carry that weight.

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.”