Malus

She listened to him, watching him with a curious nature that was not alien to her but that she rarely acted on. Mortals proved fascinating to her, and the end of life - as sad as it was - always allowed for a change in them. She couldn’t remember the last time she heard of a vampire dying or any sort of funerary rites being done for them. They were there and then they weren’t. “Does that happen often? People arguing at a funeral?” She sighed. There was something to that, arguing over the body of the dead that depressed her. 

Peri laughed when he called the hospital hers. “I wish it was. I have so many ideas that I’d like to implement. Things I’ve learned over the years, but at least I get to run the emergency department to my specifications. So, I think anything that involves the dead is yours, anything that involves an emergency, or people think that it’s an emergency, belongs to me and the rest…” she lifts a hand and waves towards the halls, meaning the rest of the hospital. “That belongs to whomever they belong to.” Together, she and Malus provided necessary functions. They saw people at their worst, sometimes at their best, and they both dealt with the living. She held their lives in her hands. He took care of their dead, affording them dignity and respect so their families could say their goodbyes in the way that they wished to. 

He smiled, and she found herself captivated by the way that he seemed to open to her. It had been such a small inquiry to her mind. She wanted to spend time with him and see all that he did. “No one has asked you that before?” she wondered, remembering the rumors that people had whispered about him; rumors that she shrugged off. He wasn’t human, and she had no desire to force human standards on someone who only looked human. She touched her hand to his cheek, fingers light and cool against his skin. She knew that he treated her like a goddess because she was a twilight soul, one not alive but not fully dead, stuck somewhere between, but she wanted him to see her as more than just another crepusculum. 

“Is it that strange that I would want to?” she asked, as he leaned down, and she tipped her head back. She parted her lips and would have tightened her grip to prolong their kiss, but the elevator ride was infuriatingly short, and with a ding the door opened, and she had to sigh and lightly move away from him, slipping from the gurney and setting her feet back to the floor. “I don’t have to, of course,” she said, turning to face him. “I can meet you tomorrow morning before my shift for coffee, if you like, or breakfast.” 

       “It happens more often than you’d think,” Malus admitted with a heavy sighed, he didn’t want to think about it. Like her Malus didn’t like to imagine people that way so he focused more on the following things she had said. “It would be much easier if I had gone to your surface academies of medicine then I would be able to be in charge of more involving the departed in this town,” Malus said because unlike her he wasn’t in charge within the hospital at all. He had a contract with the town to take people who had no relatives or arrangements and then could take anyone else whose family chose to have him do their funeral and burial. Beyond that there wasn’t anything Malus could do because autopsies were not technically something he was allowed to do. Occasionally he would reopen a body if he felt the hospital had missed something but most of the time they disapproved and his nature, as it was, tended to leave with the people unimpressed with him spreading lies. For all he was attracted to those like Peri he did respect the dead, he’d never do anything to them without their consent.

        Continuing to look down at her he spoke, “however the way you run your department is impecable, I am sure, it’s very rare we get deceased people from emergency. To be fair most come from the nursing home,” Malus admitted. Even werewolves got old, not everyone was blessed with immortality the way she mostly was. Five hundred years before losing you soul seemed a scary thing but she was almost immortal. “As for the rest I don’t really care what they do,” he reasoned with a slight shrug.

        The smile sort of fell as she asked if anyone else had requested to see the funeral parlour before and Malus realised how sad that actually kind of made him. No one had and he hadn’t imagined anyone would. People had come by once or twice to meet him or to do some work but no one had really wanted to see what he did. To a degree he understood that surface people were brought up to see death as something to be feared but he was realising he’d never become close enough to someone that they could put that aside in favour of seeing how he worked. To be fair she understood death better than most, not just because she was a vampire but because she worked in a hospital, people died in front of her eyes and she had to come to terms with that. “Um...no, no one has asked me that before,” he admitted, looking away from her.

       The smile came back when she returned his kiss and he allowed her to get off before pushing them out of the elevator and to his waiting and open van that he immediately pushed the deceased into. “Probably but I find it endearing,” he assured her. As fearful as she could have been about Malus’ perversions they were merely a sexual construct not an emotional one. Malus could love someone alive as he could someone dead with the same amount of depth and devotion, he just couldn’t have the same sexual desire for them. If Peri had merely been desire he would not have longed for her company so easily. When Malus spent time with her it was because he enjoyed it, not just because he wanted her.

She’d heard stories of the strange mortician who came to collect the bodies as needed, and she had been warned against talking to him. It appeared that even in Soapberry there were things that were too strange for someone to overcome. She knew that it had to be his proximity to death. He dealt with what others didn’t want to see, the finality and the end of days - at least for an individual. So, she did exactly the opposite of what they said. She went to meet him.  She … couldn’t recall when she first spoke to him. It felt like just yesterday and a lifetime ago, but she didn’t question it. Why would she? She enjoyed his company, and she liked the way that he looked at her. She’d grown used to the suspicion that colored people’s faces when they learned that she was a vampire, and rationally she knew that she couldn’t fault them, but she irrationally, she did fault them. She was a doctor. She saved lives. But she was a vampire, and that would always come first.

She wanted to wrap her arms around him and hug him tight in greeting, but she didn’t want to rumple his clothing, not when he dressed so sharply, so instead when he came out, she smiled at him and kept her hands to herself. Perhaps later, when he was tending to this body, when he removed his coat and rolled his sleeves up, it’d be enough of an opening to wrap her arms around him and greet him like she wanted to, but for now, she wanted him to be able to carry himself as professionally as he always did. She didn’t want to take that away from him. “Have you had a good day?”

Laughing, the vampire looked over her shoulder back to the gurney and then back to him. “Is that not allowed?” she asked. She had no problem with the dead, and once she was given permission, she hopped up on the gurney and rested back.  It wasn’t the first time she’d laid next to the dead, and she doubted that it would be the last. Besides, it meant that she could look up at him as he moved them to their next location. It gave her an excuse, not that she needed one, to study him. “Malus, do you mind if I spend the evening with you?” she asked from her spot. “I’m curious to see what you do.” And there was no one waiting up for her at home, no reason why she shouldn’t prolong her time with him. 

        “I did have a good day,” he answered her, focusing on just that so that he could interact with her without his body doing things that it shouldn’t. Running through his mind he tried to focus on all the living, breathing, beating people he had interacted with that day. For Malus it was that beating heart that turned him away from things so even imagining an ample chested twenty-something woman or a lean bodied thirty year old man did nothing for him if he knew that within their chest pounded a heart, they were attractive but he felt no actual attraction to them. Not the way he did for Peri. “I buried a selkie man today, wonderful funeral. His family were very lovely and tremendously polite. One of the few funerals where there seemed to be no unnecessary drama between relatives about who inherited what,” Malus mused, finding his body gently relaxing.

        This relaxation was temporary because once she actually climbed onto the gurney and laid down beside the current patient hidden beneath a sheet his mind wandered once more. “You are allowed to do anything you wish,” he assured her. “This is your hospital, after all.” More so than it was his. In reality he rather admired her work. In a way she assisted in fate, it was easy to say when you’re dying your dying but interacting with others was what made life have meaning in death and if she saved someone to Malus that meant she was destined to do that, it was not their time, without her they would go long before it. 

        As she asked to spend the evening with him his heart soared and he smiled - a rare act of Malus’ when his face rarely was anything but stoic. Beneath the waves he’d never needed expressions because where they lived was so murky you couldn’t see anothers face even if you wanted to. Here it was important but rarely did Malus feel so overcome with emotions he’d physically respond. “You want to spend the evening in the...funeral home?” he asked her. She knew his apartment was elsewhere to his work and didn’t actually have a bed. Malus slept in a bathtub and that certainly limited them greatly. The morgue though, was she teasing him? She knew, most knew, of his affliction but it was probably so much clearer to her having been with him before. The way he worshipped her with everything he had and was so desperately willing the please.

Theo found a broken bottle, finding it to be a wonderful find. He pulled it out of the sand with his nose, catching it in his teeth. He turned to show Malus what he had found…only to not see him. Forgetting the bottle, Theo frantically started looking for Malus, rushing to the surface and letting his head bob up and down with the waves. He made those loud barking noises again, only this time they sounded more frightened. When Theo caught a glimpse of Malus at the pier, the selkie rushed as fast as he could back to him.

She sat next to the morgue and waited for him to come out. It had been forty-eight hours since she started her shift, and in between one emergency after another, dealing with an uptick in people asking their friends or family members to be involuntarily committed as they swore they had a new lover, a friend, profession that they swore they had for years before. She didn’t understand and at this time of night, she didn’t want to think anymore. 

She wanted to see him. To see the way that he looked at her. She wanted to talk to him and engage him in conversation, learn about him and watch him work. They didn’t put a name to what they were, and they neither placed strings on the other, but it still wanted to see him. The door to the morgue swung open, and she leaned over, peeking her head in to see what was inside, wondering if he was done signing the paperwork. Death didn’t bother her, and neither did the coroner who worked over the bodies before signing off so the mortician could collect them. She yawned quickly, and stretched, trying to keep herself away. 

The vampire nearly dozed off when she heard the door swing open again and the sound of a gurney. A second later, there was a dead body in front of her. Peri blinked and looked at it before she looked to the head of the gurney and saw him. She stood up and bounced on her toes. “Good evening.” A beat later, she looked at the gurney. “Do you think that I could ride on the gurney on the way out? It’s been a long shift and my feet hurt. You wouldn’t think they could hurt but long shift would say otherwise.”

@thismorticianmalus

      Malus was not experiencing the oddities the way others were. Malus interacted mostly with people he did not know so sudden friends they had were just friends they had to the mortician. It certainly seemed odd when at a seafolks funeral there were a myriad of nagas but he didn’t think too much on it. People could have strange friends. Mostly he just went about his day as he always did, doing what he could for those that had passed and there families before collecting himself something to drink during a break in his day and finally ending it by collecting whoever the hospital needed him to.

        The end of the day had to be his favourite though, aside from the collection of the dead it was an excuse to see her when he knew he should have been focusing on work. Yet he was stuck for longer than usual with the coroner going over things with him. The man was perhaps the most boring surface dweller Malus had come across and he knew himself to be quite dull to humans. Perhaps this is why he worked with the dead, the living couldn’t stand him. When he finially signed the last paper and began to head out with the only body he’d been given that day he stopped before he even pushed the door open. He could see her dozed off out there and his heart lept.

        It felt so strange to see her because he felt a kind of odd relief, it felt as though he’d been lonely for so long and suddenly he wasn’t but they’d been spending time together since...since...he couldn’t really recall and yet somehow her presence relieved his loneliness and he felt and immense gratitude for the dead girl. Finally he pushed out the door, stopping in front of her. His deep brown eyes lingering on her as she arose, eyes blinking she looked dazzling, skin so soft and clear. It only made him feel more appreciative when she seemed to bounce up with excitement. “Evening,” he responded with a gentle nod, a kind of bow of his own to show his intense appreciation.

Even after Malus came up Theo had made a few more barking noises, treading water as he glanced around him and in the general direction the boat had gone. He looked back at Malus with saddened eyes, the boy’s hopes of finding any signs of his mom torn for the day.

Theo nodded at the offer to swim, weakly diving back in the water and diving back down towards the bottom. Theo poked and drug his nose in the sand, looking for anything to eat or play with.

There was an earth-shattering scream, the kind of scream that made his blood run cold. It tore through him, making him feel like he was stabbed with million pieces of invincible glass shards. Tuah covered his ears with his hands, but even that wasn’t enough to protect him from the scream. It was as if it managed to penetrate to the depth of his brain, and he felt crippled by the scream that his body doubled over, his knees and elbows on the planks of the dock as if trying to crawl away from the source of the scream.

Tears started streaming on his face, his eyes shut tightly. He couldn’t remember if he was screaming as well, but he remembered his throat feeling dry and sore so he must’ve had. He couldn’t understand what was happening, why it was happening, but he begged for it stop cause it hurts so much oh Gods it hurts it hurts it hurts somebody please make it stop please oh Gods, please. His body fell to the side, curling himself into a ball as if this different position would help ease the pain that his body was experiencing.

Then came the vision.

Flashes of memories passed him as if he was watching somebody else’s life on a recorded film, but it was played in reverse. Fear struck hard as Tuah was at lost what to do and not knowing what was to come, feeling his body immobilised by his own sense of terror. Then the vision stopped at one particular memory, the scene was blurry at first, then soon became clearer as moments passed. His eyes went wide and his jaw slackened, horrified by what was on display. “No,” he breathed out, “no, no, no, no. Don’t do this to me. Don’t do this. PLEASE DON’T.” He cried out in anguish, begging to anyone who could hear him.

His cry was translated in a mumble outside of his mind, his lips moving sluggishly as he slowly fell unconsciousness. Darkness started to cloud his vision, the scream seemed to be but a distance now. His body went slack besides the merman, hand falling to the ground in front of his face with a soft thud against the plank.

        Blinking a few times Malus’ eyes readjusted to the light. When he realised he was separated from everything he had felt he was in and had returned to the peer he immediately sat up, looking to find the large fish. It was gone. Not a single red blur ran through the water, not even of smaller fish. Malus wondered if perhaps the larger creature had scared the others away, how long before his underwater companions would feel confident in returning? It was a second thought to turn to Tuah. The only stories Malus knew of non-merfolk interacting with the Salmon were of humans eating them and gaining knowledge, only to be overpowered by it and die.

        Turning his gaze to his side he hoped Tuah had not truly died. An odd hope since Malus usually saw death for anyone as a welcoming act. Perhaps his distake for the idea was that it would be his fault. However as he looked at him, knowing his heart was not beating and he was not breath Malus decided no, he was merely in his usual undead state. Tuah hadn’t eaten the fish, merely been near him. Yet it still concerned him to see his friend lying unconscious beside him and Malus gently reached out. Usually an act he would have done with pleasure he did with fear.

He smiled softly, his hand splayed on the planks of the dock behind him as he listened to the other. “So this is where you take your date to impress them,” he teased, his brow arched and his lips curled into a slight smile. “I have to say, I’d do the same as well if I were as beautiful as you in this form.” Tuah still couldn’t believe that he was privileged enough to be given the opportunity to watch Malus transformed in front of his eyes. Well, he looked away because the other had to strip himself bare and he’d like to give the merman his privacy. That, and it was a tad embarrassing to watch the other took off pieces of his clothing one by one. It felt too intimate, even now that Malus had changed into a merman. He felt as if it was a well-kept secret that only was given privy to and no one else, what with how secluded of an area they were in. It only made him appreciated what Malus had done even more.

Tuah’s attention went towards the open sea when he noticed the slight change in the other’s demeanour. He couldn’t see what had gotten Malus’ attention, however, his sensitive eyes squinted at the bright light and he had to shield his eyes with his hand above them. “What is it?” He asked, trying to figure out what had caused the other’s distress. But the light was too blinding for him that he had to look away, so he focused on his companion instead. “Malus, is there something wrong?” He asked, hand gently clasping the merman’s shoulder, concern colouring his voice as well as his face. The light was still blinding even as he turned away, and he was looking at the other through a slit because having his eyes open had been difficult with those lights.  

Something was wrong, his instinct telling him to run, to flee. It wasn’t just the fear of deep water talking, but something more, something deeper that had been instilled in himself centuries ago. But it couldn’t be, they were protected by the barrier around town, so why he felt like something was about to go wrong very, very soon?

       If someone had ever heard a fish scream before they would be excused for thinking that this could not possibly be a fish even if it looked like one. As Tuah began to feel scared, probing Malus with his questions when the merman was completely and entirely consumed by the blinding sight, Malus watched as the fish’s mouth opened wide. The mouth was equally as colourful as it’s body and at first was entirely silent as the creature seemed to need to prepare for what was to come.

        By now Malus could not speak, not even feeling Tuah’s hand on his person, all he could do was stare directly into the fishes eyes as sound finally began to erupt. At first it was like a long, drawn-out croaking of a toad that filled Malus’ head as though the sound were coming from his thoughts rather than the creature. Eventually this croak evolved into a high pitched squeal that shattered through what he considered his vision and showed him something else, as though he were in a whole new place rather than on the docks with his friend.

       The sequel continued but it came from an entirely new source. Malus could feel the water of the bathtub he slept in splashing around his long form while a darkened spectre hovered over him, the new source of the sequel. As much as Malus wanted to move, to get away from the faceless ghost that seemed to only had a mouth and a fog like form, he could not. He felt glued to the bathtub, thrashing about with all his might, his own screaming taking place.

Theo watched Malus, looking to him for guidance. Malus knew these waters better then the selkie, and Theo had to admit he was conditioned to never swim alone. He stayed close to Malus, diving deep with him. Theo had no idea what he was looking for, unsure if boats even left evidence or tracks they could follow. 

The selkie popped back up when he ran out of air, his head bobbing out on the surface. Theo made a calling bark, the loud sound echoing slightly. Theo strained to try to hear any sound back, but nothing came his way.

         At first when the selkie barked Malus thought, coming to the surface to follow him, that he was specifically trying to get the merfolks attention and return him up there with him. However when his own head broke the surface of the water Malus began to realise that the selkie was calling for his mother. It was rather heartbreaking to hear. Anyone trying to call to someone who would not respond was a sad act and Malus became unsure of what to do or how to act. Clearly the boy had seen nothing below the surface and neither had he.

Theo couldnt help but feel warm inside when the other seemed to look at him with approval. Theo looked up to Malus because he was sea folk…and also because he lacked a father figure in his life. Theo nodded, quickly darting off towards open water out of the harbor. He may be awkward on land, but in water he moved with speed and elegance. ONce they were a good half mile from shore Theo stopped, looking back at Malus. He barked once, signaling this was the place he last saw his mother.

      Half a mile was not a very far distance from the shore and in all honesty that concerned Malus. He wasn’t sure exactly how far out the barrier was but he doubted with all the extra areas off the main shore that were still within it that his mother had been taken outside of it. That was dangerous, it either meant that his mother had chosen to leave or some people that shouldn’t know about the place did.

Theo huffed when the other told him to not be a child. “I’m not a child…” He grumbled to himself, wrapping his pelt more around himself. Just shift like he did in the water…Theo could do that. He pulled the pelt up and over his head, wrapping himself tightly. Theo struggled with the shift, not being in water obviously a challenge. It was only a few seconds before he fell over hard and bounced from the pier into the water with a painful sounding thwack. 

Once in the water, the boy was a now a seal. He shook out his body, a stream of bubbles escaping his nose with his huff before he swam back over towards Malus.

      Malus remained neutral as the boy insisted he was not a child. To Malus the ‘man’ seemed so young. Perhaps it was his advanced age or perhaps more likely it was how little he knew but Malus could not get it out of his head that the selkie was a child and likely would not until the boy seemed more like he could stand on his own. It wasn’t anything to be ashamed of, he himself had needed someone to guide him when he first came up but eventually he didn’t.

Theo knew he should be a little more excited by the idea of going in the water. But since what had happened with him in the witches with Iann, Theo was less confident. Bellamy had to push Theo out the door to get him to go, saying when he came back they would eat fish and closing the door in his face. Theo took his time getting to the docks, stopping just before the beginning of the beach. He double checked that there were no people-or witches, as if he could tell the difference- before sprinting towards Malus. 

The boy pulled off his shirt and tossed it haphazardly into the chest, kicking off his pants as well. Theo was now nude and looking down at Malus as the other slipped into the water. Shift before he got into the water? Theo looked down at himself. How? Theo had only been able to shift back when he was in the water. “Um….how do I do that?”

       “I don’t know how your body works, if you think you can do it within then do so but I have no idea how to save a drowning person,” Malus insisted as he moved his tail this way and that to keep himself afloat. For a boy who had been so insistent on returning to the water initially in search of his mother now that they were back he was positively hesitant to even go near it. Malus couldn’t grasp why but he also hadn’t asked.

Tuah’s gaze flickered towards Malus’ face for a moment, his lips curled into a slight smile before turning his attention towards the merman’s tail. Slowly cold fingertips touched over the gills that rested against the other’s ribs just above the tail, curiosity and wonder evident on his face as he moved his fingers towards the glimmering white scales of Malus’ tail. Under the sunlight, the pure white scales looked almost golden in colour, with red and orange the most prominent between the rainbow colours that reflected against the surface.

“You’re such a beauty in this form,” he muttered quietly, lips curled into a soft smile as his fingers still moving along the scales and the seemingly paper thin fins. Tuah heaved a soft sigh and took a seat next to the merman, careful not to look down at the deep water, not wanting to show his fear towards the deep water in front of Malus. “Do you always come here to transform to your other self?”

     The gills moved with gently as they seemed to breath beneath Tuah’s fingers and Malus looked away embarrassed once more by them. They were the least beautiful part of his transformation and could often made him feel more like a fish than like merfolk. Still, Tuah seemed to find it all rather endearing and his compliments made Malus feel an extraordinary sense of worth that he had not felt in quite some time. “I do,” he responded, turning his head to look at Tuah who he had not noticed was uncomfortable in the slightest, maybe he was just too selfish that day.

      Turning his gaze once more to the water he gently smiled. “I like this part of Soapberry, there are some beautiful things beneath the water here.” The water’s deep colouring hid what was beneath it but Malus knew what was down there so well he could have described it to anyone as vividly as if they were seeing it themselves. However, the navy colour was interrupted by a colour of the afternoon sunset moving swiftly through it. The deep red with pink tones blared brightly in the cold water in it’s darkened hue. It was warmer than it had been and the sun had peaked out from between clouds all day but it was still cold and a had a winters darkness that stopped the water from being anything but navy to Malus’ eyes. To him this contrast was a vision of beauty even if it conveyed a coldhearted nature to the landscape. He had lived so long in murky waters where everything looked a blurry brown, clarity was a beauty in itself that he appreciated greatly.

      Yet Malus felt an overwhelming sense of fear as the bright colour seemed to approach himself and his companion at break neck speeds from further out in the distance. His eyes following the object that seemed to be the size of a seal but could not possibly be one in it’s insane colouring. “Do you see that?” Malus asked of Tuah but unable to remove his eyes from it. For all he could think it was merely himself and the colourful approaching blur, even if he could still feel Tuah presence there.

“I hadn’t thought about selling my herbs. I mostly planted enough to supplement my own supplies. I could rearrange the greenhouse to maximize my plant volume, and then sell a percentage….it’s a thought.” Charlie was grateful to have Malus as a friend. Sometimes the witch was too self serving, and it was good to have an outsider’s perspective, even on the smallest of issues. 

“Most of my herbs do have magical properties. A few are for regular cooking needs. I know the herb you are talking about, though I don’t grow it.” Charlie stood up, finding a book nearby that had an encyclopedia of all magical herbs. Setting it down on the table, he opened the book and pointed to the section on witch herbs. “I have most of these herbs growing in my greenhouse. I also have a special section outside the house for herbs that require moonlight to strengthen. It’s fascinating, isn’t it?” Charlie liked sharing intellectual magical conversations with Malus. He understood the enjoyment of learning something knew, and even though researching rituals were part of his job, Charlie thought Malus liked it just for fun as well. 

         The witches way of thinking was unsurprising. For the most part because what Malus had read on witches they didn’t serve others so much as they served their coven. Selling things was a very human sort of gimmick when it came to witchcraft. Charlie only thinking about growing what he needed was reasonable and fit his culture. However money was money and sometimes work didn’t exactly meet every bill that was needed. Malus himself didn’t exactly have savings. He spent his pay on his rent, utilities, taxes and food, then the rest went to books and clothes. By the time he was done spending what he’d earnt only about twenty dollars went to savings and eventually something big would come up and all that would be gone too. “Glad to have made a helpful suggestion, even if it does not prove feasible.”