Night's Omen

yell at me later for placeholders

Nica had gotten up early, letting her husband sleep in like the lump he was. To be fair, it was early, mostly because she knew there was no way he was going along with anything until it was already in full swing. It was kind of funny; he and her father had never gotten along, but if he knew how alike they were, he might have changed some of his behaviours. At any rate, she was downstairs, and then outside, next door in her silk robe, talking with another brunette in a fuzzy robe. They laughed over cups of tea, and made plans for the day - plans their husbands didn't know about yet - until the distinct cries of a toddler pulled the other woman from Nica's company. She said her goodbyes and darted back home, coming in to smell the very specific scent of her shampoo from upstairs.

"No, the 3-in-1 is fine," she said to herself, imitating Bob, "you don't need to get me something fancy. My ass." She shook her head. She knew he'd been using her shampoo, she knew it! Now she'd just finally caught him in the act. Unfortunately, unless she actually ran up there and flung the door open, she'd never have enough proof, and right now, she didn't have time to get caught up in a shower with him. It was regretful.

By the time he came downstairs, she had breakfast going, and texts were flying on her phone between the neighbors who had been in on this little plan - a barbecue. She was learning names quickly in her group chat - Skye, Shane, Mike, and Chase. She was sure there were others coming, but they weren't in the chat. She'd meet them later. More importantly, Bob would.

"What's got you in such a good mood?" he asked, dropping down at the counter and scanning the stocks on his phone. He made a noise of approval, and then glanced up, taking the coffee she held out to him with a nod of thanks.

"Can't I just be in a good mood?" she asked innocently.

He set his coffee down. "Nica," he began, "I've known you for a long time. A very long time. And I've never seen you happy to set an alarm for anything prior to noon. So spill it."

She pursed her lips. "Welllllll," she said, turning so he couldn't see her face. She finished with the eggs she'd prepared, sliding them onto the plates, and dropped the pan in the sink "to soak". She turned back around.

"Nica," he said, his voice raising in warning.

"So I was thinking."

"Here it comes."

"Well, we're new here, and we don't really know anyone, and the couples next door to either side of us seem so nice...."

"We're having a barbecue aren't we," he said flatly.

"Yes!" She dropped his plate in front of him. "And I have a list of things I need you to pick up, so hurry up and eat."

---

"Stormy, sweetie, that's not - that's not a toy," Andi warned, pointing with the hand that didn't hold a margarita in it. She gestured to her husband with the glass. "Mike, can you?" she asked, waving wildly at the 'can you' part.

"I can't believe she can even pick that up," Skye mused, watching Mike try to bargain for his daughter to let go of a decorative ball that was actually pretty fucking heavy. She gasped as the girl flung it at her father, only for her older brother to come in for a save and gently catch it before Mike got smeared.

"That Witch blood," Andi said, laughing as she shrugged. "They're at that awkward stage where they're both really strong, but too stupid to know their limits." She made a face and tipped her drink back. "Honey?" she asked, shaking the glass at Mike.

While Mike ran interference between his two kids and his wife, their third child had taken to following Bob around. He was currently at the grill, while Jonathan, Nick and Shane stood around in a circle, and each of them criticized his cooking. Apparently it was some masculine rite of passage, but Bob was here for it.

"Yeah, but how long is too long for a burger?" Shane asked.

"It just needs to be warm," Nick offered, sipping his beer. He scanned the backyard until he saw Skye, and smiled to her when he made eye contact.

"Okay, LaCroix, some of us don't want food poisoning," Jonathan snorted.

Bob opened his mouth to say something, and felt a tug at his side. He glanced down.

"Can you pick me up?" the small child asked.

"Who lost a kid?" he called.

"Oh, that's just Dreama. Man, she really likes you," Shane said, arching an eyebrow at the girl.  At Bob's blank expression, he went on. "Yeah, she's uh, Mike and Miranda's youngest. Our kids play all the time."

"Stormy! Quit trying to drown your brother!" Andi screamed.

"Nice bunch," Shane concluded.

"If I pick you up, can you cook for me? I'll show you how," Bob said, crouching down. He held the spatula out to the blonde, who nodded, looking far too serious for her age. "Okay, let's go," he said. He scooped her up, and began instructing her over the grill. Of course, full supervision - Bob wasn't an idiot. "You want to make your mommy a burger? No?! Okay, you wanna make your daddy one? Okay, okay, here, this is how you flip it..."

---

"So, Andi, I heard you guys got taken over by Garden Security?" Chase said, sitting down in a lawn chair next to the blonde. "It's a firm downtown - where Jonathan works," she explained, giving Nicola some exposition. "They had a competing agency, but I guess as of a few days ago, they were bought out."

"Yeah, it's not so bad. Dude gave us a few days to get ready for the merger, but next week I'll be at a new office. I mean, I'm an admin type, so I go wherever and sit in front of a computer, nothing really changes for me except the client list," she shrugged.

"Wait, you're not a hunter?" Nicola asked, confused.

Miranda nearly choked on her drink. "God no," she said, coughing. She accepted a napkin that Chase handed to her. "Sweetie, I had a wild youth. I am done with that life. Even if I miss it a little." She sighed wistfully.

"I thought about quitting," Skye said. "A few times. Especially after Nico was born," she admitted.

"It's not even really about the kids," Andi said. "It's just - Mike would fucking fall apart without me," she said. "Listen, I know it looks like he does everything, but it's because he wants to. Trust me, the dynamic seems really one-sided, I know it does. We both had it pretty rough."

"It does seem kind of one-sided," Nica admitted.

Every woman sitting at the table laughed, and Nica blushed. "Sorry, I don't mean to be unfair."

"You're fine," Andi said. "But I promise, you won't find a better guy to babysit."

"Yeah, Nick's good with kids, but not like Mike is," Skye laughed. "I think Nick is only good with Nicole because she's his."

"We stopped with one. Tyler is a little terror. And lord, when he gets going with Stormy and River? I think about just leaving the planet," Arielle said, shaking her head.

"I think all this talk makes me glad to be in the child free club for right now," Nica said. Chase nodded in accord.

"Oh yeah. Jonathan and I both come from huge families. It's not a race," she said. "Besides, the way Andi's luck goes, she'll probably just end up pregnant again before the year is out," she said, giving her a Look.

"Ooooh no, don't you put that evil on me," Andi hissed. "I'll crush a bottle of tequila a night to make sure that doesn't happen."

Chase put her hand on Andi's shoulder. "Andi, honey, that's exactly how that happens."

~

The women at the table were positively cackling, and Jonathan looked over at them, and then back at the guys. "Do I want to know?" he asked.

Nick, who could hear their conversation, shook his head. "No man, you do not." He paused between bites of his burger. "Dreama, this is excellent. You're a great cook."

"Thank you," she said, positioned on Mike's lap, mustard and ketchup all over her face. She made a grab for his beer, and Mike moved it out of her reach.

"So now that we've mostly sectioned ourselves off by gender, weirdly, is this where we all go try to take something apart in the shed and thump our chests, or?" Shane asked.

Bob cleared his throat. "Well, now that you mention it, I've turned the shed into a woodshop. It's kind of a pet project of mine, since Nica has her hobbies, and - you guys aren't into that sort of thing, are you?" He realized they were all staring at him.

"I've been trying to get a he-shed for years," Nick admitted. "I had one, but Skye saw that she-shed commercial, and that was the beginning and the end of that. I don't even know what she does in there. She won't let me in."

"Yoga," Shane said. "Arielle kicks me out of the living room every day for two hours to do yoga."

"Maybe she hung a punching bag in it," Jonathan suggested.

"Alright man," Mike said. "Let's see this wood shop."

---

"And then Mike said that he's always wanted to learn how to do woordworking so now he and Jonathan are going to come by next week and I'm going to show them some of the beginner's projects I made back in the day - "

"Back in the day? Honey that was ages ago, that's hardly fair," Nica said, pausing from brushing her teeth.

Bob stuck his head around the corner and glared at her in the mirror. "I can still teach them," he said defensively. "And anyway, apparently they've been looking for something to do in their off time that isn't go to the range. I guess they're spending way too much on ammo." He laughed.

"Well, I'm glad you had a good time," she said after she rinsed her mouth. "And to think, you were so against this only a few hours ago." She turned as she heard a noise, and saw her husband had jumped into the bed. "Apparently you had a really good time."

"I did," he admitted. He held his arm out to her, and she turned out the bathroom light and came over to him, rolling into the bed and directly into his grasp. "You know what would make it even better?" he asked, leaning down and burying his face in her neck, giving her a dozen little kisses.

She giggled, trying to squirm away. "What? Let me guess, you want me to scratch your back?"

"Mm-hmm," he said into her hair.

"Alright, you big bear, roll over," she instructed. He did as he was told, and as she began to slowly run her nails across his back, she smiled. "I'm glad you had a good time. We have good neighbors. Most of them are guild hunters! This was a good find, honey. We can probably stay here for a while."

"Mm-hmm," he said, face in his pillow.

"Are you falling asleep?" she asked, poking him in the side.

He pretended to snore.

"Bob! You are so abnormal!"

He sat up suddenly, grabbing her before she could react, and yanked her down, pinning her with his upper body. "Nica, I'm the pinnacle of normal. And so are you. We even got a picket fence," he said, as though that somehow proved it. "Now, let's see how long it takes for us to mess it all up."

Most of the time, criminal activity happened and he was sent to investigate it.  That was how it was supposed to work, and up until this particular point in Jake's life, it had followed that pattern.  He was on his way home from a few drinks with some people from the station and thinking maybe he should have gone along with the taxi idea because he did not feel like the walk once he was a few blocks in, no matter how nice the night was.  He was just thinking how the last thing he wanted was to admit that to Charlotte when he took notice of a young woman walking quickly on the sidewalk across the street, her body language selling the anxiety he was feeling from her, which wasn't necessarily fear, but she was definitely on edge.  His own state of partial drunkenness didn't help in clarifying that, but other than catching sight of her and being curious, he had no reason to be overly concerned immediately.

As she passed a streetlight, her shadow huge as it followed her down the sidewalk and drawing his eyes once again, Jacob realized there was a larger form behind her, coming up fast.  There would have been no time to call out a warning to her even if he'd thought that it would have done anything.  The man shape lunged and grabbed her right as she was passing the alley, dragging her into it, and her scream was almost muffled by the hand closing over her mouth just a little too late.

"Shit," he hissed, knowing already that there was no way he could walk away from that, but also pretty damn sure either the girl or her attacker (or both) had seen him staring.  That would make his attempt to help harder if he was expected, but it wouldn't be the first shitty situation he walked into.  He was just less prepared for this one, no big deal.

He put in a quick call, identified himself and requested aid even as he crossed the street, and had the phone pocketed and his gun drawn before he reached the alley itself.  There were sounds within it, and he cringed at the light that he had to pass through before the dark alley, making him far more visible to anyone inside than they were to him - that was a problem.

He saw the woman first, her attention on the man who seemed to have been the same who grabbed her, as he passed a small packet of something to her, and the drinks must have fogged him up, because Jacob actually took a few seconds to figure out what the hell was going on with that.  Getting cracked in the side of the head by a guy he hadn't seen as his eyes adjusted from the streetlight to the darkness of the alley was his own damn fault for being so slow to see the obvious trap, and he twsted with the gun in time for another man he hadn't seen to slam his forearm with a...bat?  He didn't drop the gun, but he wasn't bringing it back up again in time to avoid another hit, and then he did drop it.  It was then that he realized that the woman hadn't ever felt afraid to him, and now she just seemed...excited.  There was an anxious thrill going through the group at large with the start of the violence, and Jake shuddered, trying to blink back the emotions that were not his and clear his head of the drink he'd had.  The pain helped with that, but getting hit in the head did not.

The woman was gone, having disappeared down the back end of the alley with her prize, desperation washing over him and then fading out.  A bribe, then.  He was so fucking stupid, she'd never been afraid, why hadn't he realized that she wasn't afraid?  He'd read her anxiety instead, but she'd just been on the edge of a withdrawal, so of course she was fucking anxious.

"McLaren, right?" the first man asked, watching without a move to join in as Jake threw his weight into a shoulder check against the guy with the bat, knocking him off balance just to take another shot from the first.  He hit the brick of the building wall, bleeding either from the impact with the wall or the punch (maybe both), and zeroed in on the knife that had just been drawn.  The Talker kept going while the Bat righted himself and the Knife looked for an opening.  "Our boss doesn't like you fucking around with his business, so consider yourself off the case.  Your pretty partner is next if she doesn't take the hint."

The Knife rushed him at about the same time the Bat swung his weapon, but Jake turned his body into the bat swing in an attempt to catch it in a place that wouldn't instantly debilitate him on impact, and put his focus more onto the guy who was trying to stab him.  He figured that being hospitalized or killed would be equally good for taking him 'off the case', and the latter was probably preferred, since this would look like a mugging gone wrong, even with his phone call.  He just had to hope the cavalry showed up quickly.

The Knife moved so damn fast that he wasn't sure how he avoided getting skewered, but the near miss wasn't actually a total miss - he'd need some stitches, but it didn't feel like it had hit anything important, even if it hurt like hell.  It sure as hell wasn't the gut wound that he'd nearly taken, though there would be more attempts in his very immediate future if he didn't figure something out, and the Bat was trying to knock him down or hold him still, whichever worked first.  Neither was in his best interests.

He was far too distracted by the adrenaline of his own struggle and the various excited sort of emotions running around the crowd in the alley to take notice of another feeling nearby, and his soon-to-be rescuers brought their own swirling emotions, particularly in the fact that the first guy to hit the scene, literally smashing into the Bat and practically smearing him into the brick wall, was probably even more pumped about the fight than Jake's attackers had been. 

There was another presence who was more calm and collected, which didn't draw a lot of attention to himself and actually seemed a little reluctant, but there were a few quick, sharp emotional spikes to reveal his presence before he actually appeared on scene.  He was less brutal in taking on the Knife, but only because Jake was comparing his performance to the smaller man who had struck first and with far more violence, not to mention the fact that he'd taken the bat up and turned on the Talker before the asshole really even had a chance to decide if he should run or not.  Spoiler alert: he should have run. because once that guy had that bat in hand and started swinging, the screams stopped before the sounds of impact did.  The surprise, fear and pain from all three of them had been instantaneous, but also cut short very suddenly as they were dropped.  Jake was honestly okay with that.

It happened really fast, which wasn't surprising because most fights happened fast and even Jake had only been struggling with the two armed attackers for about a minute, but these two were fast and effective. 

"Really?  I was expecting an actual fucking fight out of these shitbags," the smaller guy complained, and Jake groaned, pulling himself up off of the dirty alley ground to at least sit propped against the dirty brick wall. 

"Shit, well at least he's still alive," the bigger guy said, coming to kneel in front of him while his companion stayed where he was, watching warily with the bloodied bat rested on his shoulder.  "You okay, man?  I'll call an ambulance.  I'm Shaun, what's your name?"

He didn't know who this guy was, nor did he have any way of knowing what Shaun did for a living, but the guy was far too calm about the whole thing not to be something, and asking his name in case he passed out was pretty basic training.  "Jake McLaren, I'm a cop.  Someone's on the way."

"Shaun, we gotta jet.  We're gonna get fucking arrested, just leave him," Shaun's friend hissed, which made Jake actually blink through the blood on one eye to try getting a better look at him.  That one was a lot of emotions, most of them negative and all of them strong, enough that Jake sucked in a sharp breath, working to back off enough and focus more on Shaun.  He did not have the ability to deal with that on top of the rest of this.

He was trying to push himself up the wall to get to his feet, some instinct that he'd always had not to stay down, even if it was made harder by pressing on his side for the bleeding there.  He wasn't sure where on his face was bleeding, but he could feel the heat there, and the way Shaun looked at him definitely suggested that he looked about as bad as he felt.  Something about the other guy just made him feel like he really preferred to be standing, like any show of weakness that he could help might make him prey.  "Might wanna take it easy there, Ferrari, you're bleeding pretty bad."

"Nothing I haven't done before, I'll be fine.  You two just go, I appreciate the help and I'd rather not thank you by having you hang around for a thousand questions, okay?" he managed, getting the thought out pretty clear, even if his voice wasn't as steady as he'd have liked.  Shaun regarded him critically, like he was wondering if he was going to go down any second, but the other guy was more than happy to do as he'd been told.  Jake got the impression he didn't do what he was told often.

"Alright, well, it's been fun, always glad to help kick some ass.  Try not to die before your friends get here," he said, mood apparently improved after the burst of violence and with the promise of not having to talk to the cops, and as confusing as his internal emotional state was feeling currently, at least the good humor was a help.  "Let's go, dude."

"Listen, just...yell if something else happens before they get here," Shaun said, to an eyeroll from his younger companion, but Jake just nodded a few times, then leaned his head back against the wall that he was very obviously using to support himself.  Then, he waved them off, and just in time; they'd barely left the alley, the bat going with its new owner, when he heard sirens approaching. 

It was only when the red and blue lights were lighting up the whole street that he even considered relaxing, not that the idea lasted all that long.  The adrenaline that came with people hitting that particular scene - a cop beaten and bloodied with three thugs down stirred up some serious emotional responses - would at least keep him going awhile longer.  He was already surrounded by people by the time Charlotte hit the scene, Simon barely a step behind her and both of them obviously more sober than he'd been a few minutes ago.  He saw them scan the crowd briefly through a break in the bodies blocking his line of sight, both of them taking in the thugs that were being arrested even as they were loaded onto gurneys for a hospital trip and the blood in the alley that was lit up and being photographed.  Jake had argued to wait a few minutes longer while his attackers were taken care of, but most of that was because he really was in better shape than they were.  He hadn't expected Charlote to appear, but it made sense.  He'd have been pissed if something happened to her and he wasn't notified.

"Jake!  What the fuck happened?" she shouted, zeroing in on him.  "I only left you like ten minutes ago!"

"You do look like shit," Simon added appreciatively in support of Charlotte's outrage at having left him in mostly-new condition so recently, albeit a little drunk.

"Don't worry, I'm fine.  Just a few scratches," he said dismissively, and the EMT directly looking him over snorted loudly.

"That is not true, for the record.  You're going to need x-rays on your arm and ribs, pretty sure there are fractures in there, if not breaks.  Stitches on the headwounds, and while I do think you'd be in worse shape if the knife wound hit anything major, that still needs actual medical attention.  You're getting an ambulance ride, Detective."

Theroux whistled and Jake sighed, eyes dipping shut.  He was so damn tired, even if the burn of Char's fury tore at the drowsiness he felt.  He didn't have the energy for anymore violence or anger, but she very much did, and it was bleeding all over him.  "It was a set-up, don't be alone tonight, Char.  I'll tell you everything tomorrow."

"Fuck that, I'm coming with you," she asserted, already moving as the EMTs made to get him into the back of the ambulance and Simon nodded. 

"Give me a call if you need anything, I can drop by your place and grab it.  Either of you," he said, stepping back to give them all space and effectively denying Jake the one person in the area that wasn't dumping emotional static all over him.  If his head and the rest of him weren't already throbbing, he'd have thought that he had a migraine coming on just from input, but why not both?

It seemed like a 'both' kind of night, but hey, he hadn't been on the receiving end of Benji's bat, so he'd count it as a win.

placeholder because it's super late

If one would have asked Jake McLaren what he thought about his partner, he'd have tried to answer politely at first, saying that she was a little rough around the edges. He wouldn't be wrong, either. Ever since the incident that spring, though, Jake had developed a little bit of a deeper understanding about her. He had transferred to homicide because he'd previously worked SVU in Seattle, and for an empath, that was not an ideal environment. He knew that Charlotte had worked SVU with the city before she'd come to Ramsa; she'd told him one night that it had been because of a promotion offer, but he felt that she wasn't being totally honest.

He would have been right. Charlotte may have indeed been rough around the edges, and her claws were sharp. It was true sometimes she didn't know when not to use them, either, but luckily Jake had usually been there to temper down whatever fire she'd stoked up with her mouth - or sometimes, with a mean right hook, or well-placed kick. On more than one occasion he'd had to literally drag her from the interrogation room. She ran either hot or cold, and there was no in between for her.

The truth was, Charlotte had a rough life prior to being dumped unceremoniously out of the system when she turned 18. She'd stolen/saved enough money to get an absolutely tiny apartment and had gone to the academy as soon as she could. Her juvenile record almost prevented her admission entirely, but there were some extreme circumstances that had ended up working in her favor, however damaging they'd been to her psyche. She acted like nothing bothered her, and rarely spoke of hardships she'd experienced. In fact, Jake noticed she didn't really talk about herself at all.

It wasn't until he was approaching their office when Simon grabbed him by the arm, hooking him and turning him in the other direction. "Walk with me," was all the blonde had said, his face uncharacteristically grim.

"Is everything okay?" Jake asked. He couldn't read Simon at all; it was simply the nature of Anubi, though. He followed Simon into the office that he shared with Laurel, and dropped down in a chair. He accepted a cup of coffee Simon poured for him, and watched as the man sat across from him, a pensive look on his face. "Well? Spit it out," Jake said, making a motion with his hand.

"Listen," Simon said. "She's in there on the phone right now, and you don't want to go in there. You, specifically, don't want to go in there," he added.

Jake stared at him for a second, and then nodded. "Ah, I get it," he said. "Thanks for the save."

"Anytime," Simon replied.

"Can I ask who she's on the phone with? I'd like to steel myself for the next day or so, if I need. You know how she can be. All or nothing."

Simon chuckled, kicking his feet up on the desk. "Yeah, that's Char for sure," he agreed. "She's uh, on the phone with someone from her previous job. Court case is all over the place right now."

"Oh, no," Jake said, immediately understanding more of the situation. "Is her vic having a breakdown or something?"

"Yeah," Simon said, shaking his head. "The defense ripped her up today in court. It was bad. Charlotte didn't even get to testify; they called it for the day. I don't know who she's on the phone with, exactly, but it has something to do with the case." He paused. "You're a good guy, McLaren. I like you. I don't know about Charlotte, but you're good in our book," he said, gesturing to Laurel's empty seat. "We'll help you however we can. She can be... hard to deal with, sometimes. She had it pretty bad, growing up. I know she doesn't act like things get to her, but trust me, they get to her. Probably worse than some of us."

"She doesn't really talk about herself," Jake said, shrugging.

"It's not my story to tell, but maybe someday she'll trust you enough to tell you."

"I wish she'd trust me now, " Jake admitted, setting the cup down as he leaned forward in the chair. "It's hard working with someone that feels like cold steel all the time. It's not like how you are, just a blank, which is to be expected. That girl is..." he trailed off. "She holds a lot in."

Simon nodded. "She does. Just give it time, man. She'll come around." He looked away from Jake and up at the open door, where he saw her leave her office quickly. "Office is open," he said, nodding to Jake. "Want my advice?"

Jake stood. "Yeah, of course," he said. He appreciated anything Simon could give him.

"Tread lightly for right now. Not a warning, just advice. She's usually volatile after a call like that."

"I understand," Jake said, nodding. "Thanks for the tip. And the coffee." He gave a wave to Theroux, then walked out of the office and down the hall to his own. He saw Charlotte in the hall, and raised a hand. "Hey," he said.

"Hey," she replied gruffly. "I'm uh, I'm gonna go." She rubbed her face; fortunately for her, the hallway had a few lights out, and so she was confident that Jake couldn't see her eyes were red and watery.

"Sure," Jake said, trying not to be taken aback by the things he felt from her. It was heavy sadness, but she was trying to hold it all in, and it nearly gave him a stomach ache. "I'll see you tomorrow."

"Yeah," she said. "Tomorrow." She left, squeezing his arm as she passed him, which was completely out of character for her. Enough so, that Jake stood in the hallway long enough for her to leave, and then turned around to follow her.

She'd gotten ahead of him quite a bit; she had to have been running, he assumed, and he would have been right. She'd practically sprinted to her car, but by the time she got there, she was crying so hard that she couldn't get her keys out of her bag. She dropped the purse on the trunk of her sedan, sobbing as she tried to comb through it, but she was so emotional that she wasn't getting anything done.

"Charlotte?" Jake said, coming up behind her. Without thinking, he put a hand on her shoulder, trying to guard himself as much as he could. He expected her to swipe at him like a big cat, but instead, she turned, wordlessly, and planted her face into her chest. She was wailing now, and it was more of an emotional outpouring than he'd seen in a while - bigger than her whatever a few months prior, even bigger than some family reactions they'd had lately when they'd gone to deliver bad news.

"It's okay, it's okay," he said, holding her tightly. He could feel her squeezing him as hard as she could, and god damn he'd forgotten shifters had such a grip. "Ribs," he grunted. She relaxed her hold by a little, and it was enough where he didn't think he would sustain permanent damage. Bruises, though, he'd definitely have a few of those. "What happened, Char? Can you tell me?"

She pulled away from him finally, wiping ungracefully at her face. She put a hand on her hip as she did so, her other hand going between her face and gesturing as she spoke. "One of my girls just fucking offed herself tonight," she said, shaking her head. She almost couldn't believe it as she said it, but no, the mother calling and crying to Charlotte about the trial and what the girl had gone home and done - it was too much for her and she broke down. "Two years she waited for this trial, and the guy's defense lawyer just... it was bad, Jake, you should have seen it." She took a shaky breath.

"She just... just went home, told her mom she was going to take a bath, and then - her mom called me when she found her, she didn't even call 911, called me. I had to call it in." She looked up at him. "She was just a kid, man. She was my age when - " she paused, and then looked away. "She was just a fucking kid."

Jake nodded. "I won't stand here and give you platitudes on the why of all this; we worked the same jobs before we met." He reached out and touched her shoulder, and she lowered her head, placing a hand on his in quiet gratitude for his lack of cliche-riddled speeches. He'd never been one for them, and she appreciated it.

"I know, I know, in time I won't feel this way," she said. "There will be another murder tomorrow, another notification, another case. I just - fuck man. Not tonight, okay? Not tonight."

Jake nodded. "Do you want me to call someone for you, to come get you?"

"No, I'll be okay. If I can find my keys," she said, laughing a little.

"Well, that's what you get for having a bag of holding," Jake joked, brushing some of her hair out of her face. "Come on, let's dig them out. I'll wait until you're good before I go."

She seemed to accept this, and went back to searching for them, now that she could see more clearly. "Bag of holding," she repeated as she secured her fingers around the key fob and pulled it out. She looked over at him. "Are you a secret D&D nerd?" she asked. When he shrugged, she smiled. "Jake McLaren, you are. Let me guess, Paladin?" she teased.

"Cleric, actually," he informed her. "It's not much, but it's honest work."

"Barbarian," she said, picking her purse up.

"I wouldn't have assumed anything else," he said smoothly. When she unlocked the car, he opened her door for her. "You sure you'll be okay?"

She nodded. "Yeah." She paused. "Thanks, though. Of all the people to follow me out here, I'm glad it was you. Just - don't tell anyone you saw me cry, okay? There's a pool. I want to wait until it hits a thousand before I cry in a mirror and record it."

The comment was so unexpected that he let out a loud laugh. "I won't. Cross my heart," he added with a smile. "Text me when you get home, okay?"

"Yeah, yeah," she said, pulling the door shut.

Every spring, Charlotte put in for leave. It was clockwork since she'd been with the PD; for two months, she completely vanished. Everyone speculated she went up to some cabin in the Adirondacks and lived like a forest witch while the snow melted, but nobody really knew for sure. What they did know was that she never took leave any other time, for any reason - unless it was medical. There had been that time that she'd been thrown out a window and she got a week off, but recovery was quick for shapeshifters, and so she'd just enjoyed the free time off.

"Wait, you're going to be gone for two whole months?" Jake said, following after Charlotte. He'd just noticed the big line through her desk calendar. Apparently he was the last person to know that she was taking her annual sabbatical - but then again, they'd only been partners for about five months, so it wasn't that surprising.

"Yeah," she said, and the way she walked away from him, continuing to sort files at the tall cabinet, showed how little she cared about his surprise.

"When were you going to tell me?" he asked, setting his coffee down and folding his arms.

Charlotte glanced over her shoulder. "Are you serious?" she asked. "I do this every year. I have since I've been here. Why are you acting like you didn't know?"

"Because I didn't know! Excuse me for not being aware of your tradition, I've only been here a few months, Silver," he said hotly, careful not to raise his voice. This woman was fucking with his blood pressure. "We have two murder cases that are getting more sordid by the day, and you're just leaving?" he asked, holding his hands up.

"Yep," she said, not looking back. "You'll be fine. Just piggyback with Rivers and Wakefield," she said.

"It's Volos now, not Wakefield," he reminded her.

"Right, whatever, listen - I don't care what you do while I'm gone dude, just don't fuck my desk up, okay?" She shut the filing cabinet drawer and turned around, giving him a Look. "Don't act so heartbroken, McDreamy. I'm sure Theroux will let you spoon him now that I won't be here for you to suck all the warmth off of," she sad, slapping at his arm on her way out of the room.

Jake turned and went after her. "But, Charlotte - "

She turned so fast that he ran into her, and backed up a few steps. "Listen, Jake, I'm leaving. You'll be fine. You came from LA for Christ's sake, this should be small potatos for you! I get that you're still the FNG here, but they'll stop hazing you eventually. By the way, I heard about the Cheez-Whiz thing, that was a pretty good retaliation," she said. "But I digress. Look, Theroux will know how to get ahold of me if you absolutely need to call me, but otherwise...." she sucked her teeth and held her hands up as she shrugged. "You're on your own. It'll be fine, dude. Blue skies."

He opened his mouth, but she held a hand up. "No," she whispered, shaking her head. "You lost. Go. Shoo shoo shoo," she said, fluttering her hands at him until he turned, defeated, and walked back down to the bull pen. "Christ," she muttered to herself. "You'd think he had some serious attachment issues or something."

She woke up early the next day, bags already packed, and got on the road. She'd been on schedule for the last six or so years, now, thankfully. Getting through the academy had been easy enough; she'd just gotten in on a class that started right at the beginning of summer, and systematically saved her leave up so that she could do exactly what she'd been doing now. It had been rough before then, but now, as she drove, listening to static-laden country music and enjoying the fresh air of the mountains, she felt good.

Three weeks had passed without a peep. Simon texted her every few days to let her know whether or not the precinct was burning down to the ground, and unfortunately it wasn't, so she supposed she had work to look forward to when this was over. She had been squirreling things away in her cabin at every opportunity, and so she had enough supplies so that she wouldn't really need to leave for anything. She felt like a doomsday prepper, but then again - it pretty much was doomsday as far as she was concerned.

One evening, she'd settled down on the couch for some time with her audiobook - Birdbox (it felt fitting since she isolated herself) - when she heard the distinct sound of tires on gravel. She sat bolt upright on the couch, throwing her iPad into the chair opposite her, thankful on the backside that it hadn't bounced off and broken. But right then, she wasn't worried about it so much as who the fuck was coming down the driveway. Oh no. Oh no. She darted to the window, looking out at the car as it came up the driveway. Did she recognize it? YES.

She grabbed her phone, and dialed his number. "Jake, WHAT are you doing here?" she demanded, rushing up to the door and locking it.

"Char - hey, I was worried about you,  I got a weird feeling and I just - " he broke off suddenly, having finally gotten within a good enough range of her to really get that weird feeling. Except, it wasn't weird at all. It was -

She pressed her hand against the door, fingers curling against the wood. Christ but she could smell the aftershave he had on from where she was in the house. It sent a bolt up her spine and she grit her teeth. No, she told herself. Friend, not food, Charlotte. "Jake, bud, you gotta turn your car around and get the fuck out of here," she told him, her voice weak. She pressed her forehead to the door, thumping it softly. Why, why? Why could this motherfucker just not listen? "I need you to get back in your fucking car," she warned him.

"How'd you know I wasn't in my car?" he asked, his voice strange - for an empath, he was holding it in pretty well, but that didn't mean he wasn't feeling some type of way.

"Because I can fucking smell you, Jake. You need to go."

"Let me in," he said. "Charlotte, something isn't right." His voice wasn't at the phone, it was at the fucking door. Charlotte jumped back from it like it had burned her. Every muscle in her body ached; she wanted to tear right through the door and into him.

Friends, not food, friends, not food, she repeated to herself over and over again in her head. She was so frustrated she wanted to cry; WHY would he come here? If he'd only known how much this would have messed with her, surely he wouldn't have done it. She felt a brief flicker of paranoia as she wondered if he did know. The thought was quickly dismissed - there was no way. If he was that much of a piece of shit, Rivers would have sussed it out of him already, wouldn't he have? Or Britton - for fuck sake, Britton was a vampire, he could read minds. They'd tell her if her partner was a psycho, right? Right?!

She could hear him outside of the door, could hear his heart palpitations as he struggled to work against the fucking tractor beam she inadvertently had him in. Charlotte had no idea about his abilities, because they just hadn't shared their shit like that yet. He knew she was a shapeshifter, and maybe he knew she was a cougar, but clearly he didn't know anything about cougars, or else he'd never have come. She could smell him, too, god, could she smell him. He smelled of salt and musk; sweat from his nerves mixing with the aftershave that she'd caught in the air earlier. It made her grit her teeth so hard she thought she'd crack one.

"Is now a bad time to tell you that I have this - this thing, where I can feel what other people are feeling?" he asked, his voice apprehensive.

Charlotte closed her eyes, tipping her head back. "Of course," she said, holding her arms out. "Of course he does." She looked at the door. "Jake, bud - that's great and all and thanks for sharing your feelings or whatever but I NEED YOU TO GET BACK IN YOUR CAR AND GET THE FUCK OUT OF HERE!" That last part she roared.

She heard a thump against the door. "I can't," he admitted. He'd put his forehead against the door in a moment of exasperation - funny.

"What do you MEAN you can't?" she screamed. She wanted to kick the door as hard as she could and blow the bitch off its hinges, sending Jake down the front steps. She didn't, though, pacing wildly. She hadn't even shifted and already she looked the part of her big cat alter-ego, eyes wild as she moved back and forth. The door was going to become her goal - no, the thing on the other side of the door was her goal. The door was just the obstacle in the way.

"I am caught in the gravity of you," he said, and it was so matter-of-fact that she could tell that he was trying to keep himself aware of what was happening so that he didn't just get rolled by the emotions. It would have been poetic if it hadn't been so terrifying to hear, because she didn't want him.

Instead of going to the door, she sank down behind her couch, covering her face. "I need you to go!" she yelled again. She didn't want him. Could he feel that? Could he feel her fear at what would happen if one of them opened the door? She was prisoner to her nature, it was why she went so far away for so long. As a girl, she had fallen victim to it, and she never wanted to feel so powerless again. "I don't want you," she said, though this time she didn't yell it so much as just say it aloud, so that she could establish how she felt before anything continued, so that she could have her "no".

That seemed to snap him out of it. Instead of feeling the need, he felt a sudden wash of fear, and of powerlessness. He broke away from the door immediately, skipping backwards a few feet. "Oh, god," he said to himself, scrubbing at his eyes. What the fuck was happening? He practically ran back to his car, and took off before he got stuck in that pull again.

A few moments later, Charlotte's phone rang. She was still behind the couch, crying, and, too lazy to stand, crawled on her hands and knees to where she'd dropped it earlier. "What!" she sobbed, seeing Jake's number on the screen.

"I'm so sorry, Charlotte, I am so sorry," he said, talking a million miles a minute. "When you were at work you were acting secretive and my ability lets me feel what others feel and I felt like you were maybe hiding something and I got the address from your desk because I thought you'd be in trouble and I fucking had no idea, I'm an idiot, I'm an idiot," he said, not giving her room to say anything.

"Yes, you're a fucking idiot!" she cried, slapping the floor next to the phone. "Why wouldn't you just listen to me?!"

"Because I'm STUPID!" he shouted back, still buzzing after having all of those emotions playing pinball with his entire being.

She was quiet for a moment, and then he heard a little laugh. "Yeah, you are," she said, sniffing.

"I'll see you in two months, Silver," he said. "I'm sorry."

"I'll see you," she said, and pressed the button to disconnect the call. Sighing, she laid down on the floor next to the phone. The wood felt cool against her body, which had been burning up from the frenzy she'd been worked into. She'd practically been drooling on herself. She closed her eyes. If there was a cure for this shapeshifter thing, she would be the first person in line.

"Here's to a quiet two months," she said aloud, still laying on the floor.

Vik stood outside, slowly smoking a cigarette. He usually sucked them down, but he'd literally locked Tommy in a closet upstairs in Dahlia's room, and he wanted to savor his freedom while it lasted. No doubt she'd see him and go looking for the other one immediately. Fucking buzzkill. Honestly, he was working up to just taking over the single body instead of splitting off of him. It had worked a few times, but Tommy was getting stronger in his fight, and Vik was often too tired to try and fight for the damn remote. He didn't understand what she saw in that anxious mess, honestly. And speak of the devil - he spotted her coming down the block, talking to another blonde who looked like she was hassling her. He couldn't hear what they were saying, but the body language was clear enough.

"Listen, Grancourt's not your guy, your friend is right," Dahlia snapped, coming into earshot finally.

"Look, I'm fucking running out of options. I know about that ring of yours - "

"SHHH!" Dahlia exploded, waving her hands. She grabbed the other blonde and jerked her closer, practically dragging her to the front of the hotel. "Listen, that's not something that we just announce, okay? And anyways, this ring comes with a problem set of its own, so trust me when I say, you need to go back over some of your other options."

"Is there a problem, Dahl?" Vik asked. He didn't make any move toward them, but he did shift his position to be more upright instead of slouched against the wall.

"No, there's no problem, because my new friend here was just going," Dahlia said, now pushing the blonde away from the hotel.

"Wha- hey!" Aurora snapped. "First of all, quit fucking jerking me around - literally - or I'm going to break your fucking hand," she said.

"Ohhhhhhh," Vik said, making a face. He pushed off the wall now.

"Not now, Vik," Dahlia snapped. "Listen, Aurora, I can't help you. And neither can they. You already talked to Eli, you know the gig. My dad isn't going to give you a better offer; it's going to be worse. You think Aristide is bad? You gotta find another way, man. I know you're trying to do the right thing, but I promise, there's nothing in here for you," she said, her voice almost desperate. She stood between Aurora and the door of the hotel purposely, and Vik got the general gist of the fact that she was trying to stop her from going on. She hoped he'd listen when she told him to chill, or else this was going to end up bloody - for all of them.

"Yeah?" Aurora said. She had a look in her eyes, one that they both clearly saw meant she wasn't going to listen. "Let me be the judge of that."

Dahlia looked like she wanted to say something else, but she held her hands up. "You know what? Go right the fuck ahead. I'll even tell you where to go. Lounge, back left table. Oh, and tell my dad I'll be late," she spat.

Aurora stared at her for a second, and then went inside, leaving Dahlia outside with Vik. Dahlia let out a loud, frustrated noise, and then held her hand out to Vik.

"Gimmie it," she said.

"Ask nicely," he said, a fresh cigarette now in his mouth.

"Vik," she snapped.

"Dahlia," he said back, mocking her tone. "Listen, you want one, you gotta ask politely. You can push Tommy around, but you're not doin' to me, got me?"

She rolled her eyes. "Can I please have one?" She made a noise when he finally went for his pack. "Some time today, before my dad comes out," she said, rushing him along. She lit the cigarette and went to the other side of him, trying to make herself less visible. After a few drags, she just shook her head, muttering to herself.

"You need me to go inside and drag her ass back out?" Vik offered. He could see she was still clearly bothered.

"No, no," Dahlia said, waving a hand. "She'll figure it out. I just - like, I'm happy that I've got some mojo keeping me alive, but man, the trade off is fucking terrible."

"You still seeing shit?"

She nodded. "Dad said he can help manage it, but he said that there's always a price, all stern and shit. He's still pretty mad I did it, but, no undoing it now," she shrugged.

"You ever realize you can just take the ring off?" Vik said, giving her a Look.

"Yeah, sure, and then get shot in the face, or poisoned, or in a car wreck, or whatever else happens." She took a final drag off of her cigarette, then flicked it out into the street. "No thanks, man. Dying is for losers."

Vik tossed his cigarette and followed her in. On one hand, he was enjoying his 'me' time, but on the other hand, he wanted to be close when she found Tommy's unconscious ass so he could jump back into him before she could start swinging on him.

Charlotte and her partner stood in line at the coffee shop, both quietly on their phones as they waited for their turn to order. She glanced up, green eyes narrowing as the woman in front of her ordered what sounded like a complex drink for every elf in Santa's workshop. She'd been going on for about five minutes now, and the guy at the counter was struggling to keep up.

"Jesus Christ lady, some of us have shit to do," Charlotte snapped.

The woman turned around, shocked, but Charlotte's partner stepped in. It didn't hurt that he was tall, and handsome, of course (to everyone but Charlotte, that was, who called him McDreamy mockingly instead of McLaren). "Sorry, ma'am, we've had a rough morning. Child abuse cases, they always just get us on edge." It was a total lie, of course, but he really didn't want to have to take Charlotte's service weapon away for attempting to pistol whip someone.

The woman smiled, and then looked horrified. "Oh, I understand. I respect what y'all do so much," she gushed. She looked at Charlotte, and reached out to squeeze her hand. "It's okay honey, I'm a bitch before my first coffee, too." McLaren burst out laughing. The woman smiled, then turned back around to pay for her order.

"Duuuuuuude," Charlotte said, as the woman finally left. She slugged Jake on the arm, hard, then shoved him out of the way before he could be next to the counter. "Yeah, I'll have the biggest iced coffee you have, with an extra shot of espresso and none of that bullshit whipped cream," she said, not even looking at the worker. "Shit always leaves a film on the inside of my mouth, ugh."

"Wow, Silver, I never thought I'd see the day," the worker said.

Charlotte snapped her gaze to him, and her eyes lit up. "Oh my god, Fin?! Hey! Wh- you work here?" she asked, surprised. "Oh my god, Jamie said that you were coming through but I didn't realize he meant now!"

Fin grinned his charming grin. Man, that hadn't changed at all, had it? "I don't work here," he said smoothly. "Some dude sent me two hundy on Venmo to take his shift for a few hours. Something about taking shrooms and them still making him think everything was 20 feet tall."

"So you just know all these orders, then?" she asked, not even a little surprised that he took some poor dude's money over a three hour shift at work.

"Not at all," he said glibly. "I'm just over here button mashing. I have no idea what I'm ringing people up for. And anyways, it's all on," he paused, glancing down at the nametag on his green apron, "Kevin, apparently," he said, looking back up.

As they spoke, Jake's phone rang, and he picked it up. He spoke quietly for a few minutes, and then came up beside Charlotte.

"Hey bud, she's not done with her order yet," Fin said, glaring at Jake.

"Okay bud," Jake said, unfazed. "Char, we got a call. Can you finish flirting later?" he asked pointedly.

"Ope," she said, snorting. "Yeah, uh, Fin, I'd love to stay, but duty calls. I'll drop by Jamie's tonight though, will you be around?"

The look on Finley's face as he realized that Jake had a badge clipped to his belt was something; his eyes darted to Char's hip and saw that she had not only a badge but also a sidearm. "Whoa, you went straight?" he asked. He handed her the iced coffee as it came up.

Charlotte held up a single that she swiped from the tip jar. "Not too straight," she said, grinning. She flicked the bill at him. "You'll be there, right?"

"Char, we gotta jet," Jake insisted, already at the door.

"Yeah, yeah I'll be there," Finley said.

"Okay, good. I'll see you tonight. Hopefully I don't have to pull a body out of a washing machine today. Yesterday was rough," she said, an exasperated expression on her face. She gave him a wink, and then turned and headed for the door. "Yeah yeah yeah, I'm moving, McDreamy," she called, waving for Jake to go ahead.

"Hi, I'd like a caramel macchiato no whip skinny with an extra pump of syrup, and it needs to be center of the sun hot," the next customer said.

"Nah," Finley said after a moment, shaking his head. The customer looked stunned as he took the apron off and balled it up, leaving it on the counter. "Sorry Kevin," he said, jumping over the counter. "Today's the day you quit for bigger and better things." And with that, he walked out of the store. Strangely, the tip jar was now empty.

The way that people considered being off the grid was weird to Bacchus, who had lived off the grid for all his mortal life. Of course, that had been before technology, so it had been significantly easier to just exist unfettered. As it stood, Aurora was already better than he could imagine others would be - after the unfortunate incident a few years prior where he caused the death of her friend, she'd deleted all of her social media, and otherwise kept a fairly low profile. Making the transition to nothing was easy, until the stir-craziness began to set in, of course. That had been when they'd decided to get a pet.

"Buddy!" Aurora called. The tall grass on the left side of of the path leading up to the house began to shake, a path zig-zagging through it as the dog raced toward her voice. Out popped an Irish setter, a tennis ball in its mouth, eager to play. He dropped the ball, which Aurora picked up and flung the shit out of.

"Do you think he can find it, Nolan Ryan?" Bacchus asked, brow arched as he folded his arms. He stood on the porch of the modest home, having only just appeared to witness her lob the ball into the afterlife.

"Of course he can," she said, looking over her shoulder at him. "You were gone for a while," she said, rubbing her toe in the dirt. She slapped idly at a bug that buzzed around the hem of her frayed shorts, and then turned fully so that she was facing him.

"I was," he acknowledged.

"Didn't think you were coming back this time," she said. She looked away hand shielding her eyes from the late afternoon sun as she listened in the soft breeze to hear the dog rushing back through the bushes with the ball. It was hard to pick out the sound when the wind blew, but his running was easy to pick out once it stopped. He popped out from the brush and trotted to her feet, dropping the ball.

"What on earth would make you think that?" he asked. He didn't make any move to get off the porch, but crouched down, holding his hands out. "Buddy, come here!" The dog broke away from Aurora after snatching the ball up, and ran up the steps. Bacchus couldn't pet him, but the dog still tried to "play", dropping the ball and spinning around in circles, happily pawing up at the man.

"Traitor," she muttered.

"Rory," he said, managing to concentrate hard enough to kick the ball down the steps, sending the dog after it, "I'd like to think I'd tell you before I somehow suddenly transcended to another plane."

"Don't call me that," she said, the response now reflexive. She shrugged then, approaching the porch with some mysterious attitude about her that he couldn't discern. "Well, you see anything interesting while you were gone?"

He hesitated to answer that. He'd seen a lot of nothing, mostly, but there had been some moments where he was able to manifest in other places where the stage had been set for spirits to come and go. One such incident had been completely by accident, and he appeared during what seemed to be a hot boxing session between three twenty-somethings. One of them had been a medium, and could absolutely see him - and screamed when he did. This caused his girlfriend to scream, and the third, a Fae, also screamed, but it was mostly because the other two had started screaming. Bacchus screamed, too, just to spice it up a little, and then vanished right the fuck back out of whatever that had been.

But he'd also been to another place on purpose - a medium who was not doing fat bong rips in his girlfriend's car with their third-wheeling Fae friend. Instead, it was in the living room of a respectable-sized home in which a man lived that had plenty of experience with the dead. Unfortunately, it hadn't been a productive visit. The man had told him that he wasn't in the business of bringing people back, just of helping them pass on, and he would be happy to do it, but Bacchus declined, and thanked him for his time. The man suggested another name, but that one Bacchus did know, and he'd rather just get swallowed up into the vacuum of space than get help from Salvatore fucking Godric.

"Not... really," he said, deciding it would be best just not to mention it at all. "Did you use the burner phone Stav left to contact that ex of yours?"

"No," Aurora said pointedly, pausing to say the word in his face as she passed him on the way inside the house. She held the door open for the dog, then let it shut in his face - probably as punishment for being gone the whole week and leaving her alone with her thoughts. He went right through it, knowing that if he ever did become corporeal again, he was going to be walking into a lot of doors for a while.

"Alright, well, maybe you should, you know, do that," he said, following after her.

"Why?" she asked, picking a plate up off the counter and taking it to the sink. He'd begun to notice that Aurora cleaned when she didn't want to talk about something. Now that she didn't have the internet to distract her, she had to do something else, and this was it. The house, though, was immaculate, despite its location in the middle of nowhere. They were in the upper mountains of Arizona, which was about as far as the guilds as one got if you neglected to consider the rest of the world. Bacchus had owned property there, and when Stavros suggested she go underground, he told her where to go. She gave the guild the address, and when they looked into it, they realized that rightly, nobody would come looking.

"Because, Aurora," he said, leaning against the counter while she violently washed the dish, "it's been almost a year you two have been off the radar. Don't you think he'd like to know you're okay? Don't you think you'd like to know he's okay? I feel like I'd be a bad friend if I didn't bring this up at least once a day."

She huffed into the sink, and then turned to look at him. "Well, you're already a bad friend, so consider that block, you know, checked," she told him. She turned back around. "And anyways, he knows where I am. I told Stavros to tell him. He could come by any time. He just doesn't."

"Well, what the fuck, man?" Bacchus said, walking out of the kitchen area and to the open living room. He left her there to wash the same dish sixteen more times until she felt like she'd worked off enough energy to be a normal human again, and wandered through the house. It was actually more of a cabin, but tastefully not built as though with Lincoln logs. The area was nice, too - there were essential services, there, like a small grocery, gas station, shop, et cetera, and a local bar and grill, but the amount of people there was purely based on seasons. Locals remained, and they all respected eachother's distance, so Aurora was able to come and go as she pleased. She just said the house was in her family, and nobody questioned it. Really, most of them were older, and cared very little for the ongoings of anything around them. They wanted to drink, fish, and relax.

Speaking of relaxing, Bacchus flopped down on the bed, and the dog followed. That had been a good move. He'd been worried that the dog would just bark at him constantly and act anxious, but Buddy was strangely warm to him. He knew the dog could see and hear him, and every so often, he was able to work up enough energy to kick his ball, as he had before, or sometimes, pet him for a second. He didn't realize how much he missed having a companion until they'd gotten Buddy. Aurora didn't count - she was bitter, surly, and rude. She was a cat if he'd ever met one.

The dog fell asleep eventually, and Aurora never came back to the bedroom, and so Bacchus was alone with his thoughts for a few hours. He had never had such peace before; even in mortal life, it seemed fleeting, always threatened by war, or famine, or sickness. Once he'd been turned, he'd only felt hunger, and he'd never felt at rest, even when he did rest. Now, as a ghost, or whatever he was, he didn't need to rest, and yet he felt he was always in that state right before sleep where your body was finally relaxed. There had been times where he wasn't relaxed, but outside of conflicts and arguments, it was rare. He wondered if he'd give all that up to be mortal again? And what were the odds that he'd even come back mortal, and not come back as the raging psychopath he had been before? Would he even remember all this time, if he did? It was a good thing he didn't sleep, because truly, these would be enough to keep a man up at night.

The sunlight shifted through the windows and gave way to that soft purple twilight. Bacchus sat up, and the dog did too, jumping off the bed and trotting out to the living room. The television was on, but the volume was low. He couldn't figure out what it was for a second, then realized it was a House Hunters marathon. He shook his head, looking from it to the couch. Aurora had really been determined to ignore him, hadn't she? She'd finished the kitchen and sprawled out on the couch for a nap. Well, then.

"Buddy," he whispered. "Buddy, get mommy. Get her!"

The dog, excited, jumped on the couch, scaring the absolute shit out of Aurora. She awoke to his cold nose in her face and paws pressed against her arms, and when she tried to shout, got a large lick across the face for her trouble. "Buddy, no!" she said, sitting up more. The dog jumped down, but was still wagging his tail, and sat up, placing his paws on the couch.

"Buddy, you gotta go for a walk?" Bacchus asked. Like a flash, the dog was gone, disappearing into the hall. There was some noise, and then he came trotting back, leash in his mouth, and began to dance, paws clicking against the wooden floor.

"Duuuude," Aurora said, rubbing her face. "Ugh, I was passed out so hard," she said, leaning forward.

"Well, come on, get a Monster and let's take the dog for a walk. It isn't like you have a sleep schedule to maintain," he said, shrugging his shoulders. He followed the dog, and waited by the door for her while she went to the bathroom and then grabbed a Monster like he'd suggested. "Ready?"

"Yeah, I'm ready," she said. She hooked the dog's leash up, then pushed the door open.

The three of them walked down the path that led to the main road. It ran alongside the actual thoroughfare through town, which was nice, because a lot of these old fuckers spent time at the tavern and then got in their eight-million year old trucks and drive the point two miles back to their house, so it lessened the chances of getting smeared by Gertrude and her whiskey habit.

"So, were you gonna tell me you saw Eli, or were you going to just leave that one alone?" she asked him as they walked. Bacchus nearly tripped over a root.

"How did you know I saw Eli?" he asked, not even bothering to deny it.

Aurora snorted. "He works for the guilds sometimes. He is also one of the contacts Stav put in that phone. After about four days, I called to ask if he'd seen anything weird. He said he had."

"Well, then," Bacchus said. "Did he tell you the result of my visit?"

She shook her head. "No, he said that was on you." She paused. "Also, now that's one person who knows about you, Bacchus."

He thought of the idiots in the car, but figured he'd better not add to whatever argument this was about to be. "I know," he said. "It was just an option, which, by the way, isn't an option, unless you've changed your mind and you want to purge me," he said, frowning. He knew she hadn't. "I just - we're running low on the people who we can bring this to, who won't blow the whistle, who could actually help."

She shrugged, then gasped when Buddy jerked on the leash so hard that she dropped her drink. "Motherfucker," she hissed. "Buddy! Chill, dude," she said, knowing it was useless to yell at the dog for being a dog. "Maaan," she said, flinging her hand a few times. She'd gotten a little of the Monster on her arm and overshirt, but it wasn't too bad. At least there weren't really mosquitos there.

"Want me to walk him?" Bacchus asked. "We're almost back to the house."

"Yeah? You want to hold my sticky hand?" she joked.

"You still don't realize what it's like to be without physical contact for most of your days, do you?" he asked.

She made a sound that sounded like a scoff and a choke. "Bacchus, you do realize that the only person I see, or really have seen, for the last almost eight months, is you, right? Did that somehow escape your field of vision? Because, with small exception of getting put on admin leave, then being shitcanned and told I need to go into hiding because I'm the new kid the vampires love to hate, like, literally, it's only been you. So could you fucking stop with that I'm so lonely rhetoric, dude? At least you can just switch your fuckin' brain off when you go into the dark void of ghostville. I dream. Take the fucking leash," she snapped, thrusting it into his right hand and slipping behind him to grab his left. She squeezed his hand, hard.

"It isn't just you, okay dude? So just remember every time you wax poetic about how much this sucks, remember I'm right here experiencing all this suck with you," she snapped.

"Damn, that was strangely motivational," he japed, causing her to use her free hand to jab him in the ribs. It didn't hurt, of course, but he did pull away, trying to avoid her hitting that soft spot that made him twitch.

They walked back up the path to the property, and from the outside, they looked - well, they looked like a couple, actually. And fairly well-adjusted, if one ignored some of the rather crass remarks that got thrown back and forth. It wasn't the way they looked at eachother, either - it was just how they interacted. Physically. In eachother's space; one moved, and the other moved with them, not against. There was a sort of rhythm to the way they behaved, something that had unfortunately just become in lieu of the situation they found themselves in.

"Don't put that fucking grasshopper on me," Aurora said, stretching as far away as she could without breaking hold of his hand. "Don't!" she squealed. "Buddy! Buddy, help me!" The dog, happy to be included, was yipping at Bacchus as he advanced on Aurora with a grasshoper that had hitched a ride on his shirt. 

Bacchus finally gave a solid tug and pulled her in, knocking her off balance, and wrapped his arms around her, the dog leash forgotten about. He held the grasshopper right above her mouth. "I'm gonna make you eat it," he threatened, laughing. "Did you know I've been places where these are considered a delicacy? Come on, it's gourmet, just pretend you're branching out from eating the same four things repeatedly."

"Yeah, they eat them in Thailand. Nice place," a man's voice said, breaking the duo of their struggle.

"Evan," Aurora said. The look on her face was complete and total shock.

Bacchus didn't know what to say, but he assumed if the dude could hear him, he could probably see him. "Grasshopper?" he offered, holding it out to him.

He stared at them for a second, and then nodded. "Well, I've seen weirder. I've been part of weirder." He paused. "This was a mistake, and I'm going to go. I'm glad you're okay, and... yeah, no, that's it." And he turned, walking back to his car.

"Oh, fuck," Aurora said, hand to her face. She looked at Bacchus, who also looked pretty shocked. "Go - go fucking do something, dude!" she snapped.

"What? What the fuck do you want me to do? Rory, that dude does not like me - "

"Just GO!" she yelled. She called Buddy and hustled the dog up into the house, leaving Bacchus alone with Evan, who was now in his car.

"Fucking... fuck!" he yelled, waving his arms for a second. He hurried over to where the car was, stepping in front of it just as Evan turned the headlights back on. "Wait.... wait," he said, sighing and hanging his head. He walked around to the window, where Evan waited, and put his hands on the door of the car.

"It's not what you think," he began.

Evan took in a sharp breath, and looked ahead for a moment. "If by that you mean that my ex is shacking up with the ghost of the vampire who killed her best friend and who she, in turn, killed, then - oh, great, that's great, because you know, that would be really, really uncomfortable for me just like, to show up," Evan said. The sarcasm was practically tangible.

Bacchus rolled his eyes. "No, man, it's really not like that. That stupid love bite I gave her on my way out tethered me to her, and I've - you know what, I think maybe you should just come inside and get the whole story," he said suddenly. He backed up from the car. "Seriously. I've spent the better half of this year arguing with her, and I'm not gonna do it with you, too."

Evan snorted. "Yeah, she'll uh.. she'll keep you on your toes."

"Yeah, no fucking lie there," Bacchus agreed.

They stared at eachother for a second, and then Evan turned the car off. "Alright, vampire-ghost, I'll bite. Besides," he said, "I really, really want to pet that dog. Lead the way." And with that, Evan followed Bacchus back up to the house.