl. “Uh, sorry. Here you go,” he said, finally scanning the card and handing it off across the desk. He looked Rory — real Rory — in the eye as he did so, and the weight of familiarity hit him again, only this time, it came with an unexplained dread settling in his chest. 

Without a word, Eden started scanning the books one by one, his heartbeat getting louder in his ears with each of the folklore titles. It wasn’t until he got to the book with the werewolf cover that the recognition hit him. He’d looked into those eyes before when they were chasing him through the woods, when they contained a hunger that they wanted him to satiate, when they glared back at him after tearing another human apart. 

It was hard to forget the eyes that looked at you when you were about to die. Only, he hadn’t died. He had shifted, which was now feeling like an even worse fate to Eden than dying. “You…” he started to say, hands frozen over the last book as he hesitantly looked up at Rory. This person, this kid, had tried to kill him, and maybe he should’ve let her instead of exposing his true nature to her. “I think we, uh, need to talk.” The siren abruptly stood up from his chair, mouth open as if he wanted to say more, yet unsure of where to go from here.

—

Nobody ever looked good in a webcam photo, and Rory made a face as Eden studied hers with an intensity that made her feel uneasy. She wasn’t particularly self conscious about the way she looked — at least, not in the way her sister used to be, staring in the mirror and pulling and poking at her face with an insecurity that practically rolled off her in waves so intense Rory used to swear she could smell them — but she was still a woman in her early 20s, and she wasn’t entirely immune from the insecurities that came along with that. 

When he handed the card to her, she took it quickly, meeting his eye with a slight incline of her chin as if to challenge him a little. But there was something about the way he was looking at her now, something about the way his eyes carefully scanned hers that put her on edge. He hadn’t been examining the photograph in the way she thought he had, she realized. There was something else here, some other motive, some other drive.

It wasn’t until he looked down at the covers of the books that it clicked for her. Recognition. He’d seen something in her eyes. (Were they the same, when she was shifted? Was she a monster with humanlike, honey brown eyes that were full of a rage and hunger she swore she didn’t feel the same way in this form? The thought unsettled her, made her feel uncomfortable all over.)

Quickly, she gathered up the books and the library card, shoving the latter into her pocket. Eden stood, said they needed to talk, but Rory was already making a beeline for the door. “Sorry!” She called behind her, “Can’t talk. Gotta run!” Her heart was pounding, her palms sweating, and her legs felt like she was on fire. Hoping he wouldn’t go so far as to follow her, the young werewolf pushed her way out onto the sidewalk and practically sprinted towards home.

—

Eden wasn’t one for revenge, not after seeing how it consumed his mother and others like her in their colony. It was hard to gloss over the fact, however, that the girl standing here had tried to kill him, would’ve killed him if he hadn’t been able to defend himself. It was as if they were back in the woods when the librarian stood, as if he was standing taller to protect himself once more. But instead of attacking like she had when they first met, she ran. He should’ve seen it coming; it was what most people would do in a confrontation like this. 

People. Humans — that was what they were right now, their animalistic side buried deep inside them. Or perhaps Rory’s wasn’t buried at all, perhaps she co-existed with the animal in her in a way that his shame could never fathom. There was recognition in her eyes too — she remembered that night. Conscious yet different during her shift, carrying the weight of the animal’s actions into her human life like he did. The siren was much more humanoid than the wolf had been — how long had she recognized him for? Clearly she still remembered. 

Eden’s racing thoughts were too loud, like they always were, but it was too late to do anything about it now. The girl was out the door now, and he did not want to make a scene by chasing her down. He sat back down, his heartbeat practically thumping in his ears. How was he supposed to get back to work now? With a sigh, the librarian closed his eyes momentarily as he tried to collect himself, opening them back up to see the girl’s information still on his computer screen. 

The woods were the best place for this. Daiyu did not intend to do as Talia had, to find out where she lived and strike her down on her living room floor. It was too risky, anyhow — there were people that knew she wanted to kill her and she had no doubt that her intentions had leaked past her trusted few. A house was easily protected. The woods were wild and free. It was a fighting ground she was used to. It was a place that seemed infinite in its memories and opportunities. Whatever were to happen here today, she would be glad it had happened in the woods.

Eve had supplied her with the werewolf’s work schedule. Starting and ending time, as well as the areas that Talia was expected to go over. She was endlessly grateful to have a friend who could get her the information she needed without her having to shake someone down. Daiyu wanted this to be quick and easy. She did not want Talia to be aware she was intending to cut her down on her working grounds. She did not want her to expect a thing, but she knew she could not be so lucky.

She’d set up in an area of the woods where the briefing had said something about a part of the trail being blocked. Talia would have to come through, she figured, and as it was near the end of the route, she could even honor Eve’s wishes to not attack until the end of the shifter’s shift. Daiyu laid in wait. She had not paid any attention to what was blocking the path, was simply ensuring that her pistol was working well. That the silver bullets were ready. That her knife was sharp enough. She was too occupied with thoughts of whether she should give Talia the end she had imagined for her – one that was slow and painful – or whether she should just go for a swift bullet to the head. She knew what was wisest, and she knew what she wanted. They were in disagreement.

Eventually something seemed to tug at her navel. A shifter nearby. Daiyu grit her teeth, undoing the safety of her pistol and stepping onto the trail. Between herself and Talia laid the obstruction, but it would do little to stop her bullet from reaching its target. She looked at her appear on the other side and took aim. Her head wanted to go for the skull, her heart for the leg. She did not shoot yet. “You know, it really didn’t have to fucking come to this,” she bit, stepping forward onto a patch of grass between them. 

—

Anxiety and insecurity had become Talia’s twin companions for the better part of a month. Every since she had it confirmed that Daiyu was not planning on taking her attack lying down. She should have assumed as much, of course. Everything she knew about the ranger had informed her of the likelihood of that outcome. The aftermath hadn’t been included in her calculations, there was no reality beyond the need to eradicate the hunter who had killed Tabitha. And now she was paying for her shortsightedness. 

It was always humbling, as an adult to realize your parents were right. Not about the mission, but about the tenet that revenge served no purpose. 

In large part, Talia had been less worried about what would actually come of Daiyu seeking to settle their score and more sick with shame over what she had done. In those clarifying moments that she had thought might be her last, Talia had found the error of her ways. Daiyu shouldn’t have killed Tabitha, but nothing was gained from her creating a mission from her sister’s death. All her efforts had done were make her feel like she was living under her pack’s rule once again. There had been no peace, or closure in lunging for Daiyu’s throat. Closure was sitting on the floor with Emilio in November and staring up at the candle-lit ofrenda wreathed in pictures of their loved ones. It was laying out with Daniel on the couch to swap stories about their sisters. It was helping Rory find and tame her wolf.

If only she had learned that before tracking Daiyu to her cabin and trying to kill her.

Despite the strange emotional milieu that had been surrounding, Talia didn’t think anything much about investigating an obstruction on the path. Those happened often enough and, as they were usually a downed tree after a storm, were fairly simple to handle. Arriving at the point in question, though, she didn’t notice anything amiss. It was just a grassy clearing. That was, until Daiyu stepped out from the edge of the trees. There was a gun trained on her, then, and Talia could smell the silver from their short distance. Shots to kill, then. At the very least, to hurt her as much as possible. 

“It didn’t,” she agreed. Her tone was flat – this was her fault, but she couldn’t bring herself to show that contrition to Daiyu. He hands were up, though, spread, to show the ranger that she wasn’t interested in a fight. She didn’t want to die, but she didn’t want to fight, either. Taking a careful step closer, Talia trailed her eyes over Daiyu to see if she could spot any other weapons or an indication toward a partner in crime. “Are you going to shoot me, then? Leave me for dead until someone can come and hide my body.”

–

Talia spread her hands up in the air, showing no weapons in them. Daiyu found no comfort there. Though the werewolf had fought her as a human last time, she knew better than to assume she'd do the same this round. Her hands were just hands now, but they could become claws. A werewolf was a weapon in and of itself, especially someone raised in the pack Talia had dwelled from. She remembered how well her twin had fought. She remembered how Talia had fought her in her own home. Maybe she didn't even need her claws. 

The fact that they had both been brought up as weapons was not lost upon her. It did very little to stir up any empathy or understanding, though. Every individual had an ability to be volatile. Someone who knew where she lived, who had wormed her way into the hearts of people Daiyu once cared about — that was the kind of volatility she could not stand. She felt the gun in her hand. Even if Talia's empty hands were hardly a comfort, Daiyu still had that working in her favor. Silver bullets would tear through her in a moment, ending the unrest that had lived within her ever since that moment in the gym.  

And what had Talia done but make it worse? When she had stalked her at a restaurant, had faced her on the streets and broken her nose, she had made it clear what her intent was. When she had attempted to follow up on that, she'd come into her house and fought with the intent to kill but had failed. She'd wrought havoc on her social circle, pulling Emilio and Wyatt so close to her that they'd turned their back. 

It didn't have to come to this, but it had. Daiyu would not be chased out of the town she had grown used to. She would not live for fear of her own life. She would not accept it. 

“Nice place to die, don't you think? The woods,” she said it and she meant it, “Better than someone's living room floor. Or your very fucking own.” She thought about Talia's body. Eve could clean it up and she would, without a doubt. She would have hid for her somewhere far in the brush with a rifle and not said the wrong thing in the aftermath. But Daiyu didn't want to drag Eve into this, at least not yet. She opted for meanness in stead, “Might burn you.” 

That was what they had done with Tabitha and the other would-be ambushers, after all. Burned the bodies. Left no corpse that would satisfy the grief that had undoubtedly made a close friend of Talia.  

She moved forward. The grass seemed to reach for her. She took aim, not wanting to get lost the way Talia had. She was here for one thing only. Daiyu put her finger on the trigger and pulled without hesitation. There was no bang. Not much of a recoil either. In stead, bubbles flowed from the gun, drifting up into the air and towards Talia. “What the actual fuck.” She pulled the trigger again, and more bubbles followed. Iridescent and dreamy, they filled the air between them as Daiyu kept pulling the trigger, to little avail. 

–

It was, actually. A nice place to die. Talia had loved the woods her whole life – in Montana and then Arkansas, and now, here, in Maine. Even with Daiyu, her sworn enemy, standing in front of her with a gun, she was still thankful to be in the woods. And yes, if she had to die that day, she would want it to be there. Her wish would be to have someone with her for it, Daniel or Emilio, or Wyatt but– Who got there wish of where, or how, they got to die? Almost no one.

(Just the other night, in bed with Daniel. Talking about growing old together. Jokes about being hot with grey hair, dancing around the topic of whether there’d be a family with them. She had been stupid to think that was something she got to have.)

“Don’t,” and it was close enough to begging that she heard her sister’s voice in her ear. “Don’t do that, please.” She couldn’t stand the thought of turning to ash and drifting on the wind. For so long, the ache of not having anywhere to mourn her sister, to visit her remains, had been a wound. It still was one. Metzli had explained about not needing a place, about honoring her anywhere she felt her sister’s presence. But she wanted there to be something left of her. So she could sink into the dirt. So the worms could find her. So she could return to the earth.

It wasn’t that she was ready to die. She wanted to live just as badly as she had discovered on the floor of Daiyu’s cabin. Even more, maybe, with the responsibilities she now had, to Daniel, to Rory. But she was also tired. Exhausted from vigilance over the situation with Daiyu. The situation that she herself had made. This, at least, would be an end to it. It would be over, finally. Talia only hoped that the arrow’s path would end with her. Don’t kill for me, she sent a silent prayer to Daniel. Let there be no more death, no more revenge, from this vector. 

However pathetic it was to stand her ground and allow Daiyu to kill her, Talia was at least strong enough to keep her eyes open, to meet her death head on, so she saw the bubbles. Adrenaline was still seeping, cold, through her system. “What the fuck?” It blurted out of her, almost in tandem with Daiyu’s exclamation. Another pull on the trigger, more bubbles. “Is this some sick joke?” Had the ranger just wanted to see her face? Scare her? 

But that didn’t make any sense. Daiyu wanted her dead. She wouldn’t waste an opportunity just to scare her. “I don’t get it.” Talia’s lungs were still heaving, fists clenching at her sides. The bubbles that streamed from Daiyu’s gun drifted on the air, dancing in the light breeze. A few made it far enough to caress her face before popping. It didn’t sting, or hurt, or burn. It didn’t feel like anything. It felt like…a soap bubble popping. 

Her breathing canted up a degree as, paradoxically, she took a step closer. She only meant to knock the gun from Daiyu’s hands. Maybe even to take it, to inspect it and see just what the fuck the ranger was playing at. The punch never landed. Instead Talia’s arm swung up wildly and she spun on her toe, like an ice dancer or a child playing fairies. When she landed back on both feet, her eyes were wide and boring into Daiyu. “What the fuck is going on?”

—

The soft way that Talia said don’t in response to her statement that she’d burn her made Daiyu feel a sick sort of triumph. All these weeks since the other’s attempt on her life she had felt the urge to beg people. To beg them to have her back, to beg them to make her feel safe, to beg them to not make everything feel so nebulous and confusing. She wanted Talia to feel as desperate as she had, when she had seen Emilio walk into her house. When she had witnessed him choosing her would-be-killer over her. She wished she had someone with her who could make her feel the betrayal she had felt then, but for now this was enough. 

But there was something sick about it too, because somewhere under all the resentment and hatred, there was still the pragmatic and swift killer who did not much care for drawing shit out. That might come later, once she’d be back home washing the blood off her and retiring to bed. Where there was time to ruminate on the role Talia had played in the lives of people Daiyu cared about, about all the stupid endless questions about morality and revenge. Right now though, there was only her need to end this.

The gun did not act the way it should, though. The final blow that should follow her pull of the trigger never came. There were just the bubbles floating between them, ten rounds of them. The recoil of her gun felt strange too, the glock useless as she watched the iridescent circles dance around them. 

“You think I fucking do? You think I —” She did not want to be among cheery bubbles at any given time, but especially not now. Not when faced with her prime foe, with her sworn and lethal enemy, the person whose life she intended to end here and now. She always hunted with determination, but this was a new kind. And all she got was bubbles. 

Talia moved closer to her and Daiyu grew defensive, ready to do this bare handed if she needed to. But the werewolf never lunged for her — she spun around in stead and the sight was so stupid that Daiyu almost laughed. But when Talia looked at her with that furious look, her own anger was right back in her chest, burning like a never-ceasing furnace. “Fuck if I know.” She moved her arm back to throw the gun into the other’s face as a disarming maneuvre, but in stead of throwing it, she just moved her hands forward and did some fingering tricks with the gun, spinning it in her hands.

“Fuck!” Daiyu threw the gun aside now, feeling a large personal betrayal towards her chosen weapon. She lunged forward to throw Talia to the ground, but some invisible force bounced her aside and she fell face-flat onto the grass.

—

Daiyu had the audacity to get pissed off at her. To act as if this wasn’t all her doing. “It’s your fucking gun,” Talia answered back as Daiyu claimed ignorance. Why wouldn’t Talia assume that she knew what was going on? She had tracked her down that day, come to finish the job. Only to play some kind of fucked up mind game instead. All for the sake of, what? Making her think that she was going to die? Why not just kill her? Why not just kill her? That’s what Daiyu wanted, Talia knew.

…That’s what she wanted, more than she would have wanted to play some kind of prank, or pull the rug on Talia. And the ranger looked genuinely angry and, underneath that, frustrated and confused. This wasn’t Daiyu’s doing. Which meant this was just some strain of Wicked’s Rest weirdness getting to them. Magic, maybe? An effect from some nearby beast?

The theory that something was off solidified as Talia found herself unable to bat the weapon out of Daiyu’s hands. Whatever the something was, it appeared to be affecting both of them, by preventing them from attacking each other – as Daiyu dived for her and ended up eating grass. Talia hadn’t even had time to lunge to the side, that’s how quickly it had gotten ahold of Daiyu. Which meant it wasn’t likely to be someone, or something, watching them and reacting to their moves. Rather, it had to be something in the environment – or a spell placed over both of them.

The latter didn’t make much sense. Daiyu and Talia hadn’t been in the same place (Talia had made sure of that) since that disastrous night at Daiyu’s home. So it couldn’t have been some accident or fluke. There were plenty of other people, though, caught up in the tangled web that she and Daiyu had made of their vendetta. Which meant plenty of people who could have wanted them to make nice. That could have been a possibility, but it was a distant one. The only people Talia knew who cared enough about to try such a thing would be Daniel, Wyatt, or Emilio. And she didn’t think any of them would go messing around with magic, especially a spell directly on her and Daiyu. 

No, the only logical explanation was that there was something around them that was doing this. Huffing out a sigh, Talia recognized that she would have to let Daiyu know. “I think there’s something…around here that’s causing this. Some kind of…peace-loving supernatural bird or some shit.” She distantly recalled a bird that could make people feel calm, but this wasn’t that. They both obviously still felt the same violence toward each other, and had that impetus to attack. They just weren’t able to complete the actions. Should they just…leave? Each go their separate ways? Somehow Talia didn’t think Daiyu would accept that. And even if she did, the mystery of exactly what spell they were under would still need to be solved.

—

“I didn’t fucking buy a bubble gun and bring it into the woods to prank you,” she snapped back, finding the whole idea almost too ludicrous to even say out loud. She was here to kill Talia, to nip a cycle of revenge in the bud before it would find its way to her doorstep again, but in stead the air was filled with bubbles. At least most of them had burst now, no longer laughing her square in the face with their floating presence.

She pushed herself up from the grass with an angry grunt, wanting nothing more to try to get to the werewolf across from her. She knew that whatever was going on demanded some kind of investigation, that there was some magical reason that should explain why her gun and body were not working. If it was just her gun, it would be easy to explain away as interference with an object. But when Talia had come for her, she had spun like a dancer and when Daiyu had tried to lunge for her, she had ended up with a grass-stain on her chin. She rubbed at it, worsening it as her hands were also green.

She had no time for this. She had no time for the stupid bullshit that happened in this town, no time to figure out what was going on and undo it so she could get on with it. She had lost the element of surprise now, and surely the magazine of her gun was empty despite the fact that she had not shot any actual bullets. Daiyu was not thinking about the nonsense at hand, was in stead trying to think of ways to ensure that Talia would not turn into some large, hounding beast that could tear her limb from limb. 

But then Talia spoke. Not with a snarl, not with an insult, not even with an accusation. “There’s no supernatural bird like that,” she said swiftly, wanting nothing more than to undermine the other’s working theory. Daiyu did feel her eyes go up, then down, then around. Her mind was going over beasts that could have the effect Talia described, but came up empty. Something else, then. “Knowing my luck it’s probably a fucking worm,” she muttered under her breath, looking up at Talia. This time she upped the volume of her voice, “You sure this not some fucking protection charm you got going on? Seems like the cowardly thing someone like you’d do. Rely on someone or something else.”

—

“There absolutely is a bird that makes you feel calm. Some fucking ranger you are.” Talia couldn’t resist the urge to snipe at Daiyu. Though, really, she should have kept her mouth shut. With her luck, Daiyu would go and research that bird and make it their new enemy and wipe the whole species out of existence. If there was anyone who could become a one-person extinction event, it was a Volkov. That’s what they did. That’s all they were good for.

(No, she whispered to herself, behind all of that. No, because if that were true, it would be right to cull them all. That’s what her pack had wanted her to believe. That’s what rangers like the Volkovs believed of werewolves and other shifters. She knew it wasn’t so black and white because nestled firmly in the grey of it all was Daniel. And, now, herself.)

She wanted to argue that relying on another person wasn’t cowardice. In many instances, it could even be smart strategy. (The hunters that her sister had been waiting to kill had relied on someone else, after all. They had relied on Daiyu and their family…) But Talia wasn’t a therapist and she doubted the ranger would listen to her anyway. “I don’t fuck around with magic.” That side of the supernatural, and the fae adjacent to it, made her uncomfortable in a way that wasn’t necessarily fair. And was probably a shade hypocritical as well but– she wasn’t a therapist. At least she didn’t go around slaying every fairy she found. 

Her suspicion of magic wholesale might be unfair, but that didn’t mean magic wasn’t the culprit here. Talia’s eyes flickered to the stain on Daiyu’s chin, on their hands. There was a distant memory of a story coming to her – something to do with fae and grass. Crouching, she ran her hand along the green beneath them. It looked and felt like normal grass. And from what Talia could scent, it even smelled like normal grass. But it would add up. “I think maybe it’s… There’s some kind of fairy grass.”

She strained to remember what she knew of it, where she had heard the story in the first place. Most likely her Uncle Titus. If there was a far off story that sounded vaguely untrue, it was usually from him. There wasn’t much to it, as she remembered. Just patches of grass that fae had enchanted. Or planted? And it did something different based on what the fairy wanted, or even of its own accord. “Guess some fucking…hippie fairy planted a patch to make everyone give peace a chance or whatever the fuck.”

The real question was, were they stuck there?

—

She narrowed her eyes, racking her brain for such a bird. Probably not bestial in nature. Not really something she concerned herself with much anyway — most people wanted threatening creatures dead, not the ones making you feel relaxed and pacifistic. Daiyu, however, was feeling a level of hypothetical rage for this bird, as it was getting in the way of her finishing off the Talia-issue. 

“Don’t think you should be insulting my skills as a ranger,” she snarled back. She did not voice the unsaid: that thinking her a shit ranger, was implying that Talia’s sister had been easy pickings. In a way she had been, if only because she and the other rangers had had the element of surprise and had outnumbered the werewolves. Daiyu was ready to rehash those bits of the past. Her modus operandi was not to draw out the suffering of her kills, but if she could not cause any physical harm to Talia, she at least had the memory of her twin’s body burning on hand.

Her mind was not so much on what was causing this, rather on the seething anger that kept on furling and unfurling in her stomach. To be around the woman who had come into her house to murder her without the ability to lay hands on her was maddening. Talia was talking, trying to investigate what was going on and she was sure it was a farce. That she had somehow figured out that Daiyu had tracked her down and orchestrated some stupid way to keep her from hurting her? 

Yes, Talia had tried and failed to punch her, but that was probably just show. She had to find a way to defend herself the moment Talia dropped the act and came for her. Wouldn’t that be ironic? For her to try and set an ambush for Talia but die in stead? Daiyu realized the potential parallel to her twin’s death there.

She tried to focus on what Talia was saying, if only to pick apart the lies for what they were. “Fairy grass,” she echoed, incredulous. “Don’t let them fucking hear you calling it that, the fae I mean — fairy grass.” She looked down at their feet, at the startlingly green patch of grass that stretched around their feet. Fae could have domains pretty much anywhere, she knew, so she did not doubt that grass could be among it.

“For the fucking record, I don’t believe you one bit,” she said, before starting to stomp away from Talia and the grass. When she reached the edge, though, her legs carried her around it, rather than across it. Daiyu muttered another, “What the fuck,” as she tried to force herself to stand on pine needles or mulch in stead, but her feet seemed determined to stick to the grass. She whipped to look at Talia, standing on the same patch as her, still. “Give peace a chance you said, huh? That’s fucking hilarious.”

—

“Okay, well I don’t fucking know,” Talia swept her arms up a big, sarcastic gesture. “Sorry, I don’t hang out with fairies. I try to avoid them, actually, so I don’t know all their specific…whatever. Slurs or shit.” She made a mental note to torment Baz with that a bit the next time they met. Or maybe she could ask Estella about it. With Teagan gone, those two were the only fae Talia knew. Would any fae be able to help their circumstances here? She would fucking not be seeking out Baz’s help, that much was certain. Talia’s ego was still recovering from having to buy them a replacement for their precious fucking vape the last time they helped her out. And even if the nymph could help, Talia barely knew Estella. 

As Daiyu turned on their heel and made for the ede of the little clearing, Talia watched with careful interest, every muscle tense. If it was just a matter of stepping out of the grass’s circle, then they would easily be able to harm Talia from the outside. Unless…maybe their blows wouldn’t land if she were still inside? The specific mechanics didn’t matter much – Talia wouldn’t be sticking around to find out. The second Daiyu put their foot down outside the bounds of the protection of the grass, she would make a run for it. Let Daiyu call her a coward for bolting. Maybe it would even be true. One good thing had come from all of that aftermath: Talia had learned she wanted to live. She wasn’t willing to die, not even for a cause as worthy as avenging her sister. 

(Coward, a voice whispered at the back of her mind, and it wasn’t Daiyu’s, but her sister’s.)

All that musing was for naught, though, as the grass proved an impenetrable boundary. One that she and Daiyu were stuck within together. “Great,” she muttered, hands on her hips. So they were trapped there and they couldn’t even take their frustration out on each other. If this were a movie, the grass would have some objective that needed to be cleared before they could go free. Like time loops – you just had to learn the moral lesson whatever divine entity that trapped you wanted you to learn. But this was Wicked’s Rest. Talia didn’t think the two of them hugging and making up would be the answer to their problem. The fae grass wasn’t a plot device, just some shitty grass planted by some asshole fae that meant she was trapped here with the ranger who had sworn her to be their mortal enemy. 

“Do you believe me now?” Why in the fuck would she want to be caught here with Daiyu? She had been avoiding the ranger for going on months now, while Daiyu plotted their revenge plot within a revenger’s tragedy. Not that Talia could really blame the ranger there – it was all a cycle, and one she hadn’t been able to see until the threat of her own death had ripped the veil from her eyes. Daiyu was trying to kill Talia because Talia tried to kill Daiyu because Daiyu killed Tabitha because Tabitha was trying to kill some hunters because the hunters had killed some werewolves who had killed some hunters who had killed more shifters who had no doubt killed humans. On and on, stretching back to before Talia and Daiyu had even had names, before any of their ancestors had names. 

Letting out all her air in a noisy huff, Talia dropped her head back and tipped her eyes to the sky. A patch of clear blue shone through the canopy of leaves. There was no reason to believe that her wolf would be immune to the fae magic twined through the grass. Otherwise, she would have shifted and ran off without a glance back. “I didn’t do any of this,” she insisted again. “I don’t even think this is about us. It’s just an awful fucking coincidence.” The grass just existed, as did Talia, and Daiyu. “Do you know anything about…fairy shit? Like how we can get the fuck out of here?” Grass, Talia knew, but she had a sneaking suspicion this grass wouldn’t behave like normal. That being said, there probably wasn’t any harm in just trying to burn it all.

—

“Probably because you’re fucking intolerable to hang out with,” she quipped back with instinctive ease. She knew it was an empty insult, considering all the friends Talia had that Daiyu had decisively cut off herself. She was popular, which usually meant nothing to her, but considering what people held Talia’s affections, it meant something now. Eve and Jade had even liked her – maybe they still do, something whispered in her head – and she valued their opinion more than she liked to admit. Still, it was crucial she cut at the other as much as she could with words, now that knives were no longer an option. 

Once done trying to walk out of the patch of grass, she was back at glowering at the source of her ire. The grass was a low ranking second on the list of things that bothered her. Third, maybe — her skin was itchy today, and she had forgotten to bring her cream. She resisted all urges to touch the healed burns, not wanting to reveal any of her weaknesses to Talia, even if these were so clearly on display. 

“Don’t trust you for one bit,” she said in a non-committal answer. She figured it was likely that Talia had not created this patch of grass in this exact spot, but that did not mean she didn’t expect any other tricks. This was her domain in a way, wasn’t it? Not in the day Daiyu’s house had been, certainly. The woods belonged to no one, but Talia was in them quite often, and just like Daiyu had a few places where she had traps put down and even some trail cameras hidden, she figured Talia had prepared the woods to be her ideal battle ground.

When Talia threw back her head, all Daiyu could think about how easy it would be to attack her now. Her neck was exposed and she was distracted. But she reigned the instinct, not wanting the grass to throw her on her ass or do something else to keep her from punching Talia in the throat the way she had, that unfortunate day at her house. She had to act the way she did when she was hunting something larger than her. She had to lay in wait and grasp the right opportunity when it presented itself to her, not go for the first shot. She stared at that neck, though, filled with the fantasy of finally quelling the threat on her life.

Talia spoke and her throat moved and Daiyu felt frustrated, because why was she trying to fix this by asking them things? They had no clue, and they sure as fuck didn’t feel like solving some fae bullshit today. Her calendar had been cleared for one thing only: eliminating Talia. 

They took the other in, trying to figure out how sincere this attempt was. They knew a thing or two about fae. She figured there was probably some kind of deal involved that had to be made, because all fae had an obsession with those. But she saw no fae around, only the stupidly green patch of grass underneath her feet. “Fae,” she corrected, if only to feel like she had some advantage. It wasn’t often that she could feel like the more knowledgeable one in the room. Or on the patch of grass.

She looked back at Talia, not sure if she should trust her with the way her mind was trying to find a solution. What was to happen, anyway, if the grass’ hold on them ended? Daiyu knew where her intentions laid. She wanted to finish this. The second this spell was gone, she would be going to the throat, in both the literal and metaphorical sense. “Fire probably works.” She carried a lighter with her, as she always did. Not because she smoked, but because it was part of the basic kit she always brought with her. She started scanning the bush around them, trying to find a source of this strange grass. “If you’re fucking out there, show yourself!” Then, back at Talia, “Don’t think we’re some fucking team now.”

—

Talia bit her tongue at Daiyu’s first insult. She wanted to point out that she wasn’t too intolerable for Wyatt or Daniel, two people who had once been listed among Daiyu’s own friends. But her heart wasn’t in the retort, not really. Not when she had seen how the loss of a friendship, even one she couldn’t quite understand, had taken a toll on the men. Wyatt was constantly tying himself up in knots to be uncontroversial and Daniel– Well. Talia had been worried about him, about his connections to the hunter world since he began dating her, for a while now. Plus, she didn’t need to instigate Daiyu any further. The hunter already wanted to kill her, she didn’t need to add personal insults to the mix.

“Fae,” she corrected herself, with no small amount of ire. Her dealings with fae had been few and far between, so she would have to take Daiyu’s word for whatever to call them, or what they might be dealing with. She shouldn’t have been surprised when the ranger yelled out for whatever fae might be causing this, but she did roll her eyes. That was Daiyu: brute strength over all else. “Wow, great job. I’m sure they’ll be happy to come out and help now.” Not that Talia even believed the fae who caused this was still around. Probably off…causing mayhem and chaos, if her past run-ins with fae were anything to go off of.

Before she could get an answer, Daiyu shot off a parting blow. Of course they weren’t a team. Nothing close to it. No one would ever mistake the two of them for working together. Except for the fact that they kind of were, in this instance. They were trapped together and would likely have to have some cooperation if they were going to figure out how to get free of the situation. Talia wasn’t going to insult Daiyu and make things worse, but there was no harm in a little teasing, was there? “I mean. We kind of are. You can’t kill me, so you’re stuck with me. We both want the same thing: to get free of this stupid grass. Sounds like a team to me.” 

Fun as it may be, taunting Daiyu wouldn’t free them. Fire, though, might be a solution. Talia had a lighter on her (she always did, speaking of chaotic fae, after she had been caught without one with the reanimated parts and Baz) and a ferro rod and knife that could do the trick. She slipped her Zippo out of a pocket and snapped the lid open, flame flickering. “I mean. Should we just try that?”

—

We both want the same thing, Talia said, pointing out that their desires were the same. Daiyu wanted to laugh deliriously at the fucking concept of it, of she and the werewolf who had tried to kill her in an act of vengeance wanting the same thing as her. She did not want to collaborate, did not want to clasp hands together momentarily to get out of a patch of grass. She felt herself grow obstinate, rioting against this notion that she and Talia had to work together. 

“We want the same thing,” she echoed, incredulous. “Guess that’s true in a way. You want me dead, I want you dead. That’s a very fucking mutual feeling, isn’t it?” People had told her that Talia no longer intended to kill her, but Daiyu had no reason to trust them or her would be killer. Of course Talia would tell people that were apparently mutual friends (or ex-friends, by now) that she no longer planned to kill her. That was a logical lie, one that was so transparent that Daiyu felt no hesitation when she saw it as one. 

She watched Talia go for her lighter, which made sense, as she had previously mentioned fire. Still, she saw a weapon where there was one, and though the werewolf hardly needed to hold a lighter to have threatening hands, she still felt her hackles raise. Talia asked them if they should try this, as if the two of them were experimenting with this fae grass rather than staring each other down, figuring out all the chinks in their armor. Daiyu knew that once this fae nonsense was over, the forced pacifism would end. She wanted it to, but she did not want Talia to make their countdown to their incoming fight seem like a collaboration. 

Daiyu moved forward, trying to make her intentions non-violent as she went to grab for Talia’s lighter. She was able to grasp the metal. “You don’t really think I’m gonna make it that easy for you, do you?”

—

“I don’t want you dead,” Talia protested. The claim tasted strange in her mouth. It wasn’t exactly true. If Daiyu were killed in some accident, or while hunting, or whatever, Talia wouldn’t have grieved. She may have even celebrated. But she no longer wanted, needed, to be the one to cause it. There was a strange emptiness that came with that acknowledgement. It had once been her sole purpose, the thing she wanted most in the world. Daiyu dead and her sister avenged. 

There was a strange grief in recognizing that she had moved on.

“I know you don’t believe me. Nothing I can do about that.” Just like there wasn’t much she could do about the fact that Daiyu wanted her dead. Talia didn’t even think she was wrong to want it. Didn’t think she was wrong not to believe that Talia didn’t want her dead, either. In the months since her attack on Daiyu, since living in fear of this very confrontation, Talia had come to a strange sense of clarity on the ranger’s stance in things. After all, it had been so very similar to her own – she could see that now, the similarities. 

Talia hadn’t expected the ranger to make a grab for her lighter and so the smooth metal slipped out of her hand. “Make what easy?” Talia burst out, swinging her arms wide. “Did I think you were going to let me try and get us out of this? Yeah! Do you want to be stuck in here with me? Because I’d really rather be on my way home.” Or anywhere in the world. Daiyu couldn’t attack her, couldn’t enact her revenge. Why wouldn’t she want to get them both free? “Do you have a better idea?”

—

The statement was in line with what Wyatt and Emilio had said and Daiyu guffawed. “You must think me a fucking fool. You came into my house with back up and it may not have gone as you wished, but that seems like something someone who wants me dead would do.” It would be too easy to accept this for truth. To accept that Talia may have seen an error in her murder attempt and have some larger picture to commit to in stead. It would be too easy for Talia to take advantage of that, too. And she would not be caught like that again, in her own home, a fool for thinking she could be safe even there.

She stared at the other, eyes trying to see the truth of the werewolf in front of her. A woman with a personal vendetta against her. Someone whose twin she had ripped from her in the endless cycle of bullshit the world was caught up in. “You could fucking begin to explain your weird change of heart,” she snapped, “Not that I’ll buy it for even a second. But don’t act like I’m the fucking fool for not believing your nonsense.” 

With the lighter in her hand, she felt a small victory. Petty theft was apparently still allowed, or maybe the grass just thought that an exchange of lighters was normal human behavior. “For you to prove me fucking right — I don’t wanna be anywhere with you unless it’s with your fucking corpse, so you must be a god damned idiot if you think that we’re going to work on this together. I see what you’re trying to do.” Talia was trying to make herself seem compliant, like someone Daiyu could work with to figure this out, and the second she had caught her off guard, she’d strike. She narrowed her eyes at her. “You’re not going home, don’t you get that? You’re not — this ends here.” There was a desperation clawing at her throat. Her knuckles tightened over the lighter. It had to end here.

—

“I did,” Talia agreed easily. “I did, then. At that time. But I–” Changed her mind? No, not exactly. Had a change of heart? Sort of, but still not accurate. For as long as she could remember, since it had happened, Talia struggled to talk about Tabitha’s death, especially where she herself was concerned. The one exception to that was what she wanted to do to the hunter who caused that death. She could talk at length about her hatred for them, for the plan, for how she was going to enact it, what she expected it to feel like. And then none of it turned out correct. On the other side of it, Talia found herself once again without words.

Faced with Daiyu, the hunter who had caused that death, Talia didn’t know how to tell her what had happened as she bled out on her cabin’s floor. “All I can say is that I don’t, now. Not anymore.” That wouldn’t be enough for the ranger, she knew. Roles reversed, it wouldn’t have been enough for her. “I don’t know how to explain it. One minute I wanted nothing more than to die in order to kill you and the next minute I was and it…wasn’t worth it.” May Tabitha forgive her. “I just didn’t want to. Don’t want to. Even more so, now.” Now that she and Daniel had made their amends and were working toward a future that seemed possible and sustainable. Now that whatever had gone wrong with the magic of the town was fixed and she could rely on her own wolf once again. Now that Wicked’s Rest was becoming a home and the people around her, shifters and others, were starting to feel like a family. Or even a pack.

“And I guess… I guess I realized that if I wanted to live so bad, you probably did too. You fought like you did, anyway. Tabitha didn’t care if she lived. I know, because I didn’t either, back then.” She swallowed, throat raw as she spoke about her sister to her murderer. “That doesn’t mean that she deserved to die. It just means, maybe, that instead of all of us killing each other, maybe we could–” Her breathing hitched as she tried to consider the alternative. Maybe they could all live. Her conversation with Eve rang her head, both sides considering the other the problem. Talia still thought she was in the right, that the hunters were the aggressor here, but did it matter? When they were all dying? Did it matter when Tabitha was over ten years’ dead now? All the hunters Talia had killed in the interim and it hadn’t mattered. 

She just wanted a life that mattered.

“All I’m trying to do is get out of here and get away from you, I promise.” Even if she knew Daiyu wasn’t a fae, a promise was still dangerous. Talia made it anyway. “It can end here and we can both still go home.” Her voice was calm, like when she would talk down the over-eager teenagers, frothing at their fangs for a fight. “We don’t have to be allies, but we don’t have to try and kill each other every chance we get either. Okay? Just. Burn this fucked up grass and you can go back the way you came and so will I.” —

It was not something she could accept. As Daiyu listened to the words coming from Talia’s mouth, she tried to read every single expression on her face. There were hunters out there that were capable of reading a person like a book, but Daiyu struggled with actual books, let alone people. Even so, she did not think that Talia was lying. It was a realization that hit her like a metal rod in the side, making her want to collapse as she struggled to breathe. The bullshit that left Talia’s mouth wasn’t bullshit. It seemed sincere. 

Maybe it didn’t just sound like bullshit because Talia’s reasoning wasn’t one of large sentiment, or a selfless change of heart. She wanted to live. Daiyu knew that instinct all too well. For years, she had roamed the earth imagining that she would welcome death at any given point, throwing herself into danger with little regard for her own life. There had been two clear moments in life where she had realized she wanted to live: when she had left Seattle, leaving behind the family structure that she was sure would kill her and when she lay on a parking lot ground with a fae crushing and burning her. 

This she understood. The desire to live, despite being raised for inevitable and violent death. Talia almost said something funny too, though. Maybe we could — as if there was any in stead. As if there was a world where coexistence in peace existed as long as werewolves ripped up humans and hunters could not move against their sharply honed instincts. There had been a time where Daiyu had tried to give up the hunt, shortly after that first realization that she did not want to die. The cycle of violence that dictated her family was just a small piece of the larger cycle. But it was not one she could disrupt, so to walk away from it was futile.

Talia wasn’t bullshitting, but that didn’t mean that Daiyu wanted to hear it. She did not want these conversations, especially not with the person who made her own home feel like a trap. Who looked like the grown up echo of someone she had murdered over a decade ago. She grit her teeth. 

“Fine.” She looked at Talia for a moment, straight in the eye. Her jaw ticked. There were things she could say. How she hadn’t wanted this fight in the first place. How she could not feel safe with her around, that her need to murder her was not born out of a place to settle a score or continue the cycle that Talia hinted at, but from a need to feel safe in her own home. How there was a part of her that knew that if she finished this, she would burn many bridges she did not want burned.

In stead, she twisted her grinding jaw into a grimace. “Got it. You realized you can’t win a fight against me, even with back up, and changed your mind. Cowardice is a kind of fucking wisdom, hm?” 

Daiyu didn’t waste any more words, digging into her pocket for a spare receipt and her own lighter. Hers was plastic, broken easily above the receipt. Lighter fluid rained on it and she flicked Talia’s lighter near it, the smell thick in her nostrils. Fire was caught easily, but she spent no time thinking about the metaphors of it, backing away from the flames that formed and spread. She got up to her full, unimpressive height and stared at Talia. “Fine. We split after this.” Her hands itched. But she tried to ignore it, looking down at the flames in stead.

—

Taila gave a wide sprawling shrug at Daiyu’s retort. It wasn’t the truth but she didn’t care to correct the ranger on it. Let her believe that it had just been cowardice and the fear of losing a fight. Tabitha would have said the same thing. The thought comes without Talia realizing it and it stops her in her tracks, so that she can’t even breath for a few seconds. Tabitha would have said the same thing about her as Daiyu. More than anything in the world, Tabitha had hated hunters. She had a vitriolic desire to kill them that Talia never had, not before her twin’s death. And here were words she would have said, out of the mouth of a hunter.

Did Daiyu hate werewolves that much? Would she have cared if she knew she sounded the same as one of them? Maybe not. Either way, it wouldn’t mean anything to her coming from Talia, so she keeps it to herself. Folds it away into some corner of herself labeled Tabitha that she’ll pull out later with Daniel to examine.

If she gets a later with Daniel.

That seemed possible, finally, as Daiyu produced a piece of scrap as kindling and doused it in fuel. The scent stung her nose and made her eyes water but she didn’t look away. There was no telling what Daiyu might do once the fae grass had been eliminated. She had come here to kill Talia, after all. Had sought her out and laid in waiting. Who was to say she wouldn’t charge at her once she had the chance? Talia would just have to be faster, that was all there was to it. As the flames grew, she could feel the heat licking closer, the smoke crowding her lungs. Distantly, at the very back of her mind, she thought that she would have to report this fire – even as it didn’t seem to spread beyond the bounds of the strange grass.

Through it all, through the heat and the smoke and the flames, Talia stared at Daiyu. The hunter didn’t look up from the blaze but that was fine. She wasn’t hoping for some stony-eyed stand-off. Maybe, maybe, some deeper understanding, some insight she could glean from the other killer standing hardly a few meters away from her. None came. All she could learn about Daiyu, all she could feel toward her, had already come for Talia. Whatever next steps there were, they would have to come from herself.

Speaking of next steps. The fire snuffed itself out miraculously, leaving a large, uneven blotch on in the clearing where the fae grass had once been. Uncertain, Talia raised a foot to step onto the regular grass and found she could do so easily. For one final second, she looked to Daiyu. Before either of them could blink though, she took off. She turned and fled, running as fast as her human legs could take her and then she shifted to cover the rest of the distance as her wolf. She didn’t stop until she was safe inside her cabin, curled up in the bed that smelled like her, and Daniel, and home.

When the voice at the back of her head called her a coward, it wasn’t just her sister, anymore. Daiyu’s had joined in.

—

Talia said nothing and for that, Daiyu had to give her a point in her favor. Fire was an often wielded weapon for its effectiveness, but her least favorite. The heat made her skin itch, made a newfound instinct command her to run before she ended up how she had two years ago. With her skin replaced, her entire body having to adjust to the new bumps and the tightness of the scarring. She could not give that to Talia, though, that weakness. She could not show the tick in her jaw, the way her insides were recoiling.

She felt the werewolf’s eyes on her but refused to look. She gave her attention to the flames in stead. There were two things here that triggered different instincts — fight or flight going head to head and neither heeded. Talia she wanted to fight, grind into the very ground they stood on, even if she had agreed to go her separate way once the fae bullshit was over. The instinct remained, fingers itching with the desire to kill the other or be killed. The futility weighed on her now too, though, but inaction had never called to Daiyu and it didn’t know. Maybe later, under the night sky when it was just her and her dog (and her squonk), she would accept her decision to let her would be killer go. But believing that there was some kind of truce between them now was something she was not ready to do.

The other instinct was to run. From the flames that nipped at her boots, warming up the leather. It spread around the circle, devouring the cursed grass with it. She hoped it worked. The exposure to the warmth was making her want to tremor and tremble, take herself away to the cool air untainted by one of nature’s elements. 

She stared at the flames and resisted both. She found no strength in resistance. Going against her nature had never felt like a victory. Her fingers flexed, her jaw ticked, and her feet felt hot in her boots.

And then, the fire snuffed out so suddenly that it could only be some fae bullshit. Daiyu looked up, watching Talia retreat into the green grass. Their gazes met, and before a move could be made or a word could be said, she was gone. Daiyu remained, moving her own feet into the green grass and its cold soil beneath. She could follow, she knew. She wasn’t honorable enough to let Talia go the way she had agreed. A promise to a werewolf meant nothing, especially not to one that had come into her house.

But she did not follow. Her gun was somewhere in the brush. Talia could shift into her wolf form and cut her to death with claws and teeth, even if she did not want to. Something weighed on her, and it wasn’t just the memory of lying on the parking lot floor as she burned to death. It was the thought I never fucking wanted this anyway, hammering in her head like an echo of Talia’s words.

Kelly pulled the Chevy into a parking spot with a grimace. He hadn’t been expecting a crowd, and there were even more folks out today than usual. Some event that he didn’t know about? Wicked’s Rest had plenty of odd traditions and, with the town settling back into its normal, it seemed that average folks had a bit more pep in their steps. The skies were clear, the pre-summer sun was shining, and the breeze from the water made it prime walking weather. Which was good, since Kelly’d parked damn near as far away from the hardware store as possible. Parallel parking in a sling sounded almost worse than being blown up in the first place. ‘Sides, it wasn’t like he needed much. Supplies that could all… probably… mostly fit in a bag or two. One trip, two trips—whatever. All he’d need to do was explain the situation (though his arm did plenty explaining for him), and the owners’d be happy to hold his bags. Wasn’t like he hadn’t been in there dozens of times.

‘Sides, the more trips, the more he’d get to exercise. Since his little accident in Netherville, Kelly’d gotten precious little. At work, he’d been relegated to desk duty. At home, he was being observed within an inch of his life. So, he’d told a tiny fib, just to get up and move. A stack of library books sat on his passenger seat as his cover. Zack had offered to lug ‘em himself, but Kelly had to put his foot down somewhere. It’d just be quicker in the truck, he’d said. Doctor hadn’t said he couldn’t drive, he’d said. (Now, the doctor had been Mickey, and Kelly’d exaggerated his healing ability just a touch, but Zack didn’t need to know that.) So, if he stopped by the hardware store before heading to the library, well, Kelly hadn’t technically lied. He’d get there. Flip was starting to outgrow the current setup in his den, and the last thing Kelly needed was to make repairs when he could shore it up before the next full moon. With all the soundproofing, it was easy enough to sneak down while Zack and Flip were asleep. (Frankly, he’d have snuck out to the hardware store, too. But his trips down to Netherville were pushing his luck… and, well, the hardware store wasn’t open in the dead of night, anyway.)

The smell of sawdust hit Kelly’s nose when he finally arrived, and he quickly ran down the list he’d made in his head. (Even with his dominant hand free, the list was proof that he didn’t want to try hiding.) Probably had enough boards at home locked up in storage on the unfinished half of the basement. He’d… need sheet metal for scaffolding, though. (Definitely would need to make a few trips, then. It hadn’t gotten too hot out, so maybe he wouldn’t be drenched in sweat by the time he was finished. Could fake a light run, maybe.) Chains, to suspend a few platforms from the ceiling—jumping to ‘em would give Flip some enrichment, and he wouldn’t be as inclined to bite through metal as, say, a rope. Hooks, to hang ‘em from. Unless he’d stuck ‘em someplace strange, he was pretty sure he was running low on—

In his distraction, Kelly ran right into another customer, jostling his bad arm. Fuck. He winced, biting out a, “Sorry, man.” He started to apologize further, but, as he blinked away the pain, his eyes drifted over a familiar set of bare arms, arms that he hadn’t in months. (Arms he’d been expecting to see, though maybe covered up, at Covet Couture, a few days prior.) Shit, uh. Maybe Kelly could pretend he hadn’t seen Kieran? He whipped around to look at the store’s fine selection of… caulk. The one thing he had plenty of. Kelly tensed, waiting for the inevitable, feeling a little too exposed.

—

To perhaps no living creature’s surprise, Kieran had never stepped foot inside a hardware store previous to this current adventure. It had never been a necessity — why bother when there was always someone else able and willing to complete such menial tasks for you, from going to a store that somehow embodied masculine fragility to finishing whatever task needed completing with products from said store. Now that he was here, however, Kieran realized this was a place of great curiosity. He’d never admit as much to Glenn, who had sent Kieran off on this mission, and the only reason for the faun’s cooperation was his good mood — with magic finally back in place, how could he not take silly requests in stride? And, as per usual, things had worked out splendidly in Kieran’s favor. 

He had been busy considering the unfiltered joy radiating off a customer as he explained in no short terms to an employee just how lacking his knowledge was on load-bearing materials, when a body barrelled into his own. Expecting to find someone rude, someone to perhaps play a bit with, Kieran was surprised to find familiar features greeting him instead. Kelly’s face was easy to remember, partly because it had been the only thing visible of the man during their initial encounter. Such wasn’t the case now, Kieran noted with a warm rush of glee, proud to find that he hadn’t been too far off in filling in the blanks of Kelly’s physique, now nicely on display in a… less nice choice of outfit. It was all very casual, from the ratty tank top to the khaki (sigh) shorts, which at least had the benefit of leaving little to no room for more of Kieran’s filling in the blanks. Topped off with the socks pulled too high and the hat, it was indeed an outfit that looked much better on the floor, preferably hidden from view, but Kieran shockingly had more important details to focus on than the crimes being committed against fashion (and public decency but those he was obviously on board with). 

Kelly’s injuries did the opposite of his shorts, prompting the imagination to run wild, with everything from bruises and healing scrapes to the slinged arm. Before Kieran could even decide just what he wanted to comment on first, Kelly was turning away from Kieran or, more accurately, the arms Kieran proudly had on display, body rigid as he ridiculously pretended not to have recognized the faun. Lips instantly twitching into a sly smile, Kieran sidled closer, also now fake-examining the rows of… Kieran let out an amused huff. “Caulk? Not a very subtle message, but then I suppose subtlety isn’t a trait I should be expecting from someone who picked out those shorts,” Kieran hummed, voice amused as he eyed Kelly without turning his head.

—

When Kelly had left Lichen Lane, he’d just thrown shit on, quick as he could. His outfit was practical; it was easier to fit his cast through a tank, easier to cinch up these shorts than fumble with a belt. Hell, the only time he’d seen fit to wear a belt in the last few weeks had been when he was working or patrolling. But, since he was off-shift and wasn’t looking to stalk any beasts out in broad daylight, the only thing that set Kelly apart from anyone else out and abou running errands was a hunter’s knife, folded and clipped to his waistband. (And, ‘course, one of his guns in the Chevy.) Kelly wasn’t trying to impress nobody. Still, his outfit was a far cry from the turnouts he’d been wearing when he’d first met Kieran. (Far cry from what Kieran was wearing, too.) Without the tank (…or even with it), it was closer to what he’d been wearing when he’d encountered Sawyer.

(Which… had Kelly seen Kieran, the other night at Baz’s party? Seemed like that might be Kieran’s scene, what with the “clothing optional and/or discouraged” nature of it. More important, relevant question, might be if Kieran had seen Kelly.)

“Somethin’ wrong with my shorts?” Kelly asked, figuring his cover had been blown. Should’ve brought his sunglasses in with him. Would’ve made the whole act more convincing. His best bet was to ignore talking about caulk. Getting Kelly to blush was still on Kieran’s to-do list, after all, and even Kelly, shameless on his best day, didn’t think he could get through that many innuendos without a hint of red across his cheeks. The last time, he hadn’t known Kieran was interested, not until the very end. This time, work wouldn’t save Kelly, and, given recent events, he didn’t have much faith in his ability to plan a way out of this conversation, neither. He’d just have to grit his teeth and bear— Shit, not the best metaphor.

Like before, Kelly felt Kieran’s gaze. Somewhere, buried under his competitive spirit, Kelly could admit it felt nice to be watched. Even if this particular arrangement (standing together, not touching, looking ahead) just reminded Kelly of when someone took the urinal right next to his for no damn reason. There was a whole, open, store. Plenty of space. But the universe, and Kieran himself, didn’t seem inclined to give Kelly space. Which, it wasn’t like Kelly’d been avoiding the other man. Just… Well, given how often Kelly thought about their initial encounter, he’d been hoping some distance would dull the buzz, just a little. If the universe wouldn’t help him out, though, Kelly’d help himself. If Kieran wanted to follow him around, well, it was a free country. Kelly had a mission to focus on. (Just wasn’t the sort of mission that sharpened his focus, made Kieran easier to ignore. And if Kelly shot a look over his shoulder, challenging, wondering if Kieran’d bother following him, that wasn’t anyone’s business but Kelly’s.) 

Kelly thought again about his list. If Kieran’d latched onto caulk, Kelly figured wood and nuts were out of the question… “Hell’re you in here for?” he asked, taking a leisurely pace. Both men knew this was the last place he’d’ve expected to see Kieran, no need to hammer that point home. “If you’re lookin’ for the bolt cutters, those’re hangin’ on the back wall.”

—

Kieran had cut through the spiel of not being recognized with ease, as Kelly proved unable to defend his current outfit. Which, it was worth mentioning, Kieran hadn’t said there was anything wrong with the shorts (even though they were a subtle cry for help in the faun’s opinion) but just that they weren’t subtle. Most likely, nothing about Firefighter Brooks was very subtle — including but not limited to what his shorts were actually struggling to conceal — from his job to his eagerness to accept bets with strangers. “Wasn’t complaining, just pointing out that they don’t leave a lot to the imagination,” Kieran teased, pointedly enjoying the view since Kelly was still oh-so focused on the rows and rows of hefty tubes in front of him.

“How thoughtful of you, to try and even the playing field,” Kieran continued, fully meaning and hoping to drag Kelly’s mind back to their last meeting, when professional courtesy had contained the poor firefighter’s instincts. Although apparently, being on the clock didn’t seem to be the only thing holding Kelly back, forcing Kieran to wonder if the other man was still struggling with some adventure of self-love or whatever. His partner in rescue hadn’t even pretended to hide his distaste, so it didn’t seem all that farfetched for Kelly to still be figuring things out, to be braver online than he was in person. Lucky for him, Kieran had plenty of experience helping others down this particular road, leading them on to much, much greener pastures.

Whatever the reason for his holding back in person, Kelly wasn’t entirely immune, pointedly providing an invitation for Kieran to follow him when the firefighter continued about his hardware store business. Not that Kieran had needed an invitation, but it was promising. Falling into step with Kelly, close enough for their arms to brush every other step or so unless Kelly made a point to shift away, Kieran grinned at the predictable question. 

“Oh, just hunting,” Kieran all but purred, which hadn’t been the initial reason for being here but had quickly become the truth, even before Kelly’s appearance. “What do I need bolt cutters for when calling for help proved such a success last time?” Actual reason for being here all but forgotten, Kieran was more than happy to trail Kelly deeper into the store. “Say, do you think asking another customer for help with some hardwood is too obvious? Or checking whether they’ve ever had a proper drill? Suppose I could actually use someone with experience to finally get that hook installed in the ceiling, since it needs to hold the weight of at least two people…”

—

Even the playing field? Kieran’s meaning didn’t hit Kelly until they’d left behind the caulk and were walking side-by-side. (Which, Kelly being on the back foot was becoming a running theme between the two of ‘em, huh? Least he’d gotten up to speed more quickly, this time.) Once he realized, the ranger stopped in his tracks, acting like he’d seen something he actually needed in their march towards wherever the hell Kelly could get in this store that would keep him safe from Kieran… uh, hammering him with more puns. (Groan.) Unfortunately, he’d stopped next to the pipe fittings, which felt a little on the nose. Glancing downward, Kelly made a mental note to toss this pair of shorts. He must’ve picked ‘em up when he’d been traveling with Flip; they were clearly bought for a version of Kelly with a little less meat on his bones. The extra muscle he’d put on when he’d been training for his certifications… Yeah, Kelly may as well have been wearing Kieran’s crocodile underwear, for all the good these shorts were doing him.

Kelly didn’t think it was unreasonable to imagine that Kieran was watching his every move, looking for any signs of weakness. So, instead of doing something obvious like adjusting himself, Kelly decided to squat down to get a better look at the bottom row. (Eyes firmly to the fittings, lest he get an eyeful of Kieran out of his periphery.) Come to think of it, he had been meaning to take another crack at the pipes out in the pool house. Stubborn shits were still acting up from time-to-time. And much as Kelly didn’t mind Zack using the shower in the main house, it was an ongoing battle that he didn’t want to lose. (Hiring a plumber? Admitting loss.) He had the measurements in his head, so he grabbed a few options. When he stood, he hoped everything downstairs was a little more tucked in. (Kieran would let him know if it wasn’t, he figured.)

“I ain’t been out in a minute, but I seem to recall better places to cruise. Hell, if you’re real hard up, just drive on out of town and hit the highway. I bet there’s a truck stop,” Kelly said, finally, trying his best to keep his tone casual. His gaze flitted around the store as they walked, making sure there weren’t any Flip-aged folks running around. When their arms brushed, Kelly knocked a shoulder against Kieran’s. If Kieran asked, well, his injury had Kelly unsteady on his feet, that was all. Kieran wasn’t going to give him space, but Kelly wasn’t going to let himself be cornered either. “To answer your question, though… I figure folks like you don’t need to beat around the bush. Can just come right out and ask, right?” Normally, he’d have flashed a smile, to let Kieran know he was mostly kidding around. The bet loomed large, though, and it kept Kelly buttoned up.

“…And I don’t think your apartment complex would take too kindly to you installin’ a sex swing, man. ’S probably quicker to charm the pants off a real estate agent.” (Though, Kelly’s own didn’t seem Kieran’s type, despite her credentials.)

—

At least Kelly had the good sense not to try and argue in these pants’ defense. Kieran did like the firefighter’s instincts for talking back but only when he had an actual point to make, and trying to claim these shorts were fitting for anything other than a suburban-dad themed adult show was a fruitless mission. On Kelly, anyway — lesser built humans might have pulled it off. So the subject was subtly dropped, which Kieran counted as a win, even if it did little to bring him closer to an actual win for their actual bet. Not that the faun was particularly worried.

If Kelly had been hoping for Kieran’s departure just as long as he stared intently enough at the various pipe bits, he was in for disappointment. Kieran wasn’t in a hurry to return to the store, not when there was headway to be made on his bet and the summer weather providing all these nice views. As soon as Kieran won the bet, he was counting on even better views, of course, but a little bit of teasing never hurt. Curious to see if Kelly would just let the silence drag on, Kieran simply waited, allowing the other man to take the lead in the conversation. He was pleasantly surprised when Kelly went in for a hit instead of continuing with pleasantries, clearly done with just listening to Kieran’s low hanging fruit of innuendos.

Kieran huffed out a laugh, the glancing around on Kelly’s end not going unnoticed and making the faun’s smirk even more mischievous. “Oh, don’t lump all of the clientele here in the same box,” Kieran chastised playfully, pleased when his brief contact generated more — more touching, more pushback. It had been a while since he’d had a proper challenge — not since Henri before that inevitable breakup, perhaps? “Why shouldn’t a dull trip to the hardware store be brightened by a bit of flirting? You’ve got people here that are handy, strong, probably even used to being in control of a situation as a general rule. Sounds like the perfect set up, in my opinion. And it let me run into you again,” Kieran added, making no effort to comment on his supposed being hard up on hook ups — they both knew how far from the truth that was. Kelly seemed smart enough to come to that conclusion on his own, at least. 

“Are you hinting that I should be more forward?” he teased, abandoning the ongoing mission of encroaching in Kelly’s personal space in lieu of being able to look him in the eyes, even if it meant walking backwards. “Do elaborate on folks like me, though. I insist.” Kieran’s landlord wouldn’t have an issue with any sort of modifications the faun might see fit, tied up in a deal as he was, but Kieran could have mentioned that with the return of magic, the need to expand had been growing. Lest the discussion accidentally shifted to real estate, of all things, Kieran avoided sharing that fact for now, simply providing a coy shrug in response to Kelly’s “worries” about Kieran’s landlord. 

—

Kieran had a point, not that Kelly was going to up and tell him that. A younger version of Kelly wouldn’t have given a shit about who was around, would’ve met Kieran’s innuendo with his own, tried to convince the other man to duck into the warehouse, out of view of the cameras. There wasn’t any harm in flirting, even blatantly. Kelly’s injury had reminded him of a couple things, though. First, he wasn’t immortal—though, he’d hadn’t thought he was, so much as he was content to ignore it. Most hunters did. Second, he needed to think shit through. It wasn’t like an ill-advised hookup in a hardware store of all places was going to kill him, so long as they avoided the sharp bits, but he didn’t feel the need to pounce on every impulse. This… whatever the fuck it was between him and Kieran, it could simmer.

Still, Kelly almost (almost) had to laugh. “Let you run into me again? Man, that’s rich.” Kieran wasn’t actually hard up. Kelly didn’t think he was a speck on the other man’s radar, really. It was part of why he’d been content to place a bet. Kieran’d get bored, most likely, before Kelly ever had to perform. If it weren’t for how they met, how Kieran had wanted to push at Kelly’s boundaries, Kelly was sure the other man wouldn’t have paid him a second glance. If they were at a bar or a club, Kieran would’ve gone for an easy target. Kelly couldn’t blame him, really, when he was the same, in that way. Even if Kelly wasn’t the best at knowing when men were angling to get him into a bathroom stall, Kelly could be forward. If he struck out, so be it. If he didn’t, well, that was one night taken care of.

“I’m sayin’ you can. Givin’ you permission, not that I thought you really needed it.” Kelly walked towards the man, rolling his eyes as Kieran decided to step backwards. If Kelly was a worse man, he’d let the other run into another customer or a display rack. Instead, he kept one eye on Kieran, the other on the path ahead. Even if his attention was split, technically-speaking, all of his effort was still being directed onward. He thought of his list, mentally crumpled it. “I ain’t strokin’ your ego. If you win, you can make me say whatever you like. Or just tell me to speak my mind.”

Kelly liked when he earned a compliment. Kieran knew he was gorgeous. Now that Kelly was looking, it was obvious. The outfit, the attitude, the little shrug when Kelly suggested someone might have a bone to pick with him. It was infuriating, that easy confidence. If Kieran was looking for a fight, Kelly could think of a number of reasons to try and wipe the smirk off Kieran’s face. But the only fight between them was a war of wills.

“Folks like you don’t usually worry with folks like me. So, cards on the table.” Kelly didn’t want his ego stroked neither. He wanted to get inside Kieran’s head. Try to figure out why. He doubted the other man would entertain the question. Or talk around it, pretty words from a pretty man. But there was something simmering under Kelly’s skin. Kieran was right, ‘course—why shouldn’t he, really? He took a half-pace forward, edging closer to the man. “Why bother?”

—

Something that might have been a laugh, or the beginning of a smile, was audible in Kelly’s incredulous — and definitely amused — voice. Kieran could practically taste it; the bet edging towards its inevitable end, the satisfaction of being right, even Kelly’s contained but still there enjoyment around this encounter. It would be so easy to snare the man into Kieran’s bright flame, a content little moth for the faun to properly feast on. There was nothing to say he couldn’t, no part of the bet keeping that away from him but Kieran found himself resisting anyway. There were lesser meals to snack on while Kieran worked on finishing things in the right order. As much as he liked indulging, there was a reason wine was left to age. “That’s my bad — accidentally let you enjoy my presence for a second time. Better?”

Now it was Kieran’s turn to laugh, only he didn’t need to hold back, the sound most likely carrying over to the adjoining aisles, bright and genuine. “Oh, permission?” His eyes sparkled with glee at the choice of phrasing and the hardware store wasn’t really the place for an explanation on how Kieran didn’t need anyone’s permission for… anything, really, but hopefully Kelly got the meaning from his laugh and his look. “I’ll keep that in mind,” he purred. More forward, then. 

Kelly was definitely leaning more into the things Kieran wanted to hear now, the win, the whatever Kieran liked, the tell me to. All of it had the faun’s skin buzzing with anticipation and the fact that Kelly only seemed to be growing more frustrated as this dragged on had Kieran’s smug smirk reappearing. “Decisions, decisions,” Kieran sighed, as it genuinely would be a task and a half to decide just what sort of prize he’d be taking away from his win. A performance or a monologue, letting Kelly ramble on until he possibly said something he hadn’t meant to let slip free. The possibilities really were endless. If Kelly wasn’t too occupied with his own exasperation, he might have even caught the glimmer of excitement in Kieran’s eyes, the way they seemed to size Kelly up now all over again.

Why bother? Oh, someone wasn’t feeling worthy of the chase? “Why? Because you interest me,” Kieran said simply, leaning in to erase even more of the space between them. “I mean, obviously you’re handsome and stubborn, so I can’t wait to eventually fuck you until you’re just making incoherent noises, after trying so hard to continue talking back the whole time, those nice, rough hands shaking as they wait for me to finally give you permission to touch yourself, but—” Kieran paused, tongue darting out to wet his lips as he let the inevitability of what he was describing settle between them, “—you wanted to elaborate on this bet after seeing someone handcuffed to my bed, and that makes me curious. There’s not an abundance of ‘folks like you’ out there, Kelly. And there’s no one like me.”

—

“That’s more like it,” Kelly said, a smirk (not a smile) making its way onto his lips. “Careful, now. You keep talkin’ like you want me around, a fella’ll get ideas.” The flicker-flame of Kelly’s amusement wavered under a cupped hand, wanting to grow and grow, despite the wind of Kelly’s determination trying to blow it out. (Or maybe Kieran himself had lit the match and, when Kelly managed to blow it out, the other man would just strike another match, hold it to the wick. Over and over and over, until Kelly got tired of huffing and puffing. Or until those puffs came out like a chuckle.) Kelly’s sense of humor had always been particular. For the kid of a warden, he’d always liked wordplay, liked the dance of it. He’d’ve made a fantastic warden, if he didn’t disappear into history as a truly awful one. (Not that Kieran was fae. Just too smart for his own damn good, most likely. Kelly could lie to himself, say Kieran was a dime a dozen.)

Kelly thought, maybe, that he was safe. That in giving Kieran permission, he’d dampened the other’s excitement. That by playing along, the allure of it would lessen for Kieran. He thought wrong. Kieran’s laugh echoed in the store, louder to Kelly’s ears, given how damn close they were. Kelly’d heard Kieran tut, and sigh, and breathe out his amusement, but it was the first time Kelly’d heard the other man laugh. Even though the goal was for Kieran to get Kelly to laugh, the ranger couldn’t help but feel a little proud of himself for wringing that sound from Kieran. He had no way of knowing if it was a hard-won thing, but their brief encounters had given Kelly the impression that, shameless as they both were, they were excellent at poker. Even if Kieran had laughed purely for Kelly’s benefit… or, hell, even to try to shock a laugh out of Kelly… Huh.

An upping of the ante lingered at the back of Kelly’s throat. Kieran hadn’t even won yet, and Kelly was, what, trying to keep him on the hook? He bit his tongue, hummed as Kieran mused on decisions. Where was there to go, even if Kelly truly wanted to? Bargaining with his body, when all he really had to go on was talk? ‘Cause, truth was, Kelly wasn’t frustrated with the other man. Here, out in his day-to-day, Kelly was willing to meet Kieran’s gaze, unflinching. To preen, just a bit, as Kieran evaluated and reevaluated him. When Kieran’s eyes met his, just for a second, Kelly could’ve swore he saw more than base interest, detached from Kelly himself.

So, when Kieran said he was interested in Kelly, the ranger… believed him. It caught him off-guard. So much so that he froze on Kieran’s approach, waiting to see what he’d do, how brazen he could be. Turned out, pretty brazen, and Kelly couldn’t stop himself from listening to every damn word that fell from Kieran’s pink lips. If there was anyone in an aisle near them, they were getting an earful, and, fuck it, Kelly laughed. A snicker turned into a whole damn giggle fit, and Kelly couldn’t bring himself to give a shit that, technically, he was giving Kieran an easy time of it. The dull ache in his shoulder had subsided, just for a second, because, despite his best efforts not to, Kelly was having a good time.

“I— Fuck.” Shit, was he blushing, too? Kelly thought he was pretty damn shameless, but, it wasn’t the acts Kieran described. Kelly might be interested in all of that, sure, but he’d done it, too. It’d be different with Kieran—always was, no matter how many times Kelly found himself on top of or underneath a warm body—but just talking about it, that wouldn’t get him to blush. No, the reason his cheeks went red was the insinuation that whatever drew Kieran to Kelly was in at least somewhat short supply. That there was a reason in how Kelly acted, not just in how he looked. It wasn’t like Kieran wanted to wine and dine him—and, frankly, Kelly wouldn’t have been all that interested in that. (Not… right now, at least.) Honestly, Kelly wanted to smile. But that, he could control, it wasn’t solely impulse. Much as he might not have expected it, Kelly wanted to keep Kieran waiting just… a little while longer.

“There really ain’t anyone like you,” Kelly said, voice strangely warm.

—

Oh, Kieran wanted him around, no doubt about it. He was perfectly content to play games with Kelly, however, with the obvious end goal in mind to drag him to bed or a couch or somewhere vertical for all he cared, hopefully on more than one occasion. As silly as humans could be with their dreams and purposes, those weren’t entirely compatible with how Kieran saw it fit for those exact humans to live. They were happy enough to just stay content, not seeking out a life of comfort and pleasure, spent serving a higher purpose — Kieran. Kelly came across as one of those humans, content, maybe even the kind to squint at the future Kieran was planning for himself and some other lucky, lucky humans. But just two encounters weren’t enough to set such assumptions in stone. In whatever form would be available, Kieran was more than happy to figure out everything Firefighter Brooks might have to offer. “Mm, I think your ego could take a few good strokes.”

That much had been a correct assumption on Kieran’s end, at least. Kelly’s mostly unfazed attitude ground to a halt when unfiltered truth entered the conversation, Kieran’s words genuine and the effect was instantaneous. Whereas the faun had held Kelly’s attention before, sure, he now had a rapt audience clinging to his every word. The laugh wasn’t entirely expected, only because Kelly was stubborn — Kieran had made men of all sorts of standing or gruffness or perceived ‘manliness’, dissolve into fits of giggles through the power of well picked words. Kelly had made him work for it, an enjoyable amount, and the payoff was a rush all on its own. Nothing to compare with the delicious flushing of the other man’s skin, though.

Kieran’s own eyes darkened with satisfaction as a curse tumbled from Kelly’s lips, but, more importantly, it was accompanied by his pupils expanding. The faun’s grin was nothing short of predatory, crooked and smug as Kelly worked to compose himself, seemingly fighting a smile of his own. Fine, let him cling to that one for now. Only by Kieran’s grace, not because he couldn’t push this into a smile if he wanted to, now that even more of Kelly’s buttons had revealed themselves to the faun. The genuine compliment from Kelly might have assisted in that decision, too, made Kieran more amenable to let Kelly walk out of here with the last remaining string of their bet uncut. For now.

“You have no idea,” Kieran replied simply, shifting back a step before he’d give in and simply let his hands start to wander. “Only one to go, then. I’ll see you around, Kelly. Try not to overwork your good arm when your mind starts to wander tonight.”

So, as she was saying, Jade was getting closer and closer to hitting the jackpot. (Where was she saying this, you might ask? One of her more recent eps. With that big rattly skeleton thingy that worked as a bonding experience for her and Owen) (Good stuff, she might play a recap before this one, so no one felt lost) (Actually, long story short: she was 83 percent sure that her nemesis’s den would be somewhere in the outskirts of Wicked’s Rest). She was close, like that meme with the pickaxe and the diamonds, and she couldn’t stop now, when she’d finally gained some momentum. Unfortunately, this momentum came at the cost of spending more time in the most annoying part of the town: The woods. 

And… how did people ever know where to go on these random hikes? For some time now, Jade had had an inkling that her poor navigational skills weren’t just a quirky trait that made her clumsier and more endearing to the audience at home. But nope, it was becoming increasingly obvious (nearing confirmation) that actually, her brain was wired in a way so she couldn’t tell where she was going. (A deficit, the Regan from three years ago would’ve called it). The sign she’d seen five minutes ago had literally told her exactly where she should go. (How hard could it be for someone to follow simple directions?) (Apparently, for her, it was an actual issue) (But also, it couldn’t be that unique of a problem. Who even knew what the Northeast was?)

Jade wasn’t like, worried about getting lost, though (first of all, she never worried, second of all, she knew Regan was following her tracking dot like a hawk and would send a search party the moment she felt something was amiss), but it was frustrating, that was all. So she was fuming as she stomped around the endless row of trees and… whatever else (yuck), realizing that there was no way she would ever become the type of hunter that people would one day grow to admire. A good hunter would’ve been good with directions, a good hunter wouldn’t have let a random hike become the bane of her existence. (Technically, a good hunter wouldn’t have let herself be swayed on her principles) (But that had been a good thing, right? The newest polls showed decent approval of that switch)

Anyway, looping back to the beginning of the story, and the reason Jade was currently annoyed with nature. There were some sort of towering catacombs nearby. Somewhere. It was supposed to be Northeast of the sign she’d passed. But… right, she’d lost track of Northeast, so she was mostly guiding herself with GPS now. (She didn’t trust online maps to be faithful about what was in the woods, but it was better than nothing). 

As if TPTB had heard her complaints (they could’ve, she was being pretty loud), they sent an angel to help her. A woman farther ahead on the trail, whom Jade had somehow caught up to. “Hi!” she shouted, waving her hand dramatically until she was spotted. Now that she looked totally unthreatening, Jade jogged toward her, smiling bright and relieved. “You just became my favorite person in the world”.

—

Familiarizing herself with the forests was usually one of the first things Colt did after moving to a new place, but then her job as a wildland firefighter usually required that, so she’d been a little slower on the uptake this time since she was now municipal instead. Also it’d been wintertime, which was not a great season for tramping around in an unknown landscape. But, as things finally began to warm up and the earth was allowed to start its thaw, she found herself taking longer and longer walks in the woodlands with a pep in her step and a bizarre sensation of familiarity that was entirely misplaced. 

Ignoring it (as she did with most things), Colt was able to chalk much of it up to deja vu, figuring that at some point all forests kinda started to look the same, didn’t they? (They didn’t, but that was the lie she was going with for now.) Unbothered, she hitched her pack a little higher on her back and bopped energetically down the trail, lost in her own thoughts until a voice broke her from the reverie. 

Eyes wide, she whipped around to see who’d shouted at her – their tone didn’t indicate trouble, but still! As her gaze fell on the waving figure, she felt her shoulders relax, matching the smile she was given as she came to a full stop to allow them to catch up. “Oh, wow! An honor!” she laughed, cocking her head at the stranger. “Are you okay?” Context was leading her in a single direction, and she decided to run with it. “Did you… get lost?”

—

“An honor you totally deserve, babe,” Jade confirmed with authority in her voice, like she belonged in some kinda committee and she’d tracked this lady down just to give her the very good news. (She would be in the kinda committee that awarded super important stuff like “Fashion daddy” or “Best stomach”, probably). The other woman seemed to quickly catch on to what the problem was, even if her initial question was a teeny tiny bit loaded. Was she okay? Was anyone? (Wow, who was she? Whatever happened to looking at the positive side of things?) (Oh! She hadn’t had her snack yet, that had to be it. Yup). Jade let out a modest laugh, not going full cackle yet, cause you know, it was better to calibrate her enthusiasm once she figured out what vibes were being reciprocated. “I’m peachy! Just, you know… You gotta love nature,” she forced a bigger smile, swatting a bug flying close to her ear. (She ignored the deep, unjustified fear bubbling in her chest at the buzzing sound). Then reached into her bag to get a candy bar. 

Even if Jade was known to pick random favorites everywhere she went, her intentions this time were clear enough that the woman figured them out super fast. This blatant gratitude had to be for a reason (and she was right, of course). Jade didn’t know why she was wasting both of their time downplaying it, but she didn’t stop it from happening. (She was totally the type of gal to enjoy the journey before reaching the destination) (Unless it was the journey toward Sunset Spire) (Then she could absolutely hate it). “What? Oh, n—no… I mean… just a little, like, half lost. Nay, a third.” And oh, okay… she was still musing on that failure thingy, right? That’s why admitting she couldn’t do something was messing with her. She was so self-aware these days. Imagine if that fixed everything like a super powerful cheat code in a game. Alas, it had fixed nothing. Least of all, her ability to follow directions. (It’d also made her experience brand new things such as “anxiety” and “panic attacks”, so she wasn’t sure why everyone made self-awareness to be some sort of beacon of human development) (This barely earned a 2 out of 6 on her own scale).

“I was… kinda, mhm,” she bristled in defeat, gaze darting around the trail. “It all looks the same after a while, doesn’t it? I dunno how some people don’t get tired of it,” it was said respectfully, of course. Cause the chances of encountering a second forest hater wandering exactly where Jade was had to be 1 in a trillion. So this wasn’t about yucking anybody’s yum. But right, focus. She could complain about the woods when she was safe at home with Regan. (Oh! She should make sure to gather some bones to bring back) (Maybe a dead bird) (She’d made a habit of bringing gloves and plastic bags anytime she knew she’d be around dead animals). For now, her new friend looked super open to helping (hence, favorite person), so she had to take advantage of it. 

“I was… um, under the impression that there were some catacombs nearby. So, I have a nerd friend… obsessed with like, archeology and stuff, he recommended them to me, cause I’m trying to be a more educated girly and stuff,” that wasn’t true, the whole story, even if every little bit of info that made up the story was real but…separately. (She had a nerd friend. Several even) (But one who focused on old foundations and stuff) (And she was trying to get educated on them, but for vampire reasons) (So it wasn’t lying either, technically). “I’m supposed to be heading… that way,” Jade continued, shouldering her bag. Her stakes rattled inside, but bringing small pieces of wood into the forest was probably like, a family reunion or something. No one should bat an eye. “And it was easier to see the tower from a distance, but now it’s like… tall trees everywhere,” she rolled her eyes at that, and she was about to laugh again, but she stared at the other woman, taking on her appearance. The bag. The happy demeanor like you didn’t see often in town these days. Hikers could be tourists…right. Her features turned apologetic. “Wait, are you even like, from around? Do you know what I’m talking about?”  

—

Okay, so she was denying that she was lost, despite the excited outburst over seeing another human clearly indicating her relief. Maybe it was something else – was she being pursued? Or had she truly just gotten lonely? Colt wasn’t one to jump to conclusions about people, even though judging a book by its cover is literally the best way to pick one you might like in a sea of other books… but, bad metaphor aside, she tried to not make assumptions. She tried, but sometimes she did, and this woman was definitely lost, in trouble, or such an extrovert that her attempt to center herself in nature had totally and dramatically failed. Definitely had to be one of the three. Colt listened, not interrupting as the woman worked through her thoughts, trying to find the words that would explain why she had flagged Colt down. 

Eventually, they got to the truth. It was a big spiral with lots of unnecessary steps, but the center was reached. Catacombs. “Ooh. Spooky.” Colt nodded along, thinking about what she knew of the area – had she passed catacombs before? Would she even know what those looked like if she did? Hang on, now the educated (to be) girly was mentioning a tower, and… oh! Oh, wait, she totally had seen a tower somewhere around here before! At a distance, and she hadn’t been able to find it when she’d looked for it either, but today was a great day to try again! Before she could interject with the fantastic news, the woman was apologizing with her eyes and asking if Colt was a townie. She sucked in a short breath, a finger held aloft as she was ready to pick a definitely not random direction for them to walk in to find the tower, and paused. 

“No! To the first thing. But yes to the second! I’m—I live here now, anyway. In Netherville!” She didn’t need to share that. Oops. “For a few months! But I’ve been hiking around for a couple weeks now and I’m pretty sure I’ve seen you tower! Though it was covered in snow… oh! Oh, wait, I saw it during the winter! On my way here — I hiked from Canada. I definitely remember seeing a tower above the trees at some point. Boy, it was cool looking. That was a catacomb? Freaking wild, dude.” She curled her finger back down to her palm, spinning around on the spot to get a good look in every direction. “We can totally find your catacomb, abso-posi-tutely. I have a great memory for these things.” With a bit more (almost) performative scanning, Colt jabbed her arm in front of her and pointed in a new direction. Not quite where she’d been heading, and not where this woman had come from.

“Oh. Also, I’m Colt!” She said with a grin, reaching over her own arm with the opposite hand to shake. 

—

Jade pulled the wrapper on her candy bar slash healthy snack (it was some kinda compromise between her and Regan) (cause trail mix was obviously reserved for roadtrips, not trail walkings) (wait a second…) and tore it open. It was one of those bars that had like, extra proteins (all the good ones, probably) and organic ingredients, but the best part was that it was covered in a layer of bitter chocolate. She loved her bitter chocolate. That was chocolate that was honest about being chocolate (unlike white chocolate, that poser). She split the bar and offered what was left inside the wrapper to her new friend. 

Luckily for Jade (this was a phrase she had on repeat, actually) (she was just that blessed or whatever), the woman did actually know a little bit about the town. So, yay! Jade perked up at the mention of the newest neighborhood in town, cause she’d always been super curious about what went down there. “No way! How’s that like? Every time I go near it, I get the creeps, I hate having to make deliveries there, my GPS freaks out.” She recalled how she and Zack had talked about going down Netherville to investigate, cause the whole thing gave them fishy vibes (not fishy, fishy, cause that place didn’t look like an ideal swimming place, but what did she know? Not a lot) (See? Self-aware), but then that never panned out. So maybe now, with Colt (her favorite person), she could have her Netherville expert on call. 

Girly said she could definitely take her to the catacombs, she just kept racking up points. And how could Jade not believe her? She looked like, all profesh and ready! Someone who hiked all the way from Canada (?) (She was gonna need more deets on that in a beat) would never ever fool her. She was even doing that spinning trick they probably taught all Scouts to reorient herself. (It looked a little dizzying, in Jade’s opinion, but she trusted science). This woman was starting to feel a lot less like a random tourist and more like a strategically placed NPC to inadvertently guide her on this quest that might finally blow the lid off her elder vampire tracking. (Which sounded offensive to this woman, but look, she loved NPCs, she loved stopping by them and exhausting all lines of dialogue).

Finally, the woman landed on a direction to follow. It wasn’t the one Jade had been headed toward, but honestly? That didn’t surprise her. What did surprise her a little, in a good way, was how the woman introduced herself. “Wow. It’s so nice to meet you. Colt’s a great name. Your parents were cooking with that one, or well, whoever named you,” cause sometimes that task fell on responsible little sisters who didn’t want their fourth sibling to be left out of the family theme names (hypothetically). “And I’m Jade,” she shook Colt’s hand, practically vibrating with excitement (in retrospect, maybe that wasn’t what made her body tingly, but enough foreshadowing), then slowly stepped in the winning direction. To the catacombs! (Or Canada) (Whatever they found first)

—

Accepting the offered snack with a brightly colored thank you, Colt led the charge in their determined catacomb-positive direction. “Jade! I love that, too! So pretty. Great color, and I bet you look super hot in it!” She scrunched her nose in a laugh, then shrugged. “Netherville is great. It’s like, kinda cozy, you know? If you’re afraid of the dark maybe not so much, but I think it’s neat. Some bioluminescent plants and stuff grow down there that make it all glowy and pretty… and I like the quiet. Not a lot of people wandering around being loud and drunk when I’m trying to sleep, you know? That crap gets annoying. Especially with my wack ass schedule.” She took a bite of the health bar, chewing quietly for a moment before speaking again. “Mm! Which is wack of ass because I’m a firefighter, and we do twenty-four hour shifts at the station. So I basically sleep whenever I can, and I’m just glad to be in a neighborhood that’s a little sleepier than the rest.” Deersprings would have been another good alternative, but it was too pricey. “Plus, it’s mad cheap.”

“You said you make deliveries to Netherville – of what, if you don’t mind my asking? You’re a courier?”

—

Like, if she had to be lost in the middle of the woods cause plot demanded it (but, why did it demand it, again?) (Oh right, slaying) (Yup, she was totally locked in on her mission now)... Sorry, she missed her cue. She was starting from the top, okay? Perfect. Like Jade was saying, if she had to be lost in the middle of the woods cause it was what TPTB wanted of her, then she couldn’t be more grateful that she was stuck with someone like Colt. She wasn’t Jade’s new favorite person just cause she saved her from her awful sense of direction. Her vibes were also unmatched. (Like seriously, how long had it been since she found someone who brightened her mood like this?) (Not since her bestie Mickey, probably) (And, okay, she couldn’t complain, then) (She’d gotten lucky twice in a year). Jade was so delighted by Colt’s words-per-minute ratio that it almost gave her an adrenaline rush. She was totally keeping up with everything she said, of course. She had to make sure her yapper credentials weren’t rusty after all the introverted cuties she’d befriended. 

She gave Colt the best of her active listening, laughing when she complimented her name (she was totally right, her name was all kinds of metal) (and she did look amazing in green), oohing and ahhing when it was needed. She made a mental note to ask the other girl for her number eventually, cause they were obviously gonna be like joint at the hip from now on, but also, maybe a little tour of Netherville wouldn’t be so awful if a friend held her hand. And wait, what was that? Colt’s legend grew as she revealed she worked as a firefighter. Her mouth dropped, followed by a beaming smile. “Wait! I have a friend who is a firefighter,” Jade chimed in, mimicking Colt’s excitement. “Well, two now, obviously. But I was thinking about Kelly. Do you guys all know each other?” In her head, they all firefighters hung out together, and dealt with all sorts of shenanigans and hijinks. Sitcom style. 

Colt asked more deets about Jade’s job, which she was thrilled to share. “I don’t mind at all, babe. I’m like, an open book.” As long as people didn’t look too closely at all the paywalled chapters. (Shh). “And I meant food. I go around on my motorcycle providing nourishment to those in need. Which, I know— I’m planning to upgrade to a car, by the way. I’m on all the apps, you know?” And Colt totally seemed like the kinda person who knew about apps (thankfully). She never minded having to explain it all, but a smooth convo was such a nice change of pace. 

Jade could feel a monologue coming, about the differences between the apps, which one she liked more (she was a Doordash girly), best customers (Garrett, who always ordered the same thing from Clubweigh and tipped so generously), worst customers (Kathy, from two years ago), weirdest things she’d ever delivered. (Again, for Kathy. She knew what she did). But that strange sensation on her skin from earlier got harder to ignore as the trek progressed. It wasn’t strange anymore, actually. It was the most familiar thrumming she had ever experienced. Something undead was close. (Ugh. Talk about a party pooper). “Hold that thought.” She lifted her index finger, even if Colt hadn’t actually said anything. The whimsy in Jade’s gaze died out, replaced by a look of concentration. “I think there’s someone around,” someone or something, but she was gonna be forced into that convo later. It was probably in the best interest of their budding friendship that she didn’t sound like a total bigot right off the bat. 

—

The reaction to hearing her friend’s name was instant joy, but almost as fast as it had come on, it was suddenly colored by something darker. “Oh boy, yeah, do I ever!” Her tone still matched her initial reaction, though it was very slightly forced. It wasn’t that she and Kelly had issues so much as, well… things had become a lot more complicated after the whole… she didn’t even like thinking about it. And that was part of the problem, wasn’t it? Something had happened; she’d taken a group of near-strangers to some way-out-of-the-way crater impact site and demanded that they start digging. By the grace of whoever was up there listening, they had found something, but Colt couldn’t explain it. She hadn’t even tried to when she’d called Kelly in for some help – help with what? Moving the damn thing from where it was sleeping peacefully to a new underground home, all reportedly for the benefit of the town. Considering the details about it made her head hurt, so she tried her best to just… not do that. But then there was Kelly, someone she’d known from before either of them ended up in this town, someone she trusted, and who had been pretty fucking freaked out about her discovering that creature under the earth. Who had avoided her for quite some time afterward, which she also didn’t like thinking about, because she didn’t understand why and it made her feel like there was something wrong with her. (Which, to be clear, there definitely was. But that was another thing that she couldn’t — or wouldn’t — name.) “Good ol’ baby Brooks, I call him. Actually, I have a whole arsenal of nicknames that he probably finds annoying, but honestly, that’s kinda my job as his un-offish big sis. Well shoot, we’ll all have to hang out some time!” 

“Stop, that’s freaking cute as hell, delivering food on a motorcycle! I think a car will def make it easier on you, and maybe the food, but gosh those vibes are impeccable. Hm! Either way, I’m keeping that in mind the next time I order in… I wonder if I can request a specific driver…” She was a bit lost in her own thoughts when Jade told her to hold them, which earned her new friend a couple of raised brows. Jade suddenly looked super alert, and it set Colt a bit on edge. But  she dutifully kept her trap shut, at least until Jade spoke again, at which point she huffed out a breath. She could have made a flippant comment about how it wasn’t really that surprising that someone else was out here, try and make the vibe feel more casual again, but the seriousness that now radiated off of the woman stopped her dead in her tracks. Metaphorically in that she wasn’t going to bother trying to lighten the mood, and literally in that she came to an abrupt halt and looked around them. 

“Yeah?” she asked quietly, feeling a shiver run down her spine. As if on cue, some nearby brush started to rustle and Colt took the tiniest of steps away from the sound. “Someone else… checking out the catacombs, maybe?” Hopefully.

—

It wasn’t like, a long or awkward silence by any stretch of the imagination. In fact, her impeccable timing told Jade that Colt took a beat and a half at most to answer her question about Kelly, but still, if they were bound to become kindred spirits (which, she fully believed at this point) (they were gonna bond so hard surviving the wilderness in Canada), they had to be able to read each other’s souls, their inner most hidden secrets with one look. All of this to say, the teeny tiny beat Colt pondered the question did feel a bit loaded. Her nosy radars were pinging hard for some potential juicy story between the two firefighters. She was picturing all sorts of scenarios, from typical schedule conflicts to romantic tension, from ‘he stole my favorite mug’ to ‘I went on a murder spree and killed all my other fellow firefighters’ (that one was drawing inspo from her own life, sure, whatever), but Jade decided to wait it out. “Baby Brooks is adorbs. Especially since he has his own baby Brooks. The babiest Brooks, even,” she grinned at that, getting the cutest mental picture of one tiny sippy cup and one giant sippy cup, to symbolize father and son. Also, Colt was right, they would definitely have to hang out eventually, and that’s when Jade would have front seats to their dynamic to figure out if she had read the extra half beat of silence correctly or if she was just bored and making up drama for the sake of it.     

Not that she needed to make up drama if she was bored. Real life was keeping her on her toes right about now. Throwing her a little bone, like here… if you need something thrilling. Jade hummed an affirmative when Colt asked if she was sure about what she heard. It wasn’t even needed, cause right then, as if on cue (a paid actor, if you will), something rustled nearby again. She really did hate the woods, so freaking much (it was probably coming as a shock to everyone) (since she’d been so nice about it for five whole minutes after she literally found her new favorite person in it). Not to say that random undead creatures couldn’t show up to ruin the day in residential areas, obviously. But just… if the forest already sucked, why add suckier things to it? Ruin her day, why don’t ya? 

Jade crossed her fingers that Colt had the right guess, and a third hiker was about to show up on the way to the catacombs. She was so not waiting out the reveal though, cause as soon as she caught a glimpse of what was definitely a non-human foot, Jade yanked Colt to find cover. Which turned out to be a massive rock. (Set design really popped off with that one) (It worked as a nice seat for hikers and as a trench for slayers) (You know, all of the ones that patrolled the woods). “Nope, I really don’t think this one wants a little tour to the catacombs.” Her heart was only half in the quip, really. But she was nothing if not dedicated to reading the lines on her script. Plus, they did need a tiny reprieve before introducing the monster of the week.  

Her gaze moved from Colt to the creature making its way to the center of the stage, ready for its spotlight. Recently, Jade had been dealing with tons of stuff that wasn’t in the ancient texts she studied growing up. So you better believe she let out a small breath of relief when she saw what she was up against. Chimeras were familiar territory for her. (Not this one in particular formation, obviously) (Like, they weren’t on a first-name basis, but she knew of its family in a way). Chimeras in Roseville used to be easy peasy. Of course, Wicked’s Rest had something a little spicier to offer, compared to the ones she was used to seeing. Cause like, why did this one’s tail end in a clawed hand? Why, out of the six…seven legs Jade counted, three of them were spider-looking? (Scorpion? Sorry, she didn’t know her arachnids). Then, the wings on its back could’ve been any regular degular bird, but in this town? She had a hunch that they had belonged to an animal that could shoot all sorts of dangerous things. Same with the beak. There were patches of fur too, along the chimera’s belly, but she would’ve had to be a true expert to figure out what it belonged to. (She hoped no adorable bears were hurt in the making of this chimera). And finally, the antlers. Which were huge, and made Jade question how this wolf-sized creature was keeping its balance like that.   

While still having the advantage of distance and cover, Jade reached for her backpack, placed it on the ground, and started prepping her crossbow. She set aside her bowie to finish the thing off. She was not a shoot to kill person. Cause shooting to kill, even with creatures like this, always felt a step too far. Too…kill-y for her liking, you know? It didn’t matter how “merciful” of an alternative people claimed it might be. She struggled to wrap her mind around it. (Um, yup, she was a trained killer, thank you for pointing it out) (This only had to make sense in her head). She preferred to weaken her enemy and then do it the slayer way. There was dignity in that. A stake or fire or decapitation. It honored the centuries of people who came before her. But then again (since she was so deep in her self-aware era), where had that mindset gotten her? Wouldn’t she benefit sometimes from just… switching it up a bit? Doing the one strike to kill move once in a while? (Reviewing the evidence now. And… she did have both limbs. And she hadn’t been brought back from death. Or returned as a vengeful undead) (But it was definitely not making her like, the most efficient she could be, probably) (And that was what this all came down to, she still wanted to be better, still wanted to be good, even if all the competition dropping like flies left her in a bit of a better standing).  

She didn’t put all those thoughts aside just yet, but she readied to attack either way. (The hunting didn’t stop just cause you were having a bit of a moment) (She’d know. Moments have been ongoing for like, three years now). Quiver loaded, she rested the nose of the weapon against the rock. “Have you ever seen a chimera before?” she whispered to Colt.

—

Colt let out a little yelp as she was dragged into a hiding spot, her heart rate spiking dramatically as she wrestled with the new understanding that this was clearly not another hiker. What, then? A bear? A wolf pack? Wait, did Maine even have wolves? No, no – coyotes? Those could still be dangerous in large numbers. Or – oh god, what if it was a bull moose? Then they’d be fucked. She hunkered down, trying to keep her breathing low and even so she could better hear what was going on behind them, not daring to turn around and look. 

But Jade was looking, and also pulling a fucking crossbow out of her bag. Colt sank even lower with her back pressed to the boulder, squeezing her eyes shut for a moment and letting out a soft whimper of fear before realizing that not being able to see anything was even scarier. Her gaze flicked over to Jade, who seemed to have everything under control, somehow… and looked calm as a cucumber, for all intents and purposes. Did this happen a lot? Was the wildlife here really that wild? (See also: violent. She’d spent enough time in various forests to know how to deal with predators and dangerous herbivores, but this felt different, for some reason. She couldn’t place why.)

Before she could whisper to Jade to ask what the creature was, Jade was asking her something instead. Had she ever… what? Seen a what? 

Colt let out a sharp, bemused sound, almost like a laugh but not quite. “What? A chimera? Like…” She couldn’t help what sprang to her mind, and the adrenaline coursing through her bloodstream was making it hard to think rationally. “Like those fucking monsters in Fullmetal Alchemist? No, what do you–” Curiosity had her now, forcing her to turn her shoulder against the boulder and peer over the top of it to see what in the fresh hell Jade was talking about.

What stared back at her was, frankly, the most terrifying thing she’d ever laid eyes on. 

The scream was a knee-jerk reaction, Colt finding herself unable to stifle it as she reeled backwards and away from the boulder. At first it was just a sound, and then it was a mishmash of words that lacked any real sense. Maybe a ‘what the fuck is that’ if you strained hard. The… the thing snapped its attention toward her, opening its beak and letting out a horrific noise that only made Colt scream louder. She panicked, scrambling in the underbrush to try and get to her feet and get the fuck out of there, but then the beast was moving. 

—

Okay, so… Colt was like, a legit normie. It was so rare for Jade to encounter one of those in the wild nowadays. (And sure, maybe normie was the wrong term, cause Regan (bless her heart) (actually, pause for two beats to swoon about her bone partner…) (...) (‘kay, done) was as far away from a normie as she could be, and she still didn’t believe in any of this stuff). The point was, Colt had like, the most normal, valid reaction to seeing a freaking aberration showing up out of nowhere to ruin their hike that Jade had witnessed in a long, long while. 

“Oooh, okay, I haven’t seen that show. It’s like anime, right? Mm, not really my wheelhouse, but if you ever watched Teen Wolf, or read Percy Jackson, it’s kinda the same basis. Buncha creatures mixed together, very Frankenstein.” She explained calmly, like she was setting up a picnic instead of loading her weapon. She would’ve hummed ‘Monster Mash’ to really drive the message home, but that would probably disturb the creature and draw unnecessary attention to them. (It did hurt every time the goal was to be less of an attention seeker, but she was a serious slayer now). 

It turned out, she should’ve just sung her little song, cause, fueled by the novelty of it all, Colt decided to take a peek at the creature. (Who could blame her really really?) (In a world that left less and less room for curiosity, she appreciated this, a whole lot) (More reasons to love Colt). The consequence, though? A scream was definitely not good for their chances of making this a smooth, uneventful hunt. (But it was fine. It was totally chill) (Like seriously, she never felt more zen and locked in than when there was an actual scared human for her to protect) (Like, yes! She did study for this exam, actually) (She had all the answers and then some). 

Lo and behold, the monster turned toward them, well, probably toward Colt, (on account of the noise), but this was a team effort. Jade was loud in spirit, the fact that she didn’t get to vocalize anything didn’t change the fact. 

“It’s totally okay, babe. I’ll deal with it. Can you imagine how unsafe those things could be for the average hiker enjoying a stroll?” Normally, Jade wouldn’t add that disclaimer, she wouldn’t fish for approval. (Cause duty was duty) (Regardless of whatever remixed version of it was currently playing). But well, people also didn’t always vibe with this whole killing thing she had to do (So weird, right?) (Please don’t play a sad montage of the friends lost along the way) (This was an uplifting episode). And while some of her more recent Buffy reveals had gone a bit better than usual, she still hesitated. (She didn’t wanna lose her new bestie for acting like a bloodthirsty savage) (She had decent wiggle room here, hunting an actual creature instead of something more humanoid, at least). 

Back to the action, though, cause the creature’s beak was definitely angled toward them now, and it did look like it was pondering whether it wanted a BOGO snack or if it would be fine with just Colt. Jade had to make sure that even if it had the intention, it wouldn’t lunge at them. She sent two bolts flying in the air, striking in places that would hinder its movement. One hit a leg, the other sank in its shoulder. (She felt weird about hitting the wings, (which would’ve been ideal to stop it from flying) for reasons she didn’t want to dwell on) (But that weirdly put the scent of sanitization products and gauze under her nose). She sent a third one to the other… mammal looking limb (leg, ankle? It was using it for balance, so limb it was) and decided that was good enough for her. 

“Be right back, babe,” she whispered to Colt, flashing a confident smile. She replaced the crossbow in her hand with her trusted knife and came out of hiding. The tackling was always the most fun part. Back when she had to rely on her rudimentary skills, (before she decided to lock in and sign-up for her very first hunting camp… wow, year and a half ago already), tackling got her places. Who cared about right combat technique when tackling worked in your favor? So Jade dashed, while the beast let its anger be known by letting out more horrible honking noises from that beak. It didn’t matter, she wouldn’t have to worry about her eardrums being pierced or poison shooting at her or nothing, cause she was being swift with it (and if she got there first, who was gonna stop her?) (Maybe they should teach that in hunter camp, right?) (Had anyone thought about it already? Just checkin’). 

Sure enough, Jade and the beast tumbled to the ground. Things were poking at her ribs, something was tangling tight like ivy along her leg, she felt the pain spreading on her shoulder, from the brunt of the clash, but those were obstacles she’d learned to ignore. All she focused on was putting blade to throat, the quick slicing motion, and severing the head. The flesh did put up a bit of resistance (she wasn’t sure what kinda animal this part came from, it was thicker than expected), but Jade kept going, until decapitation was complete.   

She jumped backward, letting the inert body tumble to the ground. Phew! (It really was so nice when things just worked out, wasn’t it?). She let out a loud sigh, which mostly felt like a way to dump some of the adrenaline coursing through her, and placed her hands on her hips, staring at the dead chimera. (Would Daiyu find any of it useful?) (Maybe she could snap a photo and send it to them for review). Right then, Jade noticed her shirt was now soaked with blood and other fluids. Good thing she’d come prepared to find an elder vampire lair, so she didn’t put on anything too nice. (She’d mourned so many nice jackets before). Oh, well. If anyone knew how to wash fluids out of fabric, it was Regan. Jade crossed her fingers that her shirt could be saved.

But speaking of wash, the excitement of the dub washed away pretty fast when she remembered there was a scared human hunkered by the rock. A human that had just seen stuff that should only exist in movies (and animes apparently) and then, had seen the decapitation of said creature. (Potentially. Jade wasn’t sure if she had an audience or not) (She definitely preferred it if Colt had looked away the entire time). She walked back to their hiding spot, realizing she was carrying herself with a limp. (Her leg did sting where… the tail, maybe? Had gripped her). She let out a grunt as she crouched by Colt’s side. Her eyebrows pinched in concern. “All gone, babe. I’m sorry you had to see that. Are you like, traumatized for life? I can explain most of what you saw, I promise”.

—

When Jade announced that she was going to ‘deal with it’, Colt’s anxiety only spiked higher. Sure, Jade seemed… weirdly prepared for this exact scenario, but still! That thing looked incredibly fucking dangerous! She stopped in her frantic attempts (and failures) to run away, not wanting to leave her new friend behind, but feeling decidedly useless in this situation. Her expertise was in fighting fire, not creatures. 

“W-wait…!” she called after Jade, who was already darting around the rock. It was a feeble attempt by someone who felt infuriatingly feeble at the moment, her hands coming to rest in the leaf litter as she sat, hunched over and staring at the ground, trying to ignore the sounds coming from the other side of the boulder. Tears were welling in her eyes, angry with herself for being so helpless while still being too fucking terrified to move and do anything about it.

Death wasn’t as loud of an affair as she’d expected, although the gurgling bleats of an animal (it was an animal, right?) meeting some grisly end that Colt couldn’t bring herself to witness was horrific in its own, softer sort of way. She felt sick, her whole body trembling as she pressed her back to the boulder again, staring up at the canopy overhead. Every grunt and groan from the slaughter taking place a stone’s throw away made her flinch, and she didn’t realize how tightly she was clutching her own wrist, squeezing hard enough to bruise. 

You should look, she thought. Or, the voice in her head thought, because she definitely did not want to look. 

No, the real Colt responded. 

You’re never going to survive this place if you keep wearing blinders.

Fuck off.

The forest grew quiet again save for the very human huff of satisfaction, one that Colt had done many times herself after a fire well extinguished. It was the adrenaline evacuating the dancefloor, leaving you tired and a little light-headed, but happy. 

If Jade could feel happy after something like that, then more power to her. 

On cue, Colt’s new friend reappeared, her shirt a shocking, fun shade of red. Colt’s eyes lingered on it for a moment before darting away again as the woman crouched down beside her. She still gripped her own wrist like it was some kind of lifeline, and when asked if he was traumatized by the event, began shaking her head. “Nope. No, don’t… don’t need an explanation. Unless you’re gonna tell me that there’s some kind of nuclear fallout in the area and fucked up animals wander too far from home sometimes, in which case, yeah that totally makes sense.”

Really? That’s the lie you’re going with?

I said fuck off, Obi-wan. I don’t want or need your sage fucking advice right now. 

She let her gaze slide slowly back over to Jade, and was immensely relieved when her first responder training finally kicked her ass into gear. “Goddamn, are you okay? Wait, like seriously, are you okay? Did you get injured? Is that… all not your blood?”

—

Okay, it might have been an uplifting episode, but only for Jade. There really was no time to soak up the dub or to feel proud about how she’d handled the threat in 2026 compared to how she would have in 2023, pre Wicked’s Rest. (There was probably not even enough footage for a quick side by side). When Jade stared at Colt, like actually looked at her, she realized the other woman was battling a demon or two. She wasn’t unfamiliar with this kinda shocked reaction. She was reminded of Luc, shaking and rocking against the counter of a coffee shop, watching his sweet old friend get decapitated cause the magical blackout swept through the town with terrible timing. Something festered in her chest that night. At the realization that he could afford to freak out, to be paralyzed by fear. Cause Jade was stripped of those privileges as soon as she could properly grip a stake and knife. But that resentment felt pretty distant now, looking at Colt’s tears. (Probably cause she hadn’t torn her arm attempting to defeat a zombie while being almost juiceless) (But also, maybe she was a bit biased toward the ladies) (Sue her. Women’s rights, wrongs, yadda, yadda) 

Right now, all she felt was actually worried about Colt. Cause girly did look two steps away from a full blown mental breakdown. And she was refusing to hear an explanation that wasn’t a little bit fueled by delusion. Oh. It was like that. Colt didn’t actually want to know more about what she’d seen. She’d rather go the ignorance is bliss route. (Usually a pretty fun route, great music, awesome friends, rarely any drama) (But when it came to this? Of course Jade was conflicted). Her eyebrows pinched in consideration. What could she do about this? Immediately, her mind went to Eve, particularly her secrecy boner. (Which was a good boner to have, obviously) (An ethical boner) (Most hunters had it) (Jade’s was just a little limp right now, so she was super envious). 

She didn’t always vibe with... the whole keeping everything hush-hush from people. She understood it (duh), but she didn’t like it. And fine, she used to be a huge supporter of it, there was no need to pull out receipts. But with her frontal cortex developing (at the tender age of 30), came all the questioning. The truth was, these days? She was closer and closer to the lane that believed that maybe, just maybe, having all the information was the best thing they could do for people. That she had no right to gatekeep information that might have been vital to someone’s survival. But then there was Colt, freaking out. Her sanity was on the line cause she was definitely not coping with this discovery. Would a lore drop really do much for her? Not at all, judging by her own words. She didn’t want an explanation. The truth didn’t matter that much here. Secrecy or no secrecy, Jade still wanted to keep people safe, at the end of the day. And that just… seemed to look very different from person to person. (Which… Oooh. Okay) (Maybe that’s why it was a little bad to have a super strict black and white mentality about… belief systems) (She got it now!) (She was just like, five years too late, sorry guys). 

When she spoke to Colt again, Jade tapped into her serious register. She reached for the hand currently clutching at the wrist, not fully grabbing it, but tapping it gently. Distracting her from her own head demons. “Yup. Kinda like that. It turns out, there’s actually tons of mutated stuff around these woods, from like… a mining accident way, way back. It’s like our local Chernobyl,” All the more reasons to hate the forest, she wanted to add, but she knew there was a time and place to be a forest hater. And it wasn’t now. “We all get a little welcome scare, it’s super annoying”. And… It happened. At 31, Jade finally hated having to lie to someone. It wasn’t even a small twinge of discomfort, just straight up dislike. (She didn’t want a celebration for this) (Like, she actually really disagreed with this character choice) (Whatever happened to fun?) 

When Colt seemed to snap out of her trance, Jade wasn’t sure how long it would last, but she dismissed all questions about her well-being. “Oh, don’t you worry about me, I’ve done this for a while. You know, hunting. Deer, elk,” yup. That kinda hunting. (Mhm). “This was a little unorthodox of me, but I had to act fast,” she offered an apologetic smile, as she stored her crossbow. Then, she stashed her knife. She moved away from Colt’s sight and slipped out of her shirt super fast, tossing it into the empty trash bag she usually carried around (usually, with the purpose of picking up bones to bring Regan home). From her backpack, she pulled out a jacket too, so she wouldn’t flash her new friend. She zipped it all the way up. (And didn’t even make one out-of-pocket comment on the wardrobe change, cause she didn’t wanna freak out Colt even more). 

Jade looked wistfully at the trail ahead, splitting into two very opposite directions (okay, symbolism!) (no, for real, give set design a raise). She’d been so close to her goal. This could’ve been the day she found her elder vampire’s evil lair. But in no universe did the idea of leaving Colt behind cross her mind. That was just, totally against the girl code. (Mhm, there was a whole ‘in case of creepy chimeras ruining the vibes’ section). “Okay, so… maybe the Canada trip is cancelled and we’ll reschedule for a better date?” She returned to Colt’s side and sat next to her, back against the rock. She didn’t wanna pressure Colt, but if that chimera had come out of nowhere, what else was waiting out there? Ready to send Colt to an early grave from the shock alone? “We should get out of here, babe. Whenever you’re ready. I’ll buy you a bev, a meal, whatever you need,” she glanced at Colt, whose camel seemed to be carrying an amount of straws momentarily marked safe for backs. “I can also shut up, and sit in silence,” she sighed, two beats passed, then… “I like that one a little less, but you know, on your terms”. 

—

Jade reinforced the idea that it was just regular animals mutated by radiation, and Colt greedily accepted it. She settled into this new normal, feeling her anxiety finally start to return to its baseline as she wove new sections of her mind tapestry for the fucked-up-ness that was Wicked’s Rest. Mutant animals, irradiated woods. Got it. Obviously not dangerous to humans anymore, or the park rangers would have been keeping people out come hell or high water, but it’d fucked up generations of critters. Yeah, that definitely made sense, even though she’d literally never heard of any kind of nuclear meltdown on this coast. 

Well, there was that impact crater… Shit, that was it, wasn’t it! A radioactive meteorite, since removed! The small twinge of doubt she’d been feeling that had stopped her from wholeheartedly accepting this explanation instantly faded away, and that looming sense of dread fell away like a sheet of melting ice. It all made so much sense, now! 

Her bright, bubbly personality was able to make a full recovery once the mental gymnastics were done with, and pleased to  hear that Jade wasn’t hurt, Colt let out a huff of relief. “Okay, good! You had me worried for a minute, there!” She chuckled, still refusing to let herself turn around and look at the poor, dead creature — she didn’t need to see that, as much as her curiosity demanded it. Focus on other things. Like Jade offering her company. 

When Kelly had appeared injured directly before magic had come back online, Zack had to admit that it pinged at his antennae. Not that there was anything bad or malicious about Kelly, but just that he maybe wasn’t a totally normal human with no concept of the magic and mayhem that was contained in Wicked’s Rest. (Actually, if he had been involved in whatever brought magic back, Zack supposed that made them unwitting allies, really.) Which had brought him to that conversation he had had so long ago with Emilio. His friend was right, Zack could admit as much, that he didn’t really know anything about Kelly.

But he did trust the other man. How could he not? After he had rescued Zack, and offered him a place in his own home to stay, after he had seen how Kelly was with Flip, with Giselle and Lia before– Well. Whatever the man might be, even if it was just a human who knew about the supernatural, Zack was confident that he was still a good man. And he wasn’t angry that Kelly hadn’t shared any further information with him. After all, Zack hadn’t told Kelly anything about his efforts to fix magic, or why magic mattered to him, even.

(Part of him thought Kelly would be cool with it. Another part of him recognized that a pyromancer might be the natural enemy of a firefighter.)

Despite all that mental work that Zack had done, Emilio was apparently still inordinately suspicious of the man who had offered Zack his poolhouse. At least, that’s what Zack assumed was the cause when he found the private investigator lurking just on the edge of Kelly’s landscaped hedges. 

He had been trying to stay out of the way, while also making himself available should Kelly need help while laid up. The other man had assured him he didn’t need anything, though, so Zack was doing more of the “stay out of the way” and heading for a coffee shop. Which is where he found Emilio. “Dude!” His eyes darted around to ensure they were alone. Even when he saw they were, Zack still spoke in an undertone. “What the fuck are you doing here? You can’t just, like…trespass. Are you looking for me?”

—

He got restless, sometimes. He wasn’t really sure what caused it, wasn’t sure the reason behind the fact that his fingers twitched and his eyes darted back and forth in search of some threat he couldn’t see. It had gotten worse as of late, become the sort of thing that was utterly impossible for Emilio to ignore no matter how much he wanted to. He got restless, sometimes, and lately sometimes had become more like all of the time. 

He didn’t distrust Kelly, though he had when Zack had first admitted to living with some random stranger who’d helped him out after his apartment caught fire. Knowing what he knew now — that Zack was living with a hunter, that the hunter was one Emilio generally thought was all right — should have comforted him a little. But… there were still questions swirling somewhere in the back of his mind. Questions like… how much had either of the men thought this through? How well protected was Zack, living with someone who might have a list of enemies as long as Emilio’s arm? Now that magic was back, how well protected was Kelly, if Zack’s control was still as slippery as it had been before? 

It wasn’t entirely a conscious thing, going to the house. It wasn’t really something he’d planned in advance, wasn’t something he put a lot of thought into. He was in the neighborhood, so to speak. He hadn’t even intentionally moved into Kelly’s yard to poke around, it just… happened. That kind of thing was more common these days, his body moving before his mind caught up with what it was doing. One moment he was in the street, walking towards home, and the next he was in Kelly’s yard, poking around the perimeter of the pool house. Paranoia was funny like that; it steered the ship without him even realizing.

Zack’s voice pulled him from his thoughts, and Emilio blinked a little, turning towards the sound. “I don’t know what this word means. Trespass,” he said, drawing out the syllables as though they were unfamiliar to him. It was a lie, of course. He knew what trespassing was; he knew he was doing it. But he’d learned that you could get away with things sometimes if you pretended not to understand them. The language barrier that often left him confused could be used to his advantage occasionally, and he wouldn’t hesitate to jump at the chance to make it so, even if it was only getting him out of being scolded. “I’m not looking for you. I’m just looking. There’s a gap between the bushes and the windows, you know.” He nodded to it. “Someone could get in.”

—

Zack’s brow furrowed as he tried to determine whether Emilio was telling the truth. He didn’t want to offend his friend (Is that what he was? Could he still call them friends?) on the basis of his language skills. But he was also pretty sure that a private investigator would have learned the word trespass. Zack didn’t believe the other blatant lie, that Emilio was “just looking,” either. Of course Emilio had come here to try and dig up some dirt on Kelly. “Don’t do that, man. I’m not an idiot. I know you know what ‘trespass’ means, and I know you know that you’re doing it right now.” Even on the off-chance that Emilio didn’t know the word, he definitely knew he wasn’t allowed to hide in people’s bushes. 

The gap that Emilio pointed out didn’t look all that dangerous to Zack, but he still made a mental note of it. If it were really a problem, Kelly would take care of it. The guy definitely had some kind of security system on his property, even though Zack wasn’t aware of the finer points. He just hoped there weren’t any cameras, and if there were, he hoped they weren’t pointed at his corner. “I told you, you don’t need to worry about Kelly, or the house. Especially not with magic back online.” Zack could once again perform spells and protect himself. Sure, he wasn’t the most skilled spellcaster yet, but he was learning! And improving. And he didn’t actually believe that Kelly was a real threat.

This was all discounting the fact that Emilio had been avoiding Zack since he came back to Maine – one of the only conversations they had had was Emilio giving him shit for moving into the poolhouse. When Zack tried to express a similar kind of concern for Emilio sleeping with the worst people he could find, the other man hadn’t just told him he didn’t need to worry, he told Zack to fuck off in no uncertain terms.

“Look, I don’t get why you even care. You’ve basically been avoiding me since I came back. Which, whatever. You don’t have to be my friend. But you don’t get to do that and then…try and spy on the property I’m living on.” The more he spoke, the more righteous and angry he felt. “There’s a kid here, man. He’ll get scared if he sees some random man in the backyard. And if Kelly sees you, he’ll call the cops.”

—

The usual out didn’t work on Zack, probably because he knew Emilio decently well. He, at the very least, knew Emilio well enough to know that this was far from the first time he’d been accused of trespassing in English. Emilio only shrugged, unapologetic even though he knew he’d been caught. If pressed, he wasn’t even sure he’d be able to tell Zack why he was trespassing. He knew Kelly was no threat to his friend (was Zack still his friend?), knew he didn’t really need to worry. And yet, the worry gnawed at him. It sunk its teeth deep into his chest, chewed at the meat of him. He wanted to take action, even if he didn’t know what action he wanted to take. He wanted to defend, even if there was nothing that needed defending. He wanted a purpose, but he’d lost it a long time ago.

“Magic is back online, but would you really use it to defend yourself?” He’d seen Zack set fire to vampires who’d posed a threat to himself and his friends, but he couldn’t fathom the man using the same abilities against someone he liked who betrayed him. He wasn’t even sure he could say with confidence that Zack would have used his abilities the same had it only been him threatened by those vampires, or if he’d been more in control of what he was doing. Zack, Emilio thought, wasn’t the kind of person who wanted to hurt anyone. He was a good person, and good people suffered in this town. Emilio had seen it.

He all but flinched when Zack said he didn’t know why Emilio would care about this, hand faltering where he was inspecting the leaves of the bush by the window. He had been avoiding Zack, sure, but only because he had been avoiding everyone. It had only gotten worse since his last encounter with Eve; he barely let anyone come over at all now, barely accepted visits from even the people he wanted to see. It was better this way, of course. It was better if Zack thought Emilio didn’t see him as a friend; it meant he’d steer clear, which meant he’d be safer.

That didn’t mean it didn’t hurt just a little.

“I know there’s a baby here,” he snapped, the words coming out far harsher than he meant for them to. His eyes darted to the main house, mind conjuring up a living room that didn’t belong between those four walls. “There’s too much space between the bush and the window,” he said again. “Someone could get in. That’s bad for the baby, too.” He looked back to Zack, scoffing a little. “He’s not going to call the cops. Just — I need to look around.”

—

Would he? It was a matter of fact that Zack hadn’t learned any offensive magic. He was sure it existed – after all, his early, accidental uses of his fire magic had been destructive. Surely there was magic that could mimic bullets, or sickness. Even the simple levitation that he had mastered with Rosemary could be used to toss a body around… He would ask the necromancer about it. Even if he knew it was something he never wanted to wield, it couldn’t hurt to be educated. Especially if he ever had to defend himself against such an attack. “I would use it to protect myself,” he clarified, feeling like an asshole for the distinction. But it was a real one. A spell, or enchanted item, to keep himself and Kelly and Flip safe, that felt more in the realm of Zack’s wheelhouse.

But speaking of defensive, Zack suddenly got it. Unwarranted, as Emilio hadn’t questioned his magical prowess but he still felt the need to tell him, “I’ve been getting a lot better with it. Magic. A friend who really knows her stuff has been helping me. There was a whole world that I didn’t know before, but I’m learning.” If his first foray in Maine had been defined by learning and coming to terms with what he was, this second was all about coming fully into his own as a spellcaster. Learning the things he didn’t even know existed for him not to know. At any rate, he was confident enough in his abilities that he thought he could handle a protection charm around the house, or at least the doors and windows, something he could handle.

Emilio’s retort had Zack reeling back, both hurt and confused. “How do you know that?” Maybe this wasn’t the first time he had come to observe around Kelly’s house. Maybe he had seen one of them leaving or returning with Flip in tow. …Or maybe Zack had mentioned it in one of their conversations online. That was more likely. Incredibly likely, actually, and something he should work on. It was probably fine, but there was a chance Kelly didn’t want every random person Zack conversed with to know that he had a toddler around. 

Again, Zack tried to appraise the area that Emilio had drawn attention to, tried to see the issue that he saw. Staying with Kelly was the first time he was living in a proper house with land and bushes, since he left home in Virginia – and he had only been a stupid teenager then. He wouldn’t know what he was looking for, if it were really there. “Okay. I’ll let Kelly know. He’ll take care of it.” That much was true. One of the first things Zack had learned about his landlord roommate friend was that he would do anything to keep Flip happy and safe. If that meant digging up and replanting a bush? No problem.

“He absolutely will. He doesn’t mess around about safety. And what do you even mean you need to look around? Why? I just told you, I’m fine on my own. Between Kelly and me, we can keep this place protected.” Zack did doubt that Kelly was an entirely unwitting human (not that he was going to tell Emilio that), but even if he were, Zack knew enough to know what to be on the look out for.

“We don’t need your help. We don’t need you.” It felt too harsh when the words were gathering on his tongue, and it felt too harsh once they had landed between them, but Zack couldn’t stop himself. Emilio had apparently hurt him enough to warrant him lashing out. 

— 

Emilio shot Zack a dubious look, uncertain as to whether or not he believed Zack. The spellcaster was capable enough — Emilio had seen that when the guy had been burning up vampires, even if he himself had been half-panicked at the time — but he was soft. He was the kind of person who didn’t like hurting people, the kind of person who looked at the world and mapped out a path where he could do the least amount of damage possible. There might have been a time, back in his youth, when Emilio would have considered this a bad thing. When he was still trying to impress his mother at every turn, when her approval had meant so much more to him than his own life, soft was the worst thing a person could be. The word had been hurled at him like a sharpened knife, had dug into his skin. Even now, he’d flinch if someone threw it in his direction. But… he didn’t think it was such a bad thing when it was about Zack. Like with most things, Emilio was more than capable of seeing the term as something decent so long as it was about someone else. 

In this case, though, it meant that Zack needed someone who would do the dirty work. If he couldn’t use magic to defend — or protect, as he said — himself without feeling badly about it later, Emilio would make sure he didn’t have to. He would make sure the windows were secure, make sure the locks held up under scrutiny, make sure Zack wasn’t put in the position where he needed to do something that would haunt him. Make sure Kelly didn’t have to, either, make sure Flip got to grow up. And give himself something to do, too. Emilio was at his most content when he was of use to someone. He thought he could be of use here, even if his help wasn’t necessarily wanted. 

“I know you’re learning,” he said, softening just a little. “That’s not — I didn’t mean it like that,” he said, a little frustrated. He rubbed at the back of his neck, failing (as he frequently tended to do) to find the right words to communicate what he really meant. Zack was physically capable, sure. He had magic, and he was learning how to use it properly. But he shouldn’t have to use it in ways that would haunt him later. Emilio didn’t want him to look as he’d looked in that barn — haunted and terrified. If he were better at any of this, better at being a person, he’d have found a way to say that. As it was, he just stood awkwardly, balancing his weight on his good leg and not meeting the spellcaster’s eyes.

He shifted a little when Zack questioned how he knew that a kid lived here, uncertain whether or not he should admit his own connection to Kelly. Deciding it was better not to muddy the waters, he replied, “You told me,” which he thought was true, even if it wasn’t the whole truth. He was pretty sure he remembered Zack mentioning that the person he was living with had a child, though at the time Emilio hadn’t known Kelly well enough for that to be a thing that soothed him. (Bad people could have children, too, could love them. Emilio figured he was proof enough of that.) 

Of course, now that he knew Kelly, he was a little satiated by the idea of the ranger being informed of the issue with the bushes. Kelly could more than take care of himself, and could probably take care of Zack, too. But Emilio had been a capable hunter, too. So had Rosa, and Edgar, and their mother. And they all died, anyway. Flora and Jaime both died anyway, and Juliana. Being capable didn’t mean you were impervious to attack. It didn’t mean you were invincible, didn’t mean no one could come into your house and slaughter your children in the living room. Anxiety crawled beneath his skin like ants, whispering with the utmost certainty that if he did not ensure the perimeter was safe, something terrible would breach it. 

“I just… need to look around,” he mumbled, well aware that repeating the same thing offered no real explanation. But what explanation could he give? He couldn’t explain to Zack the way his palms itched with something he couldn’t name, couldn’t put to words the quiet desire to ensure that nothing could go wrong. He couldn’t even explain it to himself, and there was so much about Emilio that Zack still didn’t know. He knew nothing of Flora, whose father hadn’t ‘messed around on safety’ either, but who had still died on the floor of her own home, just a room away from the one she’d been born in. Zack didn’t know of Emilio’s own death, either, didn’t know that the moment he’d started feeling safe again, the world had reminded him that he wasn’t. 

Zack’s voice pulled Emilio from his thoughts, and he found himself flinching at the harshness of the words. We don’t need you. For a moment, Emilio stood stock-still, taut as a rubber band about to snap. He held his breath, waited for his lungs to burn even though he knew they wouldn’t. Then, his finger twitched, and his eyes darted down as if a spell had been broken. “I need to check the other window,” he said abruptly, moving past Zack as if he’d said nothing at all.

—

Emilio hadn’t meant it like that, as a slight against his own magic ability. But Zack had taken it like that. He knew that was his own stuff crowded in on what Emilio had actually said. It wasn’t fair to leap to being defensive quite so quickly as Zack had. Clearly he hadn’t yet worked through the years he spent not understanding what was happening to him, inside him. There were still the scars, somewhere, of what had happened the last time in Wicked’s Rest when he would wake up from nightmares with smoke already rising.

“Well. I am. I’m learning and I’m getting pretty good at it.” He didn’t offer the information that Rosemary had even started asking for his help for certain spells and things. Only because, really, her specialty was so niche that sometimes the more basic magic tripped her up when she was used to bringing people back from the dead and all that. But it was still a mark toward how much Zack had improved. What he was able to do. He could help those around him, his magic could be something more than just a liability. “So I could protect us all with it, if it came to that.” (Could you? something inside Zack whispered. Would he ever be able to trust himself and his magic enough to be able to try? What if he was overconfident and wrong? What if he hurt Kelly, or Flip?)

Zack had mentioned Flip to Emilio, which he was regretting. Not because of Emilio, not really, but more the general fear of being too free with information about someone else. He trusted Emilio but that wouldn’t mean anything to Kelly, he didn’t think. If there was one thing Kelly took deadly seriously it was Flip’s safety. Something like guilt pooled through Zack’s veins and he resolved to be much more careful about how he spoke about Kelly and Flip. 

“Tell me why,” Zack demanded when Emilio wouldn’t offer any further explanation. An edge of anxiety worked its way into Zack’s chest as he worried about what the other man might know. Why was he suddenly preoccupied with the safety of this house – this house that was secluded and secured and had two grown adult men living on the premises. Why wasn’t that enough for Emilio? Did he know about some danger, some possible threat, that Zack didn’t know about? “Is something going on? Or is something going to happen?” 

His mind went to those surges that had ravaged the town a few months back. Hours at a time of magic blanking out and fae, shifters, and undead running rampant. Kelly had only been in town for one of those, Zack thought, and while it was the worst one (twenty-four full hours of whatever the hell had happened, happening) there hadn’t been another since. And they fixed magic. They fixed it all, all their friends and everyone in town was supposed to be safe now. But Emilio was here, checking windows, so maybe there was something else looming around the corner.

“You have to tell me,” he pressed, getting in Emilio’s path to block him again. “If something is going to happen, you have to tell me.”

—

He’d never been very good at explaining himself. Even in Spanish, he struggled to find the right words to communicate the things that went on inside his head. It was as if the proper terms were things no one had ever thought to invent, as if whatever was wrong with Emilio was so wholly unique that whoever came up with language hadn’t thought it necessary to set aside things to describe what caught him by the throat and hung him out to dry on a daily basis. He couldn’t tell Zack what he meant; he couldn’t even explain it to himself, couldn’t even phrase it as something that made sense to him, and he was the one who felt it. Language failed him, because it always did. The failure set off a chain reaction, because it always did. He said the wrong thing, Zack took it the wrong way, and the sound of the dominoes falling against one another was so loud that it was hard to make out anything else.

Frustration built in his gut, clawing its way to the empty spot in his chest as if it meant to replace the heart he’d lost. “Could is not the same as would,” he said. “And I want — I don’t want you to have to — It isn’t…” He trailed off, grunting out some of that quiet frustration. He didn’t want Zack to have to hurt anyone. He didn’t want Zack to look down at his hands and see them stained with red. He didn’t want Kelly to know what it was to see your kid crumpled against the wall of the living room, didn’t want Flip to experience the horror of seeing what someone who loved you might do to keep you safe. But he couldn’t put any of that to words, and he wouldn’t have even if he could. He didn’t know if his knowing Kelly was meant to be a secret, didn’t know if Kelly wanted Zack to be aware of it or not. He definitely didn’t want to say anything that might allow the spellcaster to gather that Kelly was a ranger, though he knew Zack could be trusted with the information if Kelly chose to share it. But it ought to be Kelly’s choice. Absently, Emilio rubbed at his chest. He knew all too well what it was to have that particular choice — the one you got to make about who knew what you were — taken away.

Of course, Zack would not accept the half truths that were the only thing Emilio knew how to offer. He demanded more of an explanation, blocked Emilio’s path in a way that would have made his heart stutter and pound if he’d still had one, if it still beat at all. He felt something cold at the back of his neck, some primal dread. His mind screamed about danger that didn’t exist, warned him of threats that were not there. He grit his teeth against it, tried to push it away. But Zack asked again, demanded again, and the dread grew teeth that sunk into his spine.

“Something always happens!” He snapped, louder than he meant to be. “There is always something going on! You are sitting in your house, or in someone else’s house, and you think things are fine, and then it’s — It isn’t safe. Maybe things are fixed right now, in the town, but this means nothing. It means nothing, Zack. Even when things are good, something can happen. There is too much room between the bush and the window and someone could get in, and — and then what? You kill them? What’s that do to you? Or — or they come in, and you’re in the other room grabbing something, and the kid — There’s a kid here. And someone could get in, and get to her in the fucking living room, and…” He trailed off, reaching up to push his hair back in quiet frustration. If he noticed his slip-up — her instead of him, the wrong kid stuck forever in the forefront of his mind — he made no indication of it. Instead, he put a careful hand on Zack’s shoulder, moving him gently out of his path. “I need to check the other window,” he repeated again, a hint of urgency in his tone. “The door, maybe. The roof. The main house, too.”

—

“What’s that supposed to mean?” That Zack wouldn’t use his powers to protect himself, and Kelly and Flip. Why wouldn’t he? Where did Emilio even get off making those kinds of assumptions about him? He had only seen him use his magic once, in that awful firestorm at the barn. He had no idea all that Zack had been doing since coming back to Wicked’s Rest, and before that even. That was the whole point of Zack’s objection, wasn’t it? Emilio didn’t have any claim to who Zack was or where he lived or how he did or didn’t protect himself. He had lost that right in the moment he shoved him away in that dive bar. “You don’t even know what I’m capable of doing. You don’t know.” 

He could weave a protection spell around this house. Zack was sure of it. It would take some more studying, some practice, help from Rosemary, sure. But he was confident that he could get there. And there was no reason why he wouldn’t, if he could. He wanted to protect himself, and Kelly and Flip. He wanted, desperately, for his magic to be something good. To be something other than that destructive force it had always been, swirling in his chest, since he was a teenager. Emilio didn’t want him to have to defend himself but he didn’t understand that it wasn’t a burden to be able to do so. 

Emilio had always been able to protect himself. He wouldn’t understand.

The outburst was unexpected, though maybe it shouldn’t have been. He had been prone to anger with Zack since his return. Why would this encounter be any different? “That’s why I want to get a protection spell, okay? Because then I don’t have to worry about accounting for every possible thing that could happen. It’ll just…protect all of us inside.” Then it wouldn’t matter how far the bushes were from the windows or whether a stray vampire came looking for blood. His magic would keep them safe. 

But, as Emilio went on, Zack realized this wasn’t exactly about the layout of the landscaping. “Him,” he corrected, gently. This wasn’t about Zack, then. It wasn’t about Zack or Kelly or Flip or the shifts in magic or maybe anything that made Wicked’s Rest its own special kind of danger. This wasn’t about Zack’s ability to protect himself, but rather Emilio’s frantic need to protect everyone around him lest something happened and it would be his fault. He still held a deep well of guilt for all that had happened in that barn, for the fact that he hadn’t saved them all sooner. 

“Okay,” Zack soothed, letting Emilio move him. “Okay. We can check the windows and the doors. I don’t know if we can get on the roof but. Whatever we can reach, we can check. Okay?” If that’s what would calm his friend, make him feel better, then okay. Zack would help him through the inspection.

—

“You don’t want to hurt anyone,” Emilio replied, and he thought it was true. Zack was capable of hurting people, sure. Emilio had seen it, had watched fire eat through dead flesh and turn vampires into ash in the barn, had smelled the smoke that rose up after. Zack was plenty capable, but there was a difference, wasn’t there? There was a line between what a person was capable of doing and what they could live with after. Zack left town just after Emilio pulled him out of that basement, the smell of smoke and burnt flesh wafting behind him as he did so. Something like that left a mark on you, beat into you until it reshaped who and what you were. Zack could take care of himself. That didn’t mean he should have had to, didn’t mean he should have been expected to. 

It was what Emilio was for, wasn’t it? His uncle told him once that hunters were a line of defense not just to protect humans from harm, but to prevent them from having to do things that they may not have been able to live with. To a slayer, it was obvious that something dead and walking needed to be put down like a rabid dog. But to a human who had not been raised the same way? The monster with the still heart and gnashing teeth was their mother, their brother, their friend. Killing a thing that wore the face of someone you’d once loved could ruin a person; killing something that your brain insisted must have been human even when you knew they weren’t could do just the same. It was a hunter’s job, in part, to make sure it never came to that, to bear the weight so that they didn’t have to. And Emilio wasn’t a hunter anymore, but couldn’t he be good for that, still? Couldn’t he be good for something? 

Maybe not. Zack was offended, or upset, or… something. It was hard, sometimes, for Emilio to parse out what emotion came with a certain tone of voice, hard for him to figure out the real meaning behind the words. He’d snapped at Zack, and it didn’t matter much that he hadn’t meant to do it, didn’t matter much that his intention hadn’t been to raise his voice. At the end of the day, what you did was always going to mean more than what you meant to do, and Emilio had snapped and raised his voice. He let out a brittle laugh, as close to breaking as Emilio himself. “And if magic fails again?” He questioned, gesturing to the bush as though it said all that needed saying. He knew it was stupid. He knew there was no real logic behind it, knew that he was being… something. He didn’t have a word for it. He didn’t have a word for most things, these days.

Something in Zack’s face softened, and Emilio didn’t quite know why until he spoke. Him. Right. Flip. Kelly’s kid, not Emilio’s. Flip, not Flora. Emilio shoved his hands into his pocket to hide the fact that they were trembling, let his left thumb find the wedding band that made his whole arm feel heavy these days the same way a parent might let their child cling to their pantleg in a situation that was unfamiliar. “Him,” he agreed quietly. Zack didn’t know, of course. Emilio didn’t speak about it often, so how could he? You could hardly expect someone to know something they’d never heard aloud, and he’d never hold it against Zack. Even so, Zack was gentle. Even so, he changed his tune. Something in Emilio’s chest ached; he tried to ignore it.

“Okay,” he breathed, letting go of a breath he’d been holding without realizing it. “We need… The windows. We need to check all the windows. And the locks on the doors. The main house, too. And — the balcony. They could get in through the balcony, you know. Some of them — they can fly, or they have things that can fly, so you can’t — even high up.” Vampires couldn’t get in without an invite, but they were sneaky little shits. Emilio knew that. It hurt, how well Emilio knew that. “Can you — which window is for your bedroom? We need to check that one.”

—

When he first returned to town, Emilio was one of the first people Zack had sought out. He was easy to find, still in the same office/apartment in Worm Row, in the building where he himself had once lived. What had struck Zack most about that encounter had been how much worse Emilio looked than he remembered. Worse in physical state, worse emotionally, drained in a way that Zack couldn’t put into words. All his friends, so far, had gotten a portrait done but he hadn’t even been able to start on one for Emilio. 

Not because his friend didn’t deserve it, not even just because he looked bad. But because it would mean looking directly into that hurt and doing nothing for it. Which was as good as causing more hurt, wasn’t it? Emilio was right, after all: Zack didn’t want to hurt anyone. He had tried to help as much as he could. Even when all he got in return was a turned back, a cold shoulder, worse. 

But here, with this, seemed like something else Zack could do to help.

“Okay.” Emilio seemed to be calmed by the list, which helped calm Zack down some. “Windows, doors, balcony, got it. What are we looking for exactly? Distance of the bushes and stuff, I guess, for one. Right?” He wanted to keep Emilio calm, because whatever had moved through his friend before, whoever he had been thinking of when he said her, obviously hurt. And he didn’t want Emilio to hurt. Not even if he was mad about the avoiding and the fighting and the showing up unannounced. No matter what came to pass between them, or didn’t come to pass, he didn’t want Emilio to hurt. “Checking the locks on the door. There’s salt inside, would that help?” He remembered, vaguely, that Emilio had said something about a salt circle. It had seemed more trouble than it was worth, but if it could give them something to do, something tangible they could create so Emilio could see that he had done something…

“Oh, I’m–” Zack swung around, back to the main house and pointed out the poolhouse. “I’m in the poolhouse over there.” Only a dozen or so yards set back from the main house, enough to give him privacy without actually feeling like a separate property. “But let’s get the big house squared away first. That’s where Flip is, that’s the most important.” 

—

“Locks,” he mumbled, fingers twitching absently as if looking for the hilt of a knife to wrap themselves around. “The kind that are harder to pick. And… we should check the panes, make sure they’re not weak around the edges.” Of course, none of this had been done at Emilio’s apartment. The lock on his door had been broken for years now, swinging back open just a little any time you shut it too hard. His windows were cracked, small lines that had been hard to see at first but had grown over time. The latch on the one by the fire escape was broken, too. If anyone were to try to break into Emilio’s apartment, they’d find it easy to do so. 

But there was nothing in Emilio’s apartment worth protecting.

His apartment was not like this house, which was full of life. There were no children there, no well-intentioned people who didn’t want to hurt anyone, no beating hearts. To put effort into protecting Emilio’s apartment in this way would be like putting a bank vault around a mausoleum. It was far too much effort to expend to protect a corpse. 

(He thought of Eve leaving him in that alley, of Ishan scoffing at the fact that he was still upset by talons pulling his heart from his chest, of the siren that pushed him into a pit full of bodies over and over and over again just to break up the monotony of her day. People might frown at the idea of desecrating a corpse, but no one in their right mind would be as horrified by that as they would be by someone hurting a living person in the same way. Had his heart still beat, Eve leaving him in that alley would have been a terrible thing. Ishan ripping into his chest would have been murder. The siren pushing him in that pit would have been horrifying to anyone who heard about it. But what would anyone care about doing those things to someone when the life had already left them? He was dead. He was dead already. It didn’t matter if his lock was broken.) 

He looked back to Zack at the mention of salt, nodding quickly. “Yeah,” he breathed, quiet relief clinging desperately to his tone. “Yeah. We should put some around the beds. Salt the doors and windows, too. Especially the bedrooms. Especially anywhere anyone might sleep.” He’d like to think no mare would target a toddler, but he’d seen supernaturals target young hunters enough times to know it certainly happened. His own daughter had been just a few years older than Flip was now, and it had mattered nothing to the vampires that killed her. Flora was a hunter; Flip was one, too. That was what people saw first, sometimes. “Big house first,” he agreed. “But we need to do yours, too. It’s probably less secure.” Kelly was a hunter, which meant he had security in mind in some areas, but how much did he think about his pool house? Before Zack had moved in, Emilio would wager that no one had exactly been sleeping in it. Better to make sure nothing was missed.

For a moment, Emilio faltered. He brought a hand up to push his hair away from his face, let out a shaky sigh. “Sorry,” he mumbled. “I’m sorry. I know I’m — You think I’m acting crazy. Probably am. I just…” He trailed off, fingers twitching at his side once again. “There’s a kid. Second set of eyes can’t hurt. Or… third set, I guess.” Kelly had likely secured his house already; Zack had probably at least done a brief follow up of it. But there was that nagging feeling, that uncomfortable question: what if they’d missed something? There had been two grown hunters living in Emilio’s house in Mexico, four more who were in and out of it frequently. It hadn’t mattered, in the end. However good Kelly’s security was, it could still be better. It still needed to be better.

—

Zack kept up his attentive nod, even though he was sure he would have no idea how to tell whether the locks on the house were the safer ones, according to Emilio. Let alone if the windows were secure. But Emilio would, obviously. Zack could just be there, by his side, to ferry Emilio through this misdirected panic. If they ended up making Kelly’s home a little safer, great. If they discovered that it was more or less impenetrable already, even better. Misdirected though it clearly was, Zack did appreciate the effort to keep them all safe. 

Hell if Zack knew how he was going to get salt circles around Flip’s crib and Kelly’s bed without anyone noticing, but they could cross that bridge when they came to it. Maybe he could somehow convince Kelly that it was some kind of family tradition that he was superstitious about. That would be sure to get a raised eyebrow but maybe not a second look. “Right,” he agreed as Emilio explained further. “For ghosts, and mares.” He remembered, now, the explanation that had been given. He should definitely get a salt circle around his own bed, if nowhere else. Just to be sure that ghost that had hopped into him for a little bit couldn’t make a reappearance. 

“I don’t think you’re crazy.” Maybe a little paranoid. But in a town like Wicked’s Rest, could extra security really do any harm? “I just didn’t understand. And you’re right. There’s a kid. We should do everything we can to make sure Flip stays safe.” As much as he had pleaded his case to Emilio, that wasn’t actually something Zack could confidently do with his magic. Carefully, telegraphing the movement so Emilio wouldn’t be caught off-guard, he laid his hand to his shoulder. “Come on. You can show me what to look for.”

—

Zack remembered, about the ghosts and the mares and Emilio nodded with something almost like desperation. Knowing what went bump in the night would not save him any more than it had saved Flora. Hell, Juliana had been an accomplished hunter in her own right, capable of taking down beasts far more imposing than the vampires who had overwhelmed and killed her in the living room of her own goddamn home, and she had not been spared, either. But knowing meant Zack could protect himself, at least a little. Living with Kelly meant he’d have a little extra protection, a ranger watching his back whether he knew it or not. And to Emilio, that offered some reassurance. To Emilio, that was better than nothing.

Then, Zack said I don’t think you’re crazy, and the relief deepened even as some part of Emilio wanted to laugh with the ridiculousness of the statement. Zack didn’t think he was crazy, even though Emilio was pretty sure he was. Something inside of him had snapped a long time ago, then shattered into a fine powder that could never dream of being pieced back together again, then had its pieces scattered to the winds. There was something deeply broken inside of him, and he knew it. 

But he still had to check the locks.

He still had to make sure the bushes were close enough to the windows to avoid leaving any gaps. He still had to check the roof for entry points, check the windows for weaknesses. There was a kid, and it wasn’t his, because his kid was dead. There was a kid with a hunter for a father, and Emilio could not repair the thing that had broken inside of him but maybe he could keep the same thing from breaking inside of Kelly, or Zack. Maybe that was the best he could really hope for.

“Yeah,” he breathed, the exhale quietly unnecessary as it left his dead lungs. “Yeah. I’ll show you what to look for.”