ubique enim mali

“It’s funny how many small things like that have changed over time. I’ve never even considered how mail was handled before modern stamps were invented.” Goldie had that spark of wonder in her eyes again, even with such a small detail it felt like she was looking through a tiny window to the past. Whit was full of interesting stories like that – at least, she was always interested in them, even if they sometimes seemed mundane. “You’ll go with me? Maybe we can spend some time at the park after, if the weather’s nice.”

Scooching a bit closer, and lifting herself up slightly on her knees so that she could reach a bit better, Goldie wrapped her arms around Whit’s neck. “Thanks for the help, Whit.” She pecked his cheek and then plopped back down on the couch beside him and interlaced her fingers with his.

“So, what should we do now?” She asked cheerfully. Despite receiving the first contact ever from her birth mother, Goldie didn’t seem terribly affected by it at the moment. “Since it’s raining so much I think today’s going to have to be a lazy day for us.”

“Ohh, yeah the park sounds like a good idea.  I haven’t been in a minute.”  As he contemplated if they should pack a lunch for a trip to the park, Goldie gave him an unexpected kiss that made him blush.  Whit squeezed her hand as she snuggled up next to him.  It felt like a very anti-climatic end when Goldie seemed immediately be over the unexpected letter from her mother.  He had a feeling she had been quite dog-like before the werewolf attack even happened.

“Hm, I feel like we’ve watched so many movies recently.  We should do something else.  Maybe we could start a new series together instead...”  Whit trailed off; he wasn’t really an ideas man if he were honest with himself.  “Oh!”  A lightbulb turned on in his brain as he gently nudged Goldie to the side so that he could reach into his back pocket.

“I picked up a pack of cards the other day.  Have you ever played a game called Egyptian Rat Screw?  Sylvia is very competitive so she’s scared everyone else off from the game, but it would be nice to not be the only one losing every single game.”  He winced.  “It doesn’t take too long to learn.  Also I’m sure you’d be interested to see the less cool and collected side of Sylvia.”  Whit gave her a sly look.  “She might even hex me if I make sure you’re good at the game before we play with her; that would be loads of fun.”

With her head tilted slightly to one side, Goldie was quietly contemplating the fact that Whit had had trouble buying a phone even though he had technically been nearly half a century old. The realization that she was physically stuck at the age that she had become a werewolf was still fresh, so she hadn’t really considered that it might be a problem for her sometimes. Before she could get too deep into that thought, Whit amazed her with his amazing memory.

“Ah, you still remember those after all this time? That’s impressive. The only number I know, other than mine, is yours.” She grinned at him, then tapped her chin in contemplation. “Yeah, I had lots if home phone numbers when I was a kid. I guess I just forgot each one whenever I had to memorize a new one.”

She shrugged, indicating that the fact didn’t mean much to her other than a casual memory. After neatly folding the letter and placing it on the table, she drummed her fingers softly against the smooth surface. “I don’t really send letters or anything, so I don’t have any envelopes or stamps. I guess I’ll have to make a trip to the post office so I can send this.”

“I’ll be honest, I think it’s a half-demon thing.  Or a demon thing in general.  Immortality and all, you better have a pretty decent memory, I guess.”  Whit shrugged.  He was quite honored that the only other number Goldie kept memorized was his own, but he decided not to be embarrassing and say anything about it out loud.

“The post office closes soon, but we can go first thing in the morning.”  Whit looked at the letter on the table and let out a snerk.  “Wow, flashbulb memory.  My maman doesn’t trust the postal system, so she would never put outgoing mail in our mailbox.  She made me walk to the post office to drop off any mail we needed to send out.  They didn’t have stamps that you could peel the back off of until the early 90s, so they used to have this gummy stuff on the back that you had to lick to get it to stick to the envelope.  Well for some reason when I was about 8 or 9 I was super obsessed with the taste, so I’d hang out at the post office and offer to lick people’s stamps for them so that they wouldn’t have to do it.”

Goldie lifted her hands to her face as a laugh bubbled out of her. The thought of Sylvia and Whit camping out in Central Park was way too funny to hold it in.

“It’s okay if you can’t get the credit card. We can just stay at Central Park. I’ve never been camping before.” She was half-joking, but camping really did sound like a fun idea to her. “Unless you count waking up in the middle of the woods… without any clothes on. I guess that’s happened a couple of times before.” Goldie sighed. Luckily, since Whit had introduced her to M.O.N.S.T.E.R she had been getting better at controlling her transformations, so she hadn’t had any recent incidents.

“Ah, that’s a good idea.” Taking a moment to add a note at the end with her both her phone number and e-mail, Goldie was finally finished with the letter. “If I had to wait a week for a reply I think the anticipation would kill me… How did people even do anything before cell phones?” After a pause, she held up a finger as she realized something. “Ah– weren’t you born before cell phones were widely available? How old were you when you got your first phone, anyway?”

“Camping in Central Park is feels more like being homeless rather than having a fun adventure in the woods.  But there’s some great camp grounds about 30 minutes from here that we can check out sometime.”  Whit was going to get his hands on the credit card if it killed him.  Slumming it in Central Parks was one of the worst parts of that trip, and he got eviscerated by hag with giant scissors at one point.

He was contemplating the excuse to give Sylvia when Goldie asked him about his first phone.  For a moment he truly didn’t want to answer the question, but he knew she wasn’t going to bully him like Silas would.  He tapped his chin pensively.  “Hmm, well I’m 64 now...”  The years tended to blend together, but he could picture his first phone quite well.

“I had a Razr phone when it first came out in 2005, so I guess I was 48.  But the guy wouldn’t sell it to me at first even though my ID says 22.  Although I technically stopped aging at 19; regardless, he was all ‘oh no kid, you gotta have an adult to purchase this phone’ and I was like ‘man what are you on, I’m not underaged’ and it just went on like that until I called my mom to have her give the dude permission to sell me the phone.”  Whit huffed and folded his arms.

Bea was careful to bring her own charm along with her as she followed Whit. She decided that she may as well get it for Sylvia. That wasn’t weird, right? Sylvia was technically her boss, maybe this could equate to a more personalized “best boss ever” sort of gift? Bea was overthinking again when Whit dangled a pair of bracelets in front of her face, snapping her out of it.

As he demonstrated the magnetic qualities of the bracelets she gasped; suddenly she felt her teeth aching from the sweetness of it. It was too cute, and the sick feeling of jealousy formed in her stomach like a stone. Whit asked for her opinion on the idea, and the pitiful look on his face made it impossible for her to tease him, as much as she wanted to.

“It’s… really cute. I’m kind of impressed.” Bea sighed. “Not only is it something she can wear every day, it’s also something she can interact with… It’s sort of brilliant, actually. I think Goldie will love it.” Maybe Whit wasn’t the hopeless sort of boyfriend that she had assumed he was; nothing stung quite like realizing you were wrong. Forcing herself to snap out of it, Bea grinned and held out a thumbs-up. “Well, that’s all you needed from me, right? A second opinion? So, mission accomplished!”

Whit beamed as Bea complimented him.  She must really mean it if she was going to throw him a bone.  “Perfect, I just wanted to make sure it wasn’t lame.  Silas would’ve told me it was very lame, so I needed a woman’s opinion on the matter.  But yeah, I guess you’re good to return to Sylvia’s dungeon.”  He was perhaps a little sad that their adventure ended so quickly, but at the same time he knew their truce would be short lived.

“You should buy a necklace to go with that charm.  I doubt Sylvia has anything to put it on.”  Whit wandered over towards the opposite wall that had a large selection of basic necklaces.  “Yeah, I’d get her this.”  He took a long black cord off the wall and handed it to Bea.  “She’ll wear necklaces if she can tuck it under her shirt so that it doesn’t get in the way when she’s, like, leaning over dead bodies and gross stuff.  This one is long enough that she won’t have to worry about it.”

He gave her a genuine smile as he stepped towards the counter and pulled out money to pay for his items.  “She got in a fight with her mom the other day and she’s been in a bit of a foul mood when she’s not working, so that’ll probably cheer her up.”  Whit took the small bag from the woman cashiering and stuck out his hand for Bea to shake.

Bea breathed a quiet sigh of relief as Whit stated exactly what he was looking for; at least she wouldn’t be stuck with him for the next three hours deciding which charms he should pick. She had to admit, though, the idea was pretty cute.

“Alright, I’ll search these ones over here.” Scooping a bit of the pile and bringing it closer for her to pick through, Bea got to work. Now that she had a clear mission she fell into a bit of a comfortable silence, and as Whit held his hand out she reached out and took the charm without a second thought. Once Bea saw the tiny coffin in her palm, she cast Whit a wary sideways glance as she placed the charm aside; she supposed she could consider a truce for the time being.

“Just a second.” Bea’s search pile was dwindling, and so far the only canine-resembling charm she had found was a fox head. She was beginning to lose hope, when she spotted exactly what Whit had requested: a fluffy-tailed golden retriever. “Ah!” With perhaps a bit too much excitement, she picked up the little dog charm and held it up in triumph. “Seek and you shall find, right? What are the odds of them actually having this? I’m glad it worked out.”

Carefully handing over the charm, she looked up at him inquisitively. “So do you plan to attach them to a chain, or something?”

Whit carefully took the charm from Bea and let out a relieved sigh.  “Thank god; I was really hoping I was gonna luck out today.  Perhaps god is real.”  He said this as if he wasn’t a half demon and one of his friends wasn’t an angel.  When Bea asked what he was putting it on he gave her a sly look.

“Ho ho, you see my dear friend, I’m going to put them on two bracelets.  Let’s go see if they have any on the wall over there.”  Whit marched with purpose over to the wall of basic bracelets in hopes that they’d have the type he had in mind.  50% of the reason he’d picked this place was because he knew they’d have a lot more charms, the other 50% was because he knew he wasn’t going to find the type of bracelet he wanted anywhere else in-store.

“Aha!  Perfection.”  He snatched two basic bracelets out of a bin and triumphantly held them in Bea’s face.  “You see, when you hold hands the magnets snap together.”  Whit demonstrated it by raising the two bracelets next to one another; once they were close enough the magnets connected with a satisfying click.  “See, it’s cute right?”  His face fell.

“Charming?” Bea brought her hands up to her mouth and pretended to stifle and exaggerated laugh. “I really doubt that Sylvia finds you charming. I’ll ask her, though. Maybe I’ll learn something new.”  She definitely felt that she was being a bit harsh on Whit, but now she was in too deep and there was no going back. Bea was pondering how the knight in shining armor idea was a much more likely theory, when Whit suddenly gave her a taste of her own medicine.

“I could totally date someone if I wanted to!” She had the sudden and strong urge to wring Whit’s neck. “Some people are just too busy for relationships, have you ever thought of that, you uncooked poptart?”

Bea huffed, crossing her arms and pushing her lower lip into a pout in a very childlike gesture of annoyance. After a second or two she seemed to remember that she was actually on a mission, and decided to forget about her bruised ego for a moment. As Whit searched through a very disorganized collection of charms, she picked up a tiny bronze bee and placed it into her palm to admire it for a moment. “Are you looking for something in particular, or is this one of those ‘I’ll know it when I see it’ kind of moments?”

Whit’s shoulder shook as he held back a laugh at her retort.  He couldn’t argue with her though; he was certainly the least busy person he knew.  Before he was dating Goldie he was spending most days -- and nights -- eating cat treats in his pajama’s while watching Forensic Files reruns.  Bea was definitely busy comparatively, especially since Sylvia doesn’t understand what a break is.

“I’m looking for a cat and a dog.  Preferably a golden retriever, but a wolf would also work I guess.”  He pushed all the charms to one side of one of the bins to use the cleared side as his reject pile.  One handful after another got dumped in the reject pile.  Frankly it was insulting that it was taking so long to find a dumb cat charm; people should want thousands of cat charms in his not so humble opinion.

“Here, buy this one for Sylvia.  Maybe she’ll be so happy she’ll remember to give you a lunch break for once.”  Whit jerked his arm towards Bea to hand her a charm of a tiny coffin.  He hoped it was good enough as a peace offering.  After ages he finally found a tiny silver charm of a sleeping cat; Whit did the sign of the cross as he carefully put it on the ledge of the display before turning to address Bea again.

As Whit seemed to go along with her suggestion without any trouble, Bea breathed a mental sigh of relief as they made their way further into the mall. She nodded in agreement on his points.

“No, I’m not sorting brains.” Bea narrowed her eyes at Whit as he insinuated that what she was doing wasn’t important. She didn’t really want to talk about what Sylvia had her doing, since just the thought alone made her nauseous, but she decided to just get it over with quickly, like ripping off a band-aid. Lowering her voice, she continued. “If you really want to know, I’ve been sorting and labeling tissue samples at varying labels of decomposition. This experiment is vital to Sylvia’s research, you know. It is important.”

They arrived at the store that Whit mentioned before in no time, thanks to Bea having to keep pace with his enormous strides. “This is the place, right?” She asked as she walked in with him, taking a look at some of the merchandise on display behind the counter. There were necklaces, bracelets, and rings made with stones of any color you could imagine, polished or smooth, with gold or silver accents… It was a bit overwhelming, really, and she supposed that Whit would have to consider what he knew about Goldie to make the best choice. The fact that Whit had a real-ilfe, non-imaginary girlfriend was still a shock.

“So um, you know how Goldie is like, way out of your league? But you two have been dating for a while now, so I guess she must really like you and it isn’t just some fluke. How did you get her to fall for you? I’m just asking for a friend.”

“Mmhm, mmhm.”  Whit nodded along as Bea explained what she was doing back at the lab.  “That sounds like busy work to me, but I’m sure it’s vital in the most lax sense of the word.”  He then quickly sidestepped out of her way before she could throw a punch or shove him.  “Well I’ll make this as painless as possible so that you can go back to your gross tissue samples.”

They finally made it to the end of the hall to the jewelry store he had in mind.  Bea seemed vaguely interested as she looked at all the various gemstones they had on display.  He wasn’t here for a gemstone; however, and meandered to the back corner where they had a large display with various charms.  Bea tagged along behind him before making a disparaging remark.  Whit bristled in response and huffed.  

“Some people find me charming thank you very much.  Sylvia thinks I’m charming, ask her.”  He really hoped Sylvia thought he was charming, because he was sure Bea would actually ask her.  He tilted his head as he contemplated her question.  “Well, I dunno really.”  Now that he thought about it, it frankly didn’t make sense in his mind.  “I guess it was because I was nice to her and she wasn’t super used to that.”  He shrugged.

Bea didn’t bother denying that she was really mainly interested in helping Whit because she wanted to impress Sylvia with her amazing gift-buying-support skills. Helping to find a gift that would make Goldie happy on her birthday wasn’t a bad perk, though.

As Whit stopped and abruptly held his arm out to signal her to stop, Bea didn’t slow down quite in time and ran into him instead. Huffing a quiet sigh, she cast an exasperated look at him as she considered the question.

“Me, personally? I think I’d prefer clothes over anything else.” She glanced down at her outfit, which was a slightly baggy hand-me-down dress and sweater combination, which previously belonged to her sister. “But any girl would enjoy getting jewelry from her boyfriend, right? And a cute toy is something she can place in her room and look at every day…”

“Crap, that doesn’t help at all, does it? Uhh–” She began to panic a little as she looked back and forth between the two paths at the crossroads. Then, making a sudden decision, she pushed Whit toward the hall to the left. “Let’s go with… jewelry!”

Whit gave Bea’s outfit an appraising look as she mentioned she’d personally prefer clothes.  That made sense for her, but Goldie did already have a lot of clothes.  The toy idea was pretty brilliant, but jewelry was always nice...dammit, Bea really wasn’t being any help.  Finally she seemed to make her decision and shoved him towards the area of the mall that had most of the jewelry stores.

“Okay, okay, so now we need to put our thinking caps on.”  Whit tugged at an imaginary goatee as he looked around at their many choices.  “What I’ve decided on isn’t overly fancy, so we don’t need to go to one of the diamond stores or anything.  Hmm, I think there’s that weird hippie jewelry store somewhere towards the end of the hall; they’ll probably have exactly what I need.”

He marched off again, although did pause long enough to make sure Bea could keep up with his long strides.  “So what were you doing before Sylvia sent you off to run this errand?  You said it was ‘important’ --” he did air quotes to prove his incredulousness “-- but Sylvia works at her own weird pace so I can’t imagine you’re on a time crunch.”

Bea was honestly not expecting Whit’s reaction. What did he have to be so disappointed about, anyway? Bea was totally qualified for this task. Before she had a chance to say anything in response, Whit had changed the subject and began walking off without her. Bea had to jog a few steps to catch up.

“Well, Sylvia’s a busy woman. She has more important things to do than to go shopping on a whim. There’s so much stuff for her to do, I don’t know when she finds time to breathe.” Her expression had softened a bit as she thought about how hard-working her mentor was (Sylvia absolutely was Bea’s mentor, whether she knew it or not), although she tried not to think about the yucky experiment itself too much.

“Not to worry, Whit. Since she trusted me with this mission, I’m determined to help you find the best gift for Goldie. If I let you get her something bad and she breaks up with you, Sylvia would be pretty disappointed with me. So let’s work together here, that way everyone can be happy.”

Whit huffed.  “Yeah, yeah, she’s always busy.  I don’t think she’s ever taken a vacation in her life.  If she’s not working then you’d have to check for a pulse cause she’s probably dead.”  He waved his hand dismissively.  He wasn’t actually all that upset, but it would’ve been nice to know Sylvia’s Number One Fan was going to be showing up instead.

He quirked an eyebrow and looked down at Bea as she caught up to him.  “That sounds like you’re more concerned about what Sylvia would think than what I would think.”  For a moment his heart raced at the mere thought of him somehow destroying his relationship over a poorly picked gift.  It would be just his luck; he would somehow offend Goldie by picking an insensitive gift.  “Well at least you ended up in the right mindset at the end there.”

Whit stopped in his tracks and held out an arm to block Bea from walking any further.  “Okay so first things first.  Do I go the jewelry, the clothing, or the toy route?”  The mall forked at the point they were at, he didn’t want to bother walking over the entire mall when they could cut their visit in half by picking a type of gift ahead of time.

Her smile widened as Whit agreed to her request, then she returned her attention to her rough draft, which was nearly complete. In all honesty it wasn’t often that Whit denied anything she asked for, but she still felt appreciative each time he chose to oblige her.

Settling into a thoughtful silence once again, Goldie read and re-read her own written words. She didn’t want the letter to become too lengthy and tried to keep everything short and simple. As Whit spoke again she looked up at him.

“Maybe that’s what happened. In the pictures we saw online she doesn’t look very old.” She nodded to herself. It was a valid theory, and one that she had wondered about many times as she had speculated about the circumstances that had led her parents to the decision of giving her up. “I’m sure she had a good reason, whatever it was. We’ll find out soon, hopefully.”

The letter was nearly complete as Whit entered the kitchen again and returned with another sheet of paper. Goldie thanked him and carefully began to write the  final draft.

“She’s probably a busy woman, right? So, I think I’ll leave it up to her to set up the time and the place. I’ll let her know that it won’t be problem for us. It would be fun if we could visit her in New York City one day, wouldn’t it? I’ve always wanted to go there. Have you ever been?” Goldie struck up some idle chatter as she continued to carefully write her letter. It seemed that she was already hoping for the best and anticipating a future relationship with her mother, which was very much in character if not extremely hopeful and naive. She finished her letter and checked it for mistakes before handing it to Whit to proofread and edit. “What do you think? I hope it isn’t too casual… I don’t want her to think I don’t care, but I didn’t think it was a good idea to sound too eager, either.”

“Been to New York City...?”  Whit shifted in his seat uncomfortably.  He had indeed been to New York City, but it wasn’t exactly something he wanted to recount to Goldie just yet.  He and Chidi had spent half a night getting absolutely wasted in a club on -- Sylvia’s orders -- where he nearly got bit by a stripper vampire.  “Yeah, I’ve been.  It’s okay, but I didn’t get a chance to check out Broadway.  Sylvia made us camp in Central Park because she didn’t want to pay for a hotel.  Which was dumb, because we literally had the M.O.N.S.T.E.R. credit card...”

He forced his mood to clear before Goldie questioned him.  “I can make up a reason to go and get the card again, though.  Er-- well, I can ask Sylvia to make up a reason.  For some unknown reason they don’t trust me with the card unless I’m on official business, have no clue why.”  Whit scratched his cheek sheepishly as he took her letter to look over.  He wasn’t much of an editor when it came to grammar, but nothing stood out to him as particularly egregious.

“I think that looks good.”  He handed it back to her and smiled.  “I think she’ll be happy to get a letter back at all, in all honesty.”  Whit was still firmly in the corner that this was probably a bad idea, but he wasn’t going to burst Goldie’s bubble if he could help it.  It would do him no good to spend the rest of his life assuming other absent parents are as shitty as his own father.  He just couldn’t shake the feeling that this Eugenia lady was only doing this for herself.

Goldie tilted her head slightly as Whit mentioned traveling to Hell, a subdued spark of curiosity lighting up her eyes, but ultimately decided that it was probably better to ask him about it some other time. As he stood up to look for some paper and a pen Goldie couldn’t help but smile to herself. Even though Whit didn’t agree with her decision he was still being so supportive.

It occurred to her for a moment that she had never really had a person like him to lean on in the past. Even the vast majority of the adults that had been in charge of her wellbeing only did the bare minimum of keeping her clothed and fed, but not much else. Having Whit beside her during such times, even when it wasn’t always convenient for him, gave Goldie a warm feeling.

Before she could dwell on her thoughts for too long Whit returned with a pen and some scrap paper he’d managed to find in the kitchen. Sliding down from the couch to sit on the floor, she placed the paper on the coffee table in front of her and tapped her chin thoughtfully with the end of the pen.

“You’re right, I guess technically this is going to be the first impression of me she’ll have.” Goldie mused, although in true Goldie fashion she didn’t seem too perturbed by the thought, and seemed to be taking the situation as a whole in stride. Touching the pen to the paper, she began to jot down a few preliminary sentences in her looping handwriting, crossing out a few words here and there and circling or underlining what she wanted to keep. After a minute or two she paused to look over at Whit.

“I would like you to be with me when I meet her, if you really don’t mind.” She sighed softly. “If things don’t turn out so well, like you said… It might not be so bad if you’re there. I always feel better when you’re around, so…” She drifted off, fidgeting with the pen in her hands for a moment, then her expression lit up with a smile. “But if you think it would make you uncomfortable I would understand.

Whit’s heart skipped a beat as Goldie stated she wanted Whit with her.  It was a silly reaction, but she was so sincere with her request that it filled him with borderline giddy glee.  “No, it’s fine with me.  Anything to make the process easier for you.”  He glanced over her shoulder to see what she had written so far.  She was certainly putting more effort into this than Whit would have; it was worded quite precisely but still contained the Goldie certified warmth he would expect from a letter written by her.

“You know, something really strange must have happened for her to give you up for adoption.  Like maybe she got pregnant as a teenager.  It would normally be in pretty bad taste for a rich family like hers to just give up a child.”  Whit chewed the inside of his cheek as he contemplated the situation.  “If that happened, then maybe she didn’t really want to give you up in the first place.”  That thought alone made him feel a little better.

“Let me go find a good piece of paper for you to write the final copy on.”  Whit stood up again and drifted back into the kitchen.  There was a beat up notebook that Goldie appeared to be using to write down homemade baking recipes.  He flipped through until he found a clean page and carefully ripped it along the perforated edge.  He returned and carefully laid it next to Goldie’s drafted letter before sinking into the seat next to her again.

Goldie folded her hands in her lap, a rare serious expression settling onto her features as she listened to Whit. It was all quite upsetting to hear, and she felt a growing pang in her chest as she thought of the heartache that Whit and his mother had suffered at the hands of his father, whom she sincerely hoped she would never have reason to acquaint herself with. When the words ‘defective son’ left Whit’s mouth Goldie’s lips parted with a soft gasp, which she was too late to hold in; she blinked a few times as the threat of tears pricked at the back of her eyelids.

She wasn’t sure what to say when Whit was finished. A short silence settled between them as she reached across the space between them grasped one of his hands. Goldie loved Whit’s hands; they had such a gentle quality when they held her, and despite how large they were compared to her own they also had a surprising dexterity whenever he cared to show it. Yet she knew from experience how strong they also were, and that she was safe whenever he was around.

“Thanks for telling me, Whit.” She finally looked up to meet his gaze again. “And I value your opinion so much, but… If I don’t meet her, I think I’ll always wonder, you know… if I did the right thing or not.” She paused for a moment, then a faint smile brightened her expression. “Even if it doesn’t work out, at least I’ll know that I tried. And she’ll just go back to New York City and I’ll never see her again, and we can pretend it never happened.”

Withdrawing her hand from Whit’s, Goldie reached forward and picked up the luxurious-looking envelope, looking at the address again. She imagined it must have been some sort of opulent apartment, perhaps even a penthouse suite. It was still very hard for her to wrap her mind around. 

“I can’t really say that my reasons are totally unselfish, either… I would be lying if I said that I don’t wonder about my parents sometimes. This might be my only chance to learn where I came from.”

Whit clenched his jaw as Goldie took his hand; it didn’t upset him to talk about his dad anymore, but he could tell that Goldie was hurt on his behalf.  It was part of the reason he didn’t plan on telling her unless she asked, but it was going to happen sooner or later.  She seemed contemplative as she considered whether or not meeting this woman was a good idea.

“I guess you’re right.”  Whit closed his eyes and nodded.  Yes, it was very unlikely that Eugenia would treat Goldie even half as poorly as his father treated him.  If there was one thing rich people cared about, it was appearances.  If Goldie wasn’t living up to her standards, he was sure she would simply leave her a stack of cash as a peace offering and jet back home.  “No, you are right.  I’ll be honest, even though my dad treated me poorly I always looked forward to him coming back.  I craved learning more.  I wanted to understand what I was-- no, who I am.  It wasn’t until he finally showed me how to travel to Hell that I was satisfied.  You deserve your own ‘travel to Hell’ moment with your mom, er-- well, I hope you don’t have to actually travel to Hell to do it, but you get what I mean.”

He had a forced smile on his face.  Whit wasn’t completely onboard with the idea, but Goldie deserved a chance to meet her parents.  He at least had his maman to help him out; Goldie had grown up with no one like that in her own life.  “Alright, I guess we should come up with a response.  Or, uh-- you should come up with a response.  I don’t want to intrude.  It’s a very personal thing, facing your family members.  If you want me here then I’ll be right by your side, but I dunno.  It might be better to meet her alone.”  He chewed the inside of his cheek.  “Up to you I guess.”

Goldie sat on the couch as she was beckoned to sit beside him. Her heart skipped a beat or two as she watched Whit’s contemplative expression while he spoke. He was clearly very concerned about the entire situation, which reminded her how much he cared about her, so much more than anyone ever had before. She was a bit lost in that thought when Whit handed his phone over to her, and Goldie felt a bit like she was dreaming as she scrolled through the search results.

“This has to be a mistake… right? It’s not like a name like ‘Eugenia Crawford’ can be all that common, but maybe… I mean, weirder things have happened, probably.” Goldie’s head was reeling a bit; this was definitely the kind of thing that happened in movies, not real-life. Swiping over to pictures, she tapped on one of the photos and brought the screen a bit closer to her face to inspect it. “She doesn’t really look like me, does she?”

The woman in the photo was no older than forty, with perfect features, lightly tanned skin and bright blue eyes. Her blonde hair was a similar shade to Goldie’s, perhaps a shade or two lighter, cut into a neat bob. Goldie stared for a second or two more before handing the phone back over to Whit with a smile.

“I don’t know what her motives could be. But maybe she doesn’t have any, and all she wants is to clear her conscience. If I agree to meet her and she sees that I’m happy, and that everything turned out okay, maybe she’ll feel better. That’s the least I can do, really.” She laughed softly when she saw Whit’s expression and reached out to place her hands gently on each side of his face. “Don’t worry so much, okay? It’ll be okay.”

She leaned in and kissed him softly, pulling away a bit sooner than she wanted too. There was something else she wanted to ask, so she didn’t want to distract herself by getting too carried away. “Can I ask you something?” Hesitating for a moment, she twisted a strand of hair between her fingers. “Why is your dad estranged? You don’t have to tell me if you’re not ready… but I want to understand you better, if you’ll let me.”

Whit didn’t like the concept of her ‘clearing are conscious’ much better but before he could brood on that much longer, Goldie was holding his face and giving him a gentle kiss.  He wasn’t always a chronic worrier, but he had become one recently considering how much he fretted over Goldie.  Her question caught him slightly off guard; it was clear it was something she had thought about more than once, but hadn’t had the guts to ask it yet.

A sigh escaped his lips and he leaned back into the couch, staring at the ceiling.  “It’s not that I’m not ready...it’s more that it’s just a story I don’t like to burden people with.  But if you’d like to know, I guess it’s better that I tell you now rather than putting it off for the rest of eternity.”  Whit closed his eyes for a moment as he pondered where to even start; there was a significant amount of ground to cover and he didn’t know how much Goldie would even care about half of it.  He finally opened his eyes to look at her, a sardonic smile on his face.

“Well, he’s a super great dad.  He has kids and then abandons their moms for years until we start doing weird stuff and exhibiting powers.  That’s when he just shows up and tells them stuff like ‘yeah so actually I’m a demon lord and our kid is a half-demon, so good luck with that’.  He pops in and out of our lives throughout the years, only giving us half answers to our questions and barely explaining anything.

“He’s nicer to my sisters, but only marginally.  Demons aren’t known for being nice anyway.  He hates my guts and calls me deficient.  He refers to me as his ‘defective son’ to everyone.  He’s called me that to my face more than once, actually.  It doesn’t even bother me anymore, but you can imagine that it was pretty cutting to hear as a 10 year old.  I don’t know what my maman saw in that slimy bastard.  She’s the antithesis of him in every way.”

NAME: Whiterby Delacroix NICKNAME(S): Whit AGE: 63 [appears 19] SPECIES: Half-demon

PERSONAL

MORALITY: lawful / neutral / CHAOTIC / GOOD / grey / evil SINS: lust / greed / gluttony / SLOTH / pride / envy / WRATH VIRTUES: chastity / charity / diligence / humility / KINDNESS / PATIENCE / JUSTICE PRIMARY GOALS: he’s wants to ‘become human’ as he hates his half demon heritage

PHYSICAL

BUILD: slender/ SCRAWNY / bony / FIT / athletic / curvy / herculean / babyfat / pudgy / fat HEIGHT: 6’2″ WEIGHT: 137 lbs SCARS/BIRTHMARKS: none

ABILITIES/POWERS

ENHANCED STRENGTH & AGILITY: whit has above average strength and can hold approximately 250lbs without much thought, but heavier than that he starts having issues. he has cat-like reflexes although he rarely seems to utilize them.

SHAPESHIFTING: he can shapeshift into a white cat, which he does frequently when he's attempting to ignore his problems. as a cat he can do normal cat things, but he understands human speech and still has the basic cognitive function of a human.

DEMONSHIFTING: whit is able to shift between his human and demon form. when in his demon form he's able to travel to hell -- not that he likes to -- and all of his abilities are super enhanced. he's completely invulnerable in this state. he becomes a massive, hulking figure with peeling red skin, a jaw full of rows of sharp teeth that he can unhinge to swallow things whole, and clawed hands that can cut through steel.

SUPER HEALING: in his human form whit heals at an incredibly fast rate. a cut heals in seconds and a gunshot wound in less than a minute. it still hurts -- a lot -- but not for long.

FAVOURITES

FAVOURITE FOOD: his moms crepes FAVOURITE DRINK: milk tea FAVOURITE COLOUR(S): yellow, green FAVOURITE MUSIC GENRE: disco (but he won’t admit it), pop FAVORITE BOOK GENRE: anything that falls under the brain popcorn category FAVORITE MOVIE GENRE: romcoms, b horror movies FAVORITE SEASON: spring FAVORITE CURSE WORD(S):  doesn’t curse very often but probably shit FAVORITE SCENT: brewing coffee

FUN STUFF

BOTTOM OR TOP:  top  SINGS IN THE SHOWER: very rarely but if he’s in a very good mood he will LIKES BAD PUNS:  misses them half of the time

Goldie had been listening for the oven timer to go off as she sat on the couch waiting for Whit to arrive. She was currently tending to her Animal Crossing flower garden when she heard the door open, and she set down her Switch so that she could greet Whit. “Thanks!” Taking the stack of mail from him she lifted herself up on her toes and waited for him to bend over just enough for her to peck his cheek. Then she returned to her spot on the couch with a little bounce in her step, placing the letters before her on the coffee table. “Ah, you mean this?”

Goldie held up the envelope for him to see. It was easy to pick out from the other letters; the paper had a thicker quality than the rest, as well as a pretty antique-yellow color. Even the texture had an expensive feel to it as she ran her thumb over the elegantly hand-written name on the return address.

“‘Eugenia Crawford?” She paused for a moment. “Nope, never heard of her. I don’t recognize the address, either. I’ve never even been to New York City.” Goldie’s head was buzzing with curiosity as she carefully peeled the envelope open, unable to bring herself to tear it. Inside was a folded letter on equally beautiful paper. Her eyebrows knitted together slightly as she read, and when she was finished she looked up at Whit with a mildly conflicted expression.

“She says she’s my mother, and she wants to meet me.” She handed the letter over for him to read it. “See?”

Dearest Goldie, I hope this letter finds you in the best of health and the highest of spirits. I know how odd this must seem, receiving a letter from a woman you’ve never met. I also hope the following news does not upset you, as shocking as it may be. My name is Eugenia Crawford, and I am your mother. I had used the resources at my disposal when you turned eighteen to locate you, but it has taken me this long to work up the courage to finally reach out. I do hope you’ll forgive me for that. As for my abandonment when you were a newborn, I hope to ask for your forgiveness in person if you will allow it. If you never wish to hear from me again, simply throw this letter away. However, I do hope you will allow me a chance to earn your forgiveness. If you would be so gracious, please respond and we will arrange a meeting. Sincerely Yours, Eugenia

Goldie’s expression was pensive as she waited for Whit to finish reading the letter for himself. “I think I should write her back. What do you think?”

Whit watched Goldie’s eyebrows furrow as she read through the letter.  His heart sped up a bit as he wondered what could possibly be contained within it to cause her to make sure an un-Goldie like expression.  He blinked incredulously when she finally finished and handed it to him.  It took him reading the letter three separate times for all of it to sink in.  This woman -- Goldie’s mother? -- took 18 years to finally work up the courage to contact her daughter, and for what?  To ask forgiveness?  To him, that was selfish.  This Eugenia was doing it for herself, not for Goldie.

“I...I’m not so sure.”  Whit plopped into the couch as he tossed the letter on the coffee table and patted the seat next to him.  He propped his elbows on his knees and leaned forward, his chin resting on his folded hands as he contemplated the situation.  “I feel like...I dunno, like if this was something she cared about she would’ve done this sooner.  I wonder if she’s, like, dying or something.  And is trying to make amends.”  He chewed the inside of his cheek.  He personally didn’t like the idea of writing her back, but he wouldn’t stop Goldie.

“While I probably wouldn’t write her back, I don’t think you should let my opinion stop you.  I have an estranged parent that’s estranged for a reason.  I do think you deserve to know things about your birth parents, and this is the perfect opportunity.  I would just...be careful.  She might have some ulterior motive.  It’s just weird to me, I guess.  But maybe I’m being paranoid, maybe she just wants to get to know you.  I think it would at least be nice to know why she had to give you up.”  Whit picked up the letter again and stared at the name.

Whit was spending about half the week at Goldie’s apartment anymore.  He found that he was getting lonely when he was at his own place; her sunny disposition was the only thing that kept him cheery as well.  The walk to her apartment was short, but not short enough.  It was raining and he was praying that it wouldn’t turn into a storm -- granted, it was usually raining in Seattle.

Once he entered the first floor of the building, he shook his head to get most of the water out of his hair.  He hadn’t reached the point of being completely sopping wet, but he was pretty close.  The mailman had just exited as he entered, so he figured he’d check Goldie mailbox for her so that she wouldn’t have to do it herself later.  He wasn’t trying to be nosy, but there was a small, handwritten letter with looping handwriting on it mixed in with the junk mail.  Whit wouldn’t dare open it, but there was no way he couldn’t ask about it once Goldie opened it.

He hurried upstairs and unlocked the door; Goldie was sitting on the couch waiting for him.  “Hey, I got your mail for you.”  He offered her the stack of letters and laughed awkwardly.  “Uh, there’s a weird handwritten one there.  Do you recognize the name on the return address?”  Part of the reason he was getting anxious was that he was worried it on one of her previous foster families trying to reach out.