Night's Omen

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.

Nicolette nudged her tape recorder closer to him, blue eyes fixed on the thing momentarily as she made sure that it was on. She glanced up, then laughed. "I guess I should have asked first, are you good if I record you? I'll be taking some written notes, but I don't want to have to try and recall all this from memory. I'll just fuck it up."

"I thought you were the best?" he teased. "It's fine," he said, holding a hand up as she opened her mouth to defend herself.

"You know, I honestly never thought I'd be doing this interview. You've had quite a wild ride over the last year or so, haven't you?"

He laughed, then, and leaned back a little in his chair. "You know, compared to the last two-thousand or so, it's been pretty eventful."

"Well, thanks again for agreeing to see me. I'll admit, I didn't know what to expect. I've talked to vampires who are a couple hundo, but never as old as you are. Well, was? How do you count your time?" It seemed her questions had started, as she sat, poised at the ready with her pencil to jot down anything that she wanted to specifically go over.

"I count all of it, vampire and otherwise. The time in-between was a little weird, though. I guess I could count that more towards the human clock. And, if we're being totally honest here, being a - a ghost, I guess - was probably some of the most peaceful time I've ever spent. Aside from the company, obviously," he said, referencing the hunter he'd accidentally bound himself to.

Nicolette raised her brows. "Why do you say that?" From all her experience, being stuck in that limb was said to be awful. You were unable to go back, unable to go forward; you just drifted, aimlessly, watching all your loved ones pass you by.

"Heh." He sat up a little, fingers drifting to the pack of cigarettes in front of her. "May I?" he asked, and then took one when she gave him a nod. He struck a match expertly and lit the cigarette, then began to speak as he shook the match and dropped it into the ash tray. "Do you know what my line is cursed with?"

"Cursed?" she repeated. "Wait, your bloodline is cursed?"

He laughed. "I don't mean to repeat myself, but really, I did think you were the best. How did you not know this?" he asked, and this time he was serious. "Do your lessons not include things like this?"

Nicolette made a face, but he wasn't wrong - she was the best, as told by her position at Diamond, anyways. Technically, she would be the best they had in the field currently; at their school, people probably had far surpassed her. But active, and in the thick of it? Nicolette was the go-to girl. That's probably why his revelation that bloodlines were all cursed kind of gave her a brain freeze, she supposed. How was something like that not common knowledge?

"I guess that's not something that anyone's ever told us," she said, shrugging. "A lot of our knowledge comes directly from living among whoever it is we're researching. It's not an exact science. And, to be fair, nobody, to my knowledge, has ever been granted audience with the person from whom something originated."

"That's fair," he acknowledged. "I would feel safe saying that most of them don't even know their bloodlines carry a curse. They only know that they were turned, and they exist in their current-most state. But, my line is one-hundred percent cursed, with obsession."

"Obsession?" Nicolette had to stop parroting him. She wrote something down, anyways. "Can you explain?"

"Usually the line's issue will stem from its creator, at least that's how it seems to us," he said, referring exclusively to the vampires that had originated lines. "And truthfully, I know only the creator of one other line, so I have limited experience, here," he reminded her. "But yes, I was turned after - " he hesitated. He thought of how he'd desecrated the temple of the oracles when they'd told him that Deyanira would never be his. He'd gotten the absolute shit cursed out of him by the gods, that was for sure. He thought of what they said to him, and then blinked back into reality.

"After?" Nicolette asked, eyes bright with curiosity.

"After a temper tantrum," he settled on. "And my curse, along with the gift of immortality, was obsession. It was a compulsive need to consume, but it wasn't just to feed - every vampire has that compulsion to feed, just as every other creature does. It's what we do, as life on this planet. But the hunger that I felt was different. It causes us to fixate on something - or multiple things, I don't know who really begot who begot who, you know - but the gist of it is that we're all a little... passionate about things. And as we get older, the passion turns into a dangerous addiction, and drives us. I mean, look what happened to me." He snorted.

"But, okay, as I understand it, if you aren't aware, I've actually got a chart of what we think your family tree is. Would you want to see it? Would that help put some of this in order for you, I mean?" she asked, hopefully.

Bacchus' dark brown-black eyes positively gleamed with interest. "You do? Yes, I'd love to see it," he said, posture more attentive than it had been a moment prior. He watched as Nicolette got out of her chair and walked to her bag, producing laminated sheet that had been rolled up and secured with a hair scrunchie. She smiled sheepishly as she slid the scrunchie off of the sheet, securing it on her wrist, and shook the paper, rolling it out across their interview table.

"Well, isn't this something," Bacchus said, amazement in his murmuring.

"Here," Nicolette said, handing him a dry erase marker. "You can make notes on any discrepancies you see, and I can update them when I get back."

He accepted the marker, and then immediately corrected a few things. Orpheus, for one, was dead, and so he drew a large X over his name, jotting down the exact date and time of his death. He glanced up at Nicolette. "I was there for that one, you know," he said, smirking. "Man, I hated that guy." He looked back down, and then straightened out a little.

"Okay, so Orestes, here," she said, pointing, "I know him. He helps the guilds out quite a bit. He's not crazy, not as far as I can tell, anyways."

Bacchus made a face, and it clearly said that she couldn't have been more wrong. "His obsession is control over himself," he told her, tapping the end of the marker on the table for emphasis. "That kid is a ticking time bomb. He's over two-thousand, just a few hundred shy of me? Yeah, he's fucking crazy, he's just hiding it well. Maybe because of his sire, I don't know. She's dead, so I can't rightly check in on her, but she always was a little more, ah, level-headed than I was. His brother, though - that's one of Orpheus' gets, and I don't need a chart to tell me that. Thanatos is worse than I ever was, and that's saying something." He paused. "Maybe I should get Aurora to kill him next."

"Would you?" Nicolette asked, totally serious. "She killed you, and she killed Orpheus. That has to count for something."

"For Thanatos? No, not a chance in hell. She's - " he paused. Not ready? Too ready to die? Too important to him? "She's taking a break from her big game hunting," he said finally. "Besides, she's already stolen a kill from an ancient, I don't think I'd recommend she'd steal another."

"How? Who'd she steal a kill from, I mean?"

"Oh, Orpheus and I have a long, sordid history. Friends, then rivals, then finally I basically killed everyone he ever knew, stole his wife, and he's spent the last few thousand years one step behind me, waiting for the right moment to strike. And, he waited too long, because someone beat him to the punch." He snickered. "And he was hoisted by his own petard. He was so mad about her stealing his kill that he went to confront her about it, only to get a knife in his chest for his trouble. He couldn't let it go," he said. "See? Obsession."

"Yeah, no, I got all that, but who would she be stealing a kill from if she killed Thanatos? Orestes? Dude wouldn't hurt a fly, and as far as I can tell, he's done his best to distance himself from his psychotic brother. It's the only reason the guilds even agreed to work with him."

"Oof," he said, borrowing something he'd heard Aurora say a few times. "Listen, you need to write this down, or make it a note in his file or whatever you guys have on him, but Orestes cannot be trusted like that. And I promise you, there will come a day when he kills Thanatos. He's working up to it, has been for a long time now. He's not my fledgling directly, but I'm their origin source. I know my children better than they know themselves."

Nicolette sat down on the table now, looking away from him as she digested that information. She pulled a cigarette from her pack and lit it, but let it burn in her fingers after her first drag, using it more as something to do with her hands as she processed what he'd said. "So what you're saying is," she said, lightly tapping her thumb to the butt of the cigarette, "Is that you know specific, intimate details about every Bacchite in your line?"

"Yes," he said firmly.

"Even though you're human now?" she asked, turning to look at him again.

"Yes," he said again, making direct eye contact with her. "So tell me, what do you want to know?"

Aurora snapped her head up suddenly, coming to on her bed. Her mouth felt dry, like she'd been eating cotton or something. And her head was splitting, which she was aware of now that she was upright, a palm coming to press against her left eye as her skull behind it throbbed. The room was dark - darker than she remembered it ever having been, before. She slowly began processing her surroundings, and became dimly aware that someone was in the room with her. Her free hand moved across the bed, which was made (she had passed out? on top of the blankets), but it came into contact with nothing. As her eyes adjusted, she saw something darker than the dark of the room; a person-sized shape just at the edge of her bed.

"Bacchus?" she whispered.

"Guess again," the voice said.

---

The wine had been her idea. She was standing in the world food store, looking at the rows and rows of it they had on display. She waffled between the whites and the roses, looking up little blurbs about each on her phone. She was a white wine girl by trade; she preferred lighter alcohol, if it had a colour at all. Truth be told, clear was her favourite, and it was widely known that Aurora had a taste for vodka. Bacchus wagered she craved it like a vampire craved blood. It wasn't a good thing, though. For humans, that just made you an alcoholic. She kept it under control, at least, not as bad as some had been (Autumn), but still, there were nights where she'd kill a bottle and be dead to the world, leaving him to wander her apartment unchecked.

"Those are all disgusting," he informed her, causing her to nearly drop her phone. She gripped the shopping cart, looking at him with murder in her eyes.

"You have got to stop doing that," she hissed, careful not to look like the crazy bitch in the wine aisle talking to herself.

"I'm just saying," he replied, defending himself. "You don't want those. You want these." And he walked toward the racks of reds, waving his hand with flourish.

Of course he'd like red wine, she thought. Probably reminds him of blood. "Alright," she said aloud. "Which one should I get?"

He took so long picking one out that she'd opened up solitaire on her phone and played through several boards before she heard him make a noise of approval. Rolling her eyes, she glanced up to see him pointing to a bottle towards the middle of the shelf. "That one? Alright," she said, her tone suggesting that she didn't trust him. She got two bottles of it, though, so clearly she trusted him enough with her money. She supposed if she didn't like it, she could dump it, and just gift the second bottle to Irulan, who did appreciate the reds.

Once they were back at the apartment, Aurora got her corkscrew and immediately set to work wrestling with the bottle.

"Okay, this is painful to watch," Bacchus finally said, reaching out as though it would do any good. "You're going to break the cork. Who taught you how to open wine, you little barbarian?"

"My sister," she confessed.

"Well, tell your sister she's awful," he replied smoothly.

"Fine," she said, throwing the tool down on the counter with a loud clack. "You do it."

He laughed, but after four months together, that stung a little. "You know I can't."

She gave him a look that he found to be rather cryptic, and then reached out swiftly, grabbing him by the shoulder. "Try now."

He stared at her, and then reached for the corkscrew. He had to shelve a gasp as he felt the cool metal in his hand, and looked down at it for a moment, unable to hide his amazement. He looked back up at her. "How long have you been wondering if that would work?" he asked. When she didn't say anything right away, he changed his tone. "Rory," he said, dropping his voice a little.

"A while now, okay? And don't fucking call me that," she snapped, releasing him from her grip. The corkscrew fell out of his hand, hitting the counter again.

"Alright, alright, do you want me to open it or not?"

She sighed, setting her jaw, but nodded and put her hand back on his shoulder. He popped the cork on the bottle expertly, then set the corkscrew down, lifting the bottle to his nose.

"Oh my god, it smells just like I remember," he said, closing his eyes. He set the bottle back down before she decided to let go of him and cause it to crash to the floor in a sharp, red mess. When she released him and went for where her wine glasses were, he leaned against the counter, unable to help himself from reminiscing.

"You know, Bacchus was the god of wine," he said, and he saw her shoulders lift as she laughed a little. "Hey, you can laugh all you want, but it's true. Remember what I told you - myths are based in some truth. Oh, my family had vineyards as far as the eye could see. In the summer it was all you could smell."

"Fermentation? That must've smelled awful," she said, disrupting his reverie with her usual brand of disappointing observation.

"I guess you'd have had to have been there," he said. He looked at her thoughtfully, then nodded. "Come on, get your glass. It's a nice night, we should go onto the patio."

"Yeah, I'll be there in a minute," she said.

He walked away from her, then to the large glass door that led to the spacious patio. He had to admit, her apartment was pretty nice. The inside was a little small for his taste, but he was used to a literal manor, so he couldn't really say he was comparing it fairly. Still, the outside area was generous, and she had a pretty decent set of furniture that overlooked the area behind the complex. He walked through the door, not even bothering to try and attempt to open it - he'd managed a few times to open random things in the apartment, the latest of which was a cabinet, which she walked into, not having expected him to be capable of it. That had been a fun fight.

He heard the door slide open and turned around, yet again breaking from his thoughts. He saw she had the bottle and two glasses, and raised an eyebrow. "What's that for? You bring a backup in case you get wine drunk and break one?" he teased. She had to admit, she did have a penchant for breaking her glassware. She was only clumsy when she was drunk, though, as he well knew by how her knife had pierced his heart so perfectly.

"No," she said, and offered no exposition beyond that. "Come on, sit down."

He sat, wondering when it was that he'd become so accustomed to doing what he was told. Being in this state, though, he remembered so much of when he was human; sometimes it overwhelmed him, actually. Coming back from her failed vacation had been the first time he'd really bothered to acknowledge his life before he'd been turned, and then tonight, with the telling of his family's trade. It seemed that, more than the strange event that had turned all of the vampires human for that brief few days, whatever situation he found himself in now forced more of it up to the surface.

As though she'd read his mind, she nodded to him a little. "What else do you remember from before?"

He smiled, looking out at the landscape and away from her curious face. "I remember that I could hear my father calling me from what seemed like miles away. I remember how the sun felt, and how my mother's laugh at the dinner table felt like everything would be okay, regardless of what outside turmoils surrounded us." He paused. "I remember not being so mad all the time, not being so compelled by something in the back of my head, telling me that I needed to consume - " he stopped talking, and shook his head. Then he looked back at her. "I remember everything, if I know where to look for it."

She poured herself a glass, and then poured a second one. "Where do you go? I mean, when you're not here?"

"I don't know," he said honestly. "I'm just... I don't know, floating in some black ether. It's like the place between two realities. It's - " he paused, trying to think of how to describe it. "It's like if you dove into deep water, and turned off all the lights. You just exist. It's only you, and your thoughts."

"I would never want to just be alone with my thoughts," she said, and though she laughed, he could tell it wasn't because she found it funny.

"None of us want to. Least of all, me. But, I don't know." He sighed. "It's like this is my punishment, I guess. For two-thousand some odd years of total havoc and debauchery. Now I'm doomed to just be alone with my thoughts for eternity."

  She interrupted him by holding a glass out to him. "Take it," she said.

"I can't," he snapped. He was in his feelings, apparently.

"Yes, you can," she said, her tone equally biting. "You say that you can't all the time. Do you ever hear me say I can't? I'm a fucking fraction of your age, asshole. I'm a blink in the eye of your time on this planet, and you never hear me say I can't."

He bit back a derisive comment about how she'd told him that she "couldn't" earlier when he'd reminded her that she needed to call that ex of hers to try and build that connection back up. There was quite a lot she refused to do.

"Take. The the fucking. Glass." She reached out, and slapped her hand down on his thigh, digging her little wolverine nails into his leg.

"Ow, god damnit," he said, sitting up abruptly.

She leaned in, shoulders hunching. It made her look absolutely predatory. Her voice, though, was much softer. "Take the glass."

He huffed, and then picked it up. He half-expected her to release him again so he'd drop it on the table, or even better, let him go and grab him a second time to make it break on him and cover him in the thick liquid - but she didn't. "Is this what you want?" he asked, brow arched. There was no playfulness to his tone; he was genuinely curious.

"Drink it," she told him. "Go on. I'll drink with you." And she lifted her own glass with her left hand, raising it. "Cheers, my dark companion."

He lifted the glass to his lips, still not trusting her to not be fucking with him. He wholly assumed she remembered the cabinet to the face, and while she did, and absolutely had something planned for retaliation for that, this wasn't it. After another beat of waiting to see if she was trying to fuck with him, he drank it.

"Hooooly shit," he breathed, taking the glass from his mouth. "After so long as a vampire, you wouldn't believe how differently this could taste."

"I thought being a vampire enhanced all your senses?"

"Well, yeah, for a while. But after the first thousand, they dull. Anything over that, it's basically a fist-fight to feel anything," he said, pointing at her a little with the glass as he spoke. He drained it of the wine, and then set it carefully down on the table. "That's the shit they don't put in the books."

She leaned back in her chair, her hand sliding off of his leg and going to the arm rest on her own chair finally. She looked pensive, and drank her own glass dry, but held onto it, tapping it to her chin thoughtfully. "Is that why you were so crazy?"

"Yes, Aurora. That and the all-encompassing hunger that drove itself into the forefront of every thought I had, but yes, that's a large part of it." He shifted in his chair, sitting up more. "We're not meant to live that long like that. Suspended in some stasis, like a living portrait. Why do you think everyone in that god-forsaken place was positively mental? Some of them, like Deja, embrace it. Others," he said, thinking of Justinian, "have learned how to navigate it so well you'd never be able to tell. But, bloodlines have something to do with it, too. Mine, unfortunately, like I told you before - madness is just part of the gig. Once they hit a certain age, it's inevitable."

She was listening to him, but she wasn't looking at him. In fact, she got up, wine glass still in hand, and went to the edge of her balcony, looking down into the trees beyond the property. When he went to say something, she held a hand up, indicating for him to be quiet. He obliged, but he got up anyways, trying to see whatever it was she saw.

"I think I saw someone down there," she said.

Bacchus didn't respond, but inwardly cursed himself. Sometimes being a vampire had its perks; being a ghost certainly gave him no way to reach beyond with his fine-tuned senses and see or hear any better. She'd really fucking gimped him, alright. He looked at her, and she looked back at him.

"Let's go back in," she said decisively. He held a hand up in accord, and gestured that he'd follow.

Once inside, she checked around her apartment, but found nothing out of sorts, and circled back to their usual spot in her living room. "Everything looks fine, I guess," she said, shrugging. "Maybe it's just the wine. I never drink this shit," she admitted.

He snorted. "I could tell by the way your eyes lingered on the two-dollar moscato," he chirped.

"Well, luckily I had you to direct me, Mr. Wine Connoisseur," she said, pouring herself another glass. "Fuck, these bottles don't hold much, do they?" She picked it up. "I've got like maybe another glass in there. Haven't even had this much wine since... " she trailed off.

"Since?" he prompted.

She shook her head. "It's just been a while." Since Jillian hired me to kill you, she thought inwardly. She was somehow uncomfortable admitting that, right then, and so she drowned her thought with the glass she had, and then the bottle behind it. She was smart enough to have watched how Bacchus had opened the first bottle, and so opening the second went far more smoothly than before, and she killed that, too, as they sat on the couch and watched an old rerun of jeopardy.

She couldn't remember what they had been talking about when she finally realized she was too drunk to carry on, and told him she'd continue the argument in the morning. She ambled to her bed, kicking off her shoes, and laid down on the soft blankets. She wanted to get under them, but she felt like she was too hot to bother, and knocked out almost immediately.

---

"Thought I'd lost you, up there in the woods. Fortunately, the guy at the desk did me a favor," the voice said to her in the dark. "What I can't figure out, though, is why you thought I was Bacchus," he spat. The light flicked on at her bedside lamp suddenly, and Orpheus revealed himself, now directly next to her. "Feel like sharing?"

"Fuck," Aurora said.

Orpheus grabbed her by her hair before she could back away, dragging her backwards on the bed. Christ, but he had a reach on him. She kicked out, making solid contact with his joint, but it was like it hadn't even connected with the way he reacted. It seemed to just make him more mad, actually. She screamed, but he just laughed over her, saying something about how she could scream all she wanted, because nobody was going to hear her. Fucking vampires and their fucking magic.

"Tell me, how did it feel?" he asked. He let go of her hair briefly, enough for her to try and sit up, but then he put a hand on her throat, squeezing so hard that she could only make a squeaking sound. She clawed uselessly at his hands. "How did it feel when you killed him? I need to know."

Behind him, she could see Bacchus appear, like he'd been summoned, and looking completely fucking horrified.

Orpheus didn't notice that she was looking past him, though, and went right on with his interrogation. "Do you know what he did to me? Do you know how long I waited for the perfect moment to kill him? Before you just waltzed in and stabbed him in front of God and everyone?" He squeezed harder, and Aurora felt black spots dancing around her vision, around the blood that was splattered across her face from a few light slams to it.

Behind them, Bacchus was absolutely rabid. He took a swipe at Orpheus, but passed right through him, and realized that there wasn't enough time to maneuver around him to actually hold onto her and try and hit him at the same time. Instead, he did the only thing he could think of, and reached for her bedroom door with all his might, yanking it as hard as he could. It slammed, loudly, like he'd been trying to get it to do for the last month in attempts to scare the fuck out of her. Of all the fucking times for that trick to work, though.

Orpheus jerked around, his grip faltering at the sound of the door slamming. He knew he was in the house of a hunter who had murdered an ancient, and regardless of how powerless she might not have been at the moment, he was more than aware of the company that she kept. He'd been staking the house for a while now, and though he'd seen the other hunters come and go, she seemed to be mostly alone. Had he miscalculated? He was not up to the task of dealing with a fucking Phoenix, or whatever else she had up her sleeve, that was for sure.

When he loosened his grip, it was just enough time for Aurora to break away from him. She thrust her hand under her pillow, wrapping it tightly around the same blade she'd used on Bacchus. In one motion, she drove her arm away from herself and directly at him, hitting him dead center with a furious yell of last resort.

Orpheus didn't react for a second, and her heart dropped. She'd missed. She looked past him to Bacchus, closing her eyes in silent apology. Orpheus stood, and she prepared for what was surely going to be the last thing she ever saw, but then he faltered, and fell backwards on the floor. His skin began to turn grey and decay, and his body sort of withered until it was hard to recognize who he'd been - like an old statue that hadn't been cleaned since the beginning of time.

"You gotta be fucking kidding me," Bacchus said, looking up at her. "Congrats, Rory. You just tagged your second ancient in six months - and I'm pretty sure you're still drunk."

She nodded to him, and then sat forward. For a second, she said nothing, and then took in a deep, wheezing breath (since he'd done some damage to her vocal chords just then) and rocked down onto her knees, digging her fists into her bedspread. She couldn't tell if she was going to throw up or cry, and finally settled on wailing into the fabric, using it to muffle the sudden rush of emotion she felt. Her voice came out foreign to her, but she screamed even harder, pushing through the pain. She had come close to dying before, but that had been too real somehow. He'd been in her home. In her room.

Bacchus picked his way over the body and put a hand on her back, shushing her. "You're okay," he assured her, though he himself wasn't sure if that were entirely true. "You're okay," he said again. With his hand still on her, he grabbed the cord where her phone was plugged into the charger, pulling it to himself until he could reach the physical phone itself. He didn't have her password, so he just switched the lock screen to the ICE contact list, and called the first number he saw. Stav.

"You need to get to Aurora's apartment," he said. And then he hung up, and brushed the phone away. "Fuck," he said aloud, to nobody in particular. "Fuck."

Aurora had been stuck with Bacchus for two months now. She'd missed parties and other work events that, despite being on leave, she should have attended, for fear of someone seeing him. He had said that he couldn't control when he came and went sometimes, but they'd never really talked about it beyond that. She just didn't trust it, and didn't trust him, mostly, despite the fact that he seemed intensely different from what she had first seen. First impressions, though, were a bitch.

She'd decided to drive up into upstate for a long weekend, or maybe longer, just to clear her head and not be around anyone. Bacchus tagged along, because of course he did. He sat in the passenger seat of her Jeep quietly, eyes scanning the trees as they drove up the winding road to where the hotel was. It was all wooden; he thought it looked like someone had built a small tourist town out of logs, and that's more or less what it was. Everything was green and brown and natural. When they finally parked, the first thing he smelled when he got out was heavy pine, and he inwardly gagged. Couldn't touch anything, but could smell? Truly, it was bogus.

"I gotta go get checked in," she told him, looking to make sure nobody was watching her talk to the invisible man. "I'd ask you to take the bags, but.."

"Ha-ha," he snapped. "Don't worry Rory, I'll guard them. If someone comes by to steal them, maybe I can poltergeist their ass," he offered.

She snorted, knowing that he hadn't been able to move a single object thus far, and disappeared into the clerk's office. He sighed, leaning against the jeep - for a moment he almost fell through it, and was sure that he looked like a frightened cat. Sometimes, it was okay if nobody saw him, he supposed. He got comfortable, wondering exactly how the fuck long did it take to get your reservation, when Aurora came outside, chatting with someone.

"Oh, that would be great," he could hear her saying. "I gotta get unpacked, but maybe I'll see you around?"

"Wouldn't miss it," the man responded.

Bacchus felt his heart that didn't beat freeze in his chest even harder, if that were possible. He stayed perfectly still, shielded by the back half of the vehicle and looking though the windows to make sure that the man had left, and then ran around to the back of the jeep. "Aurora, you need to leave, now," he said. He actually grabbed her by the arm, which startled her. She looked at his hand, and then at him, but he didn't let go, trying to show how serious he was.

"I know that man, and he's not a man, he's another ancient," he warned her.

"What?" she said, genuine confusion on her face. He released her arm so that she could make all the gestures he knew she'd want to make when she spoke, and she did exactly that, holding her hands up. "I got nothing off of him. Not even a stray vibe."

"You won't," he said, his voice serious. "He was my second fledgling. And he is powerful, Aurora, especially with me out of the game. Look, I promise, anywhere else, I'll leave you alone, you won't even see me the entire weekend, but you need to go back in there, make them purge your personal information, and then get in the car and leave."

"Dude, you're freaking me out," she told him.

He took her by the arm again, pulling her closely to him so that he could look down into her face. "If you stay here, he will kill you. Do you understand me?"

She looked like she wanted to fight him on it, but her face went from defiant to soft after a few seconds. "Okay," she agreed. "Okay, I'll get my shit and we can go." She walked away from him wordlessly, internally feeling actual nervousness, mostly because he was very rarely so serious with her. Sure, most of the time there was truth to what he said, but he seldom made actual demands, and so this kind of flagged her as problematic, so she was inclined to listen to him.

"Thank fucking god," he breathed, letting her go so that she could go back inside. He scrubbed his face with his hands, then paced around the jeep anxiously.  He drummed his fingers against the hood, and as soon as he saw her come out, he jumped into the vehicle. The sooner they vacated, the better. "He's every bit as obsessive as I was, maybe even worse," Bacchus said, his brown eyes scanning the road as they pulled out - but now he wasn't just looking idly into the wilderness, he was scanning for danger.

"Can you give me a little background on this guy?" she asked, navigating the jeep back onto the main thoroughfare that would lead them back to the interstate.

He sighed. Inwardly, he wanted to just pop back into the darkness, so that he wouldn't have to explain their complicated relationship. Orpheus was probably his greatest shame. As a vampire, he'd never cared about how the situation had gone, and in fact had been proud that the man had followed him, dedicating thousands of years to being one step behind him, shadowing his sire, waiting for the day where he would finally misstep. When Aurora had killed him in Midnight, Orpheus had simply gotten his things and left, and Bacchus had no idea where he'd gone next. But his heart was so full of hate that he sincerely doubted he'd found anything better to fill that thousand year old hole with. He looked at Aurora, realizing why he resonated with her so much - she was doing the same fucking thing that Orpheus had done, only to far less a degree.

"He is my one regret, in two-thousand seven-hundred some odd years," he said honestly. He looked out the window, frowning. "We were friends, once. As close as brothers, when we'd been human. Until, of course, we both met the same girl."

"Oofta," Aurora muttered, keenly interested in this drama now. "So, did you get the girl, and he hated you forever for it?"

"No," he said. "He won her. He married her, in fact. I was there for the ceremony."

Aurora frowned. "Okay... so like, you were just bitter about it or....?"

"You realize, Aurora, that I have never spoken this story aloud? The only person who even knows that Orpheus and I used to be friends is that scholarly friend of yours," he admitted.

"The one you tried to bite," she reminded him.

"Yes," he snapped. "She piqued my hunger, and as no one could resist me, I could not resist it, and so it goes," he said, his voice full of irritation.

"Alright, I got it," she said, sounding properly scolded. "So what happened?"

He was silent for a while, nothing between them but the sound of the road. "After I was turned into a vampire, I went back to the village where we had all lived. I killed him, and I blood-bonded her." He said it like he said that he'd gone to the gas station to get some bread; he'd said it like it was a normal thing to say, like it held no meaning to him at all. But because his voice was curiously devoid of any emotion, so much like Aurora had trained hers to be, she realized that he'd only disassociated from it so he wouldn't have to feel all the things it made him feel. She suddenly realized why Evan had always had a problem with her doing it; it was actually kind of fucking unsettling to witness.

"And you kept her until Fawn killed her, " Aurora said, slowly. "You kept her with you, right in front of him, the whole time."

"Always within his reach, but never close enough to reach," he said. "Why do you think he's called Orpheus, Aurora? You've read the myth. And you know what they say, all myths are steeped in truths," he laughed bitterly. "It's my fault his power is what it is, too. It was a direct result of what I did. That rage, so much rage," he said, shaking his head.

"Yeah, I'm a little fuzzy on the details of his ability. They just said that only female hunters could be tasked for it," she told him, her brow arching.

"It's extreme rage," he explained. "It bleeds off of him, like poison. He loved Deyinara so much and when he saw her taken from him and fully devoted to me, his love turned into hate, and it was all directed at her. And me, but over the years, it became misplaced. And so, like the poison tree, his power grew." He sighed a little. "It's incredibly unique, and incredibly dangerous. Do some light reading on him with Therrayans if you want your guilds history on him," he advised. "I'm told he caused one of the hunters' husbands to try and kill her. You see, his power only impacts men. He turns them against women. They exact that influence exactly as you'd expect," he said, and he didn't feel the need to elaborate. Aurora could use her imagination.

She was quiet for a while, taking all of that in. "Do you think he'd already influenced the people where we just were?" she asked finally.

"I don't know," he said honestly. "I just know that he'll be a lot more bold with me out of the way. He has only hate left in him. It's all he's known for thousands of years. Now that the object of his hatred is gone, he won't know what to direct it at. He may have acted like he didn't know you, but Aurora, I promise, every vampire on this fucking planet knows who you are. I'm sure you weren't thinking of the real-world repercussions killing me would have, but you are famous, girl."

"Fuck," she whispered. He could see her grip was tight on the steering wheel, causing her knuckles to turn white. He didn't know why, but he reached over, placing his hand on top of hers, in an effort to calm her.

"It'll work itself out, I'm sure," he offered.

She flung his hand off of her own, exactly as he'd expected. "HOW?" she demanded. "You just gonna come back to life and fix it for me? Gonna turn back into the fanged hungry hungry hippo and go puppeteer your rogue fledgling?"

He looked down for a moment. "I deserved that," he said.

"Yes, Bacchus, you did. And SO much more! Fuck, do you ruin the life of everyone close to you?"

"I did, yes," he said glibly. "So if I were you, I wouldn't consider yourself close to me."

"I DON'T!" she yelled. "But I AM stuck with you, and that's like the same fucking thing." She punched her steering wheel a few times, then yelled angrily. "God DAMNIT Bacchus."

Bacchus sat on the couch in Aurora's apartment. He was facing the TV, but he wasn't watching it. He couldn't stomach any more of it. He glanced over at his blonde companion, who was leaned on the arm of the couch, elbow crooked and fist on her head. She was staring at the TV too, but her eyes were glazed and he could tell that she, too, was miles away. He resisted the urge to reach out and touch her. Not for any particular reason, just to feel something. Oh, he could feel the couch beneath him, but if he thought about it too hard, he'd fall right through it. He hadn't really figured out the rules and regulations of the limbo state he existed in, but from things he'd learned, Aurora could see and hear him; they could have physical contact, though it was usually violent spats when it did occur; and he could do basic actions such as sit on the couch, sit in her car, sit at her kitchen table, and (unbeknownst to her) lay down on her bed. He thought maybe he could pick things up or move them, but he hadn't been able to do it yet, and he suspected he'd need particular conviction, something that he lacked at current.

He also found that he could still exhibit some control over Aurora through command, and though he'd only done it once, it was proof that his power still lingered with him. He found he didn't desire to use it, though. He didn't desire much anymore, and he wasn't sure if he should attribute it to the in-between state he was in or if it was due to the fact that since he was no longer corporeal, the hunger inside of him no longer had any hold. He guessed that the longer that was, the less likely he'd be able to wield control over her - but since it was rare the opportunity presented itself, and he hadn't expected to take the ability with him when he died, he didn't see any reason to stress over it. Not when there was so much for him to stress about elsewhere.

Speaking of the hunger - that hunger that drove many of his line to madness, in fact, when they seemed to age out of where they still retained a little humanity - it was a relief that it was gone. In his mortal life, he'd been a creative type; sensitive, passionate, and, yes, a very controlling person. But his vampirism had perverted that to a dumpster fire that fueled itself through every interaction he had: he would control and create and he would grow hungrier and he would feed the hunger by controlling and creating. He'd created an entire line of vampires, and though as the blood traveled further from him, the devotion grew weaker, those he kept in close proximity couldn't resist him. Once upon a time, Aurora would not have been able to resist him.

And now?

He reached out to touch her, slowly, finger coming to a point as he aimed to poke her in the arm, and as quick as lightning he got a hard smack on his wrist, diverting his hand's path to the couch where his finger bounced off the cushion.

"Stop," came her warning growl.

He knew by her tone she would only warn him once. In truth, he could snap her neck in an instant, and they both knew it. But because he had bitten her, and had managed to tether enough of himself to her, it would not be helpful to hurt her. Had he known that he'd even end up in this stupid stuck state, he may have not even done it at all, just so that he could fucking die already.

A knock on her door surprised the shit out of both of them, and immediately she looked at him. "Who the fuck is that?" she asked.

"What? How the fuck am I supposed to know? Why do you look over at me like I invited someone here? I can't even pick up the phone," he snapped, and demonstrated by swiping his hand angrily through the phone that sat between them on the couch.

"Ugh," she muttered. "Right, whatever." She always looked at him when something happened, because most of the time, she wanted it to be his fault. He was noticing that she blamed other people a LOT. He'd love to point out this gaping flaw in her personality, but he didn't really have room to speak, given what had driven her to kill him in the first place.

"Just get rid of them," he said. "They're about to run a throwback Laguna Beach marathon, and I need you to explain it to me."

Aurora looked into the peephole, and then stood up straight. "Shut up," she hissed to him. "It's Evan." She waited a second, and then opened the door. It wasn't wide enough that he could see into the living room; it wasn't directly in the line of site anyways, but still.

"Why should I shut up?" Bacchus snapped. "It's not like dude can hear me anyways. Just get rid of him," he repeated.

"Hey, I tried calling," Evan said, greeting Aurora. He paused for a second, and then raised his head a little. "Dude can definitely hear you, by the way." He looked back at her, seeming a little taken aback, but politely deciding not to address anything he thought. "We should set up a good time to talk," he said.

Aurora very carefully did not react to Evan talking to Bacchus, instead just sighing. "Sorry, I'm having a Laguna Beach marathon," she said. In the background Bacchus could be heard saying 'YEEES' at the marathon concession. "It's ah, throwback night tonight. I didn't know you'd be coming by." She stepped outside into the cold, closing the door behind her and permanently severing the possibility that those two could see eachother up close.

"I always figured you as more of a Hills person," Evan joked.

"I'm a neither person, honestly," she said, rolling her eyes. "It's an  - old friend. He's kind of -"

"Obnoxious?" Evan offered helpfully.

"That is a word, yes," she nodded, a hint of a smile on her face. "Listen, maybe next week or something. I can call you. I'm - I don't really want to be around anyone right now," she said. It was entirely because of Bacchus, because she didn't need his sidebar commentary as a third invisible wheel in her discussions. Oh, he'd talk shit when she was on the phone, but that was easy to filter out.

"Well, around almost anyone," Evan said. "Really, it's fine. Next week." He paused. "It's good to see you."

"You too," she said. She felt like she should give him a goodbye hug or something, but they just stood there, and then she nodded. "I'm gonna go in. It's cold. I'll see you." And she opened the door behind her, backing through it.

Bacchus was right on the other side of it, having gotten up to wait for her, and scared the shit out of her when she backed into him. He didn't move, though, forcing her to side-step him. Maybe that voracious hunger wasn't back, but it didn't mean that he didn't find himself craving things like a simple touch. If he got his fix from forcing her to bump into him, so be it. He wasn't too proud.

"What the fuck," she spat, maneuvering around him. "Why are you always up in my shit?!"

"Be-cause I'm a fucking ghost or whatever and I yearn for the warmth of human contact?" he asked sarcastically, his expression mirroring it. He followed her back in the living room. "So, your boytoy out there could hear me," he said, after she sat back down but had addressed nothing.

"Yeah," she said. "I was there."

"Do you think there's a reason why, maybe?" he pushed.

Aurora sighed. "Because he's a fucking magical creature? I don't know, dude. Can we just watch this stupid show?"

And now, of course, she was avoiding it. Man, she had problems stacked on top of problems. "Aurora, he's a Phoenix. Those things bring life. Do you think you could help a guy out, here?" he asked, standing deliberately in her line of sight.

She made a face and sat up, leaning forward. "Listen. The last time I got some of his magic, I ended up with a ghost vampire stuck to me like a fucking tick. What in the actual fuck makes you think I'd - a - ask for his help and - b - he'd give it?"

Bacchus gave his characteristic lazy shrug. "Men do stupid things for women all the time. It's kind of the story of my life," he added.

"Maybe," she acknowledged. "But I guarantee whatever he'd do would just put you into the void of space forever, or erase you from reality entirely. He's not a fan."

"Oh, and you are?"

"No, but I promise, he's less of one, if that's fucking possible. Listen, we will figure it out, but not through him. Now do you want to watch this stupid show or not?" she asked, holding the remote up pointedly and shaking it. She took his answer as affirmative as he sat back down on the couch, and she changed the channel and tossed the remote onto the coffee table with a loud clatter.

He wasn't watching the show, though. He was thinking. Making a checklist in his head, now that he was aware other people might be able to hear or see him. Who else could have the ability to do that? He bet that voodoo priest would. But there were others, and he'd have to either figure out ways around them or avoid them. None of them were people Aurora should go to talk to, anyways. Well, there might be a few people that probably weren't super power-hungry magical nightmares, but he doubted they'd ever come up. Evan, and Aristide, for now, were on that list.

He stole a glance at Aurora, who, for having talked so much shit about the show, seemed completely invested. It figures, he thought to himself as he settled in. Maybe she had the right idea. Blondes and beaches and bullshit first-world problems seemed like the perfect escape right now.

Aurora was drunk. She hadn't been this drunk in a while, but Bacchus knew something was up when she came home from the store with several bags of goodies from the local liquor store. "Christ," he muttered, sitting on the couch in the living room and trying to ignore her as she sat alone in the kitchen, her back to him, and killed a bottle. She'd offered to pour him a drink, but then laughed when she realized he couldn't, and walked away.

She sat in her chair, quietly mulling over her current glass, holding it with her wrist twisted so that she could still have her chin on her hand, elbow rested against the table. She was deep in thought, despite her her head positively swimming. There were so many things she needed to deal with, and she had no concept of what order to go about it. Her solution, of course, was to get drunk about it, and hope that she'd have some magnificent moment of clarity. It was how she'd come up with the Midnight plan - several bottles of wine and another brilliant mind to help lead the way. But now, sitting alone, her problems just seemed endless. She groaned and set the glass down, stretching and leaning back in the chair a little. Abruptly, her eyes popped open and she righted herself, an expression of shock on her face.

"I've got the spins," she said aloud. She heaved a loud sigh, and then picked up her glass. "Fuck it," she muttered.

After a moment, she turned, scooting her chair loudly so that she could see Bacchus without craning her neck like a fucking owl. "Hey," she called. "What are you doing over there by yourself?"

Bacchus stared at the TV a moment longer, then looked pointedly at her. "Avoiding the trainwreck that is you, right now, sister. Seriously, you've got issues, and they're just radiating off of you. I'm good over here on the limbo couch. Besides, I want to see who the Masked Singer is."

Aurora got up, glass in one hand and bottle in the other, and approached the couch. "It's John Legend, dude. It's always Legend." And she sat down next to him, glass in hand. She emptied it, then shook the ice around, and set it down on the floor for a second next to the bottle. She then turned to him and just stared at him. It was critical at first, but then the expression faded away off her face, and she sort of looked blank.

"What?" Bacchus said. "What? What is your problem, you little weirdo? Are you always like this when you've had more than your limit?" He didn't scoot away from her; there wasn't really a point.

She tilted her head a little. "What's it like?" she asked.

"What is what like?" He glanced back to the TV, but Aurora took the remote and turned it off. He huffed.

"Dying. What's it like? Where do you go when I don't see you?"

"I don't know. I don't think I'm fully dead. I think dying is just nothing, just ceasing to exist. But this, this is some hellish limbo," he confessed. He looked at her, his thick brows furrowed. "And I don't know if I'm stuck here forever or if there's a way to bring me back or push me over to the nothing, but I know that eventually, it will get very, very old seeing you."

She snorted. "I'm a vision," she said, tossing her hair.

"Yeah, a vision of a car crash in slow motion. Listen, I know you killed me, but honey, you need to slow your roll. I suspect if you die, I will also cease to exist, and if we're in our sharing circle right now, I'd rather find a way to be brought back," he told her.

She shook her head, this a totally new thought to her. "Wait, you think if I die, you'll just - " and she made a gesture with her hands that gave the impression he'd just pop out of existence.

He shrugged. "I don't know. But I don't think I'd like to find out. And that Phoenix of yours doesn't seem too keen on the idea of you dying, even if he's raging fucking mad at you, still. Have I told you what a fucking power move that was, by the way? I have to admit, better killed by a worthy adversary than by like, a random hunter while I'm minding my own business."

She smiled, and reached down for her glass. She knocked it over instead, the ice splaying out across the floor. "Whoops," she muttered. She picked up the bottle instead. "Guess I don't really need a glass after all."

"Uh, maybe you should slow down," Bacchus said, holding a hand up. He couldn't really touch the bottle, or take it from her, but still. "You're going to end up dying of alcohol poisoning."

She gave him a Look, and then lifted the bottle, taking a healthy sip. "Don't tell me what to do. You have no power over me."

He gave her a dark look in return, something far more familiar of him than what she'd seen recently. "Put the fucking bottle down," he commanded.

She found that she was compelled to put the bottle down, and then looked at her hand, and then him, mouth agape. "No," she growled. "No, you don't get to do that." She wretched, the feeling of violation running through her body like a dirt that she couldn't wash away. She cringed, crossing her arms tightly and looking down at the couch. "Don't ever fucking do that again," she said slowly.

"I'll be honest and say that I didn't even know I could do that," he admitted. "I don't know if I could even replicate it." His voice was stunned, and a little impressed with himself. "Fuck, the possibilities could be endless," he muttered.

"DON'T," Aurora yelled. She was drunk, which she was aware of, but she felt all of those problems just rushing to the surface, and Evan's words about 'thought you were past wanting to die' kept bouncing around in her head like a fucking 22 caliber bullet. "If you're gonna try and use me like some creepy wind up doll, then just fucking kill me," she snapped.

"What?" Bacchus said. Where the fuck did that come from. "We just discussed you not dying," he reminded her.

"No, no," she said, and she straightend out, then scooted towards him. "Bite me again. Undo it."

Bacchus looked incredibly confused, but he didn't scoot away from her, yet. "It doesn't work like that," he informed her, holding his hands up. "You need to go walk this off or something. You are beyond trashed now."

She fixed her stare on him, eyeing him critiacally again. "But if you could, would you?"

"Would I what? Undo it? I'd undo my entire demise, you're goddamn right," he spat. "We're not twinsies just because we both got the last blow in a fight to the death, you know."

"No," she said, though she did snort at his exposition. She would never consider them that close. "Would you bite me agian?"

Bacchus stood up. "Alright, well, that's my cue," he said loudly. He tried to pick up the vodka bottle, swearing when his hand went through it. Of fucking course it did, he thought to himself. At any rate, he was absolutely not about to get into this violent and somehow strangely sexual territory with the girl who had murdered him as revenge for him "ruining her life" or whatever. Whatever was happening, it was all because this stupid human had drank her goddamn weight in alcohol and was saying whatever inflammatory thing she could to try and - get a reaction out of him? He honestly didn't know. Truth be told, him not being able to do anything about it probably motivated the shit out of her. Bully for him.

"You probably couldn't manage anyways," she said to herself. "We just keep getting away from you. Somehow, we always just slip away," she said. She was referencing Fawn, Jillian, and now herself. She shook her head, closing her eyes for a moment. They popped open when she felt something on her, and realized that she was looking right into Bacchus' dark brown eyes - and they were angry.

"Gentle reminder, Rory, that you didn't get away from anything. You don't have me, I have you, don't confuse what's happening here." He had pinned her to the couch, though he wasn't hurting her at all - if someone were to walk in, they'd have thought something very different was happening. He had his hand at her throat, gently, just as he'd said, and his fingers lightly brushed over the bite that was still healing. She was frozen under him, and he could feel that her breath had caught in her throat.

He was off of her, just as quickly as it happened, and she un-froze, leaping off of the couch - jumping over the back of it, in fact, and hitting the floor like she were ducking from a grenade blast. She popped up, suddenly very fucking sober, and backed against the wall, holding an angry finger up to point at him. She couldn't even speak, she was so fried.

To be fair, Bacchus also looked pretty surprised. "I didn't know I could do that, either" he said, his voice betraying his amazement. He looked down at his hands, then back up to her. "Holy shit, I can touch you."

"Stay the FUCK away from me," she screamed, suddenly able to move again. She raced around behind the couches, taking the long way around the living room and escaping into the bathroom.

"Really wish I FUCKING COULD!" he yelled back as she slammed the door.

Aurora sat outside Stav's office, slumped back in her chair with her right leg bouncing. She had her arms crossed, and her eyes stared straight ahead. I feel like I'm back in high school, she thought to herself. She was trying to temper down how she felt about all this, knowing that Stavros would sense it and it could sway his judgment. He'd been in there a while. Connor was in there, too. So was Evan. So was Irulan. She could hear their voices inside, but couldn't listen in unless she strained, or got up, and she was willing to do neither.

Across from her, another blonde girl sat, and though she wasn't outwardly projecting her nerves through fidgeting, it was clear the way that she "read" a book by just flipping pages to look like she was being productive that she wasn't able to concentrate any better.

"What are you in trouble for?" Aurora asked.  She didn't immediately recognize her, and Bacchus, seated in the chair next to her, leaned in to whisper.

"That girl looks like she's about to quit," he said, staring at Lily as he spoke. He looked back to Aurora, whose eyes were wide. "Oh, sorry - did I not explain this super clearly last night? Yeah, I bit you right before you crushed my heart - which, by the way, seems like your specialty," he added, "and uh, yeah. You're stuck with me now."

She turned her head slowly to stare at him, lips pursed - obviously, she wasn't going to answer him. She was still trying to figure out if he was a hallucination or not.

"Oh, don't worry, I can talk all day," he said, stretching in the chair. "I like that you're already questioning your sanity, though. I'm definitely here, it's just that only you can see me, my little devotee," he said with a smile. "That's the price you pay for killing me right after I sank my teeth into you. By the way," he said, tilting his head to look at the bandage covering her neck, "that looks rough. Have you been cleaning it properly? Maybe you should get Victor to look at it."

She looked away from him and back to the girl. She recognized her as Lilyana, but she'd been a transfer from Onyx. Probably where she was headed, if they didn't sequester her to Frost - or cut her altogether. She shifted in her chair, glancing back towards the door again. What was taking so long? Just fucking figure it out.

"I set up an appointment to talk to them, that's all," Lilyana said, answering Aurora's question. "You?"

Aurora let out a noise that sounded like a laugh, but not quite. "I took a side job and did a lot of damage," she said, and it was honestly the truth.

"Don't forget to tell her you killed an ancient. That seems to be your claim to fame," Bacchus reminded her.

"Would you shut up?" Aurora snapped.

"What?" Lily said, stunned.

"Sorry, my fucking phone keeps going off. Apparently when you're in the principal's office, all your friends want to know the deets," she said, holding her phone up.

"Nice save," Bacchus said. "Let's see how many more times you can do that before you start looking crazy." He got up, and walked over to where Lily was, taking a seat next to her. He grinned as Aurora stared at him. He could see that she didn't know whether to be angry or horrified. "Why do you think she's going to talk to them?" he asked, looking at her. "I still think she's quitting. I bet she's pregnant or something. She looks like the type that would get knocked up and quit. Pretty hunters never last long." He paused, then looked back at Aurora. "Except for you, of course. But I don't know if I'd call this 'lasting'."

Aurora tried to ignore him, but she had to admit, the girl did look nervous. "If you made an appointment, why do you look like you want to dig a hole and hide in it?" she pressed. Hey, she had nothing to lose, now. The longer this took, the more likely it was that she was getting the axe.

Lilyana set her book down. She didn't speak for a minute, staring at the ground, and then looked back up at Aurora. "Did you ever want something else out of life? I just don't know if this is for me anymore. My life is changing, and hunting is a large part of it. Too large. It occupies space that I need for other things. So," she said, taking a shaky breath, "I'm probably putting in for my terminal leave."

Bacchus laughed. "I knew it!" he shouted. "This bitch is pregnant!"

As much as he was pissing her off, Aurora found herself thinking he might be right. "Can't relate," was all she said. Good. Quit. Go 'occupy space' as a housewife or whatever. Maybe they won't fire me if they're short people, she thought selfishly.

The door to the office opened and Aurora sat up, turning to see who was coming out. When she saw it was Evan, she felt anger. She stood up, and Bacchus stood, too, coming to stand just at her side. "Hey!" she snapped, yelling at his back. It figures he'd try to bail without even so much as looking at her. "What the fuck were you in there telling them?" she demanded.

"The truth, Aurora," he snapped. He didn't stop moving, either - it was abundantly clear that he was still in his feelings about what had happened.

"That's your man?" Bacchus asked. "I thought he'd be taller."

"Not everyone can be as tall as you," she snapped.

"Aurora," Stavros said. He didn't yell it, he just said it, and that was enough to stop her from following Evan. ThE TrUtH. What version of the truth, she wondered. She spun on her heel and went into the office, not even bothering to shut the door behind her. They'd either get it or they wouldn't; she didn't particularly care who heard what she'd done. She didn't feel it was anything to catch a reprimand for, still. Bacchus followed her in, because of course he did.

"Jesus Christ, what is this, a gangbang?" he asked, looking around the room. "Three against one? Oh, you're definitely getting fired, Rory. They brought the shrink," he said, gesturing to Irulan.

She ignored Bacchus, sitting down in the chair as she was directed. He continued to walk around the room giving commentary, but she tuned him out as she would a gnat for the moment - despite some of the things he'd said being pretty on point.

"So, Aurora, you know why you're here, right?" Connor asked.

"Because I took a side job, infiltrated Midnight, and killed an Ancient," she replied bluntly.

"That is why you're here, partially, but it's more because of the things you did to achieve it," Connor said, sitting forward. "Aurora, it's a great accomplishment, but it could have come at the expense of your life - and you used your partner."

She looked at Stav, brows arched. Was he actually on board with this "almost died" bullshit? She looked back at Connor. "Ah, look - I get that Evan's mad about whatever he thinks I did or didn't do on his end, but you're seriously sitting here telling me that I'm on the chopping block because I risked my life for a job? Connor, when's the last time you were out on a hunt? We risk our lives every time we go. What fucking reality are you guys in?"

"Get him," Bacchus hissed, suddenly leaning over her shoulder.

Connor opened his mouth, probably to put Aurora in check, but Irulan held her hand up. "Alright," she said, cutting him off before he started in. "Alright, listen. Nobody in this room is minimizing your accomplishment. You are the first hunter to successfully target, track, and kill one of the Ancients. But because you went through backchannels to accomplish it, it displays a level of recklessness that I know you've been dinged for in the past." She stopped for a moment, trying to gather her thoughts, and then she came from behind Connor's desk and sat on the front of it, off to the side so she wasn't blocking him.

"Aurora, I promise, I understand the need for closure. I was tortured, and lost most of my family the same night that your friend was killed," she told her gently. "I get it." There was something dark in her eyes, something darker than they were, when she spoke about what had happened. It actually gave Connor and Stavros a little shock, because she never discussed it.

"But," Aurora prompted her. She was listening, though.

"But," Irulan agreed. "And honestly, suspend the idea that we're upset about your risking your own life, because I'm not in accord there. What you did do, though, is risk an incredibly rare and valuable asset - who, yes, also happens to be your partner. Relationship aside, Aurora - whatever you did or didn't do to him physically or emotionally, you did reveal his presence, and nature, to two Ancients in Midnight. And that puts him at a grave risk. He may have to relocate entire, or go into hiding again."

Aurora was quiet. She really didn't have any room to stand, and she knew it. "Iloquil already knew what he was," she said, though it wasn't in defense of her actions. More like, she needed to clarify something. "She asked me if I wanted to know how she got her fire." She stopped, realizing that all of them, including Bacchus were waiting for her to continue. "She just - trust me, she already knew." She sighed. No sense in divulging those details, since they weren't pertinent. And since she didn't know just what she was allowed to even repeat from their conversation. Didn't need to have more ancients trying to splatter her.

"It doesn't matter if she already knew," Irulan said. "You were taken, so that's every creature that saw you on the way in, and then every creature who saw you before you got directly to the top. It's too many eyes, and we can't verify who actually knew what it was, and who thought you were just some weird brand of shapeshifter. You're not in trouble because of your accolades. You're in trouble because you lost us an asset."

Irulan had a feeling that Connor's attempt to appeal to her emotional side wasn't going to work right now, and she was right. Speaking from her own experience, Irulan had become very pragmatic after everything that had happened. Attempting to make her feel bad for things just didn't impact her, and actually only seemed to make her mad. Telling her that she was messing with the logical nature of things, though, that made sense to her, it was something she could see and understand. She was so emotionally stunted after repeated traumas that it took a long time to get back to normal. And she could see that Aurora had regressed a little from the experience, despite defeating the so called monster under her bed. Sometimes, even if you killed them, they'd still remain in your head. It was the worst part about revenge.

"Shit," Aurora hissed. She looked at Connor. "So, I'm done then?"

Connor sighed. "No," he said. "Trust me, I wasn't on board with that, either. I'm incredibly disappointed in you, Aurora. You are better than this. I know you are," he said, and he didn't care if she wasn't receptive to it at the moment, because he needed to say it. Keeping faith in his hunters was part of the gig of leadership, and eventually, she would come back to it, and it was important that she knew it. "You have every ability to excel in this profession. But right now, you need some time off. You're on admin leave for the next two months."

"Are you serious?" she asked, her eyes as wide as saucers.

"As a fucking heart attack," Stavros said. "And in that time, you will see Irulan on a weekly basis. You need to get your head put back together, girl," he warned her. "I trained you, and no student of mine is going to do the things that you have done. Evan is an old, trusted friend, and when you cut into him, you cut into me."

"So this is personal?" she asked, unable to stop herself. It didn't help that Bacchus was egging her on from the sidelines - when he wasn't touching shit in Connor's office, that is.

"It is absolutely personal, Aurora," Stavros said. "Like Irulan said - you lost us a valuable asset, and you wounded a personal acquaintance in the process. If you'd have just asked me for help, I could have helped you. You could have skipped the whole process."

She stood up. "I doubt that if I'd have told you I wanted to get taken into Midnight, you seriously would have helped me," she said, rolling her eyes.

"Yes, Aurora, I would have," Stav snapped back. "That you are my student and demonstrate so little knowledge of my abilities as a hunter and a trainer shows how far you've degraded yourself. I sincerely hope the time off and the time with Irulan will be well-spent in returning you back to fully operational." He looked at her, and it wasn't a nice look. "Dismissed."

Aurora left, hands up as she did so. She paused at the door, turning to look into the office. "Hey Batten, I think your next hunter is pregnant. Why don't you try the appeal to good nature with her, instead? Might be more effective." She saw that he spit out the water he'd just taken a sip of, and grinned to them all before turning and walking off, leaving Lily staring at her in abject horror as she did so.

As she walked down the hallway, Bacchus hurried to catch up to her. "God damn!" he hooted. "Rory, I didn't know you had it in you! Fuck, I'm a little turned on right now by how that went. Never back down from a fight, do you? Oh man, I can't wait to spend the rest of my limbo life with you."

"Quit calling me Rory, you fucking reptile. It's Aurora," she growled. "And as soon as I figure out a way to banish you back to whatever shadow realm you came from, I'll be a much more perky girl."

"Oh, no," he sang, wrapping an arm around her aggressively. "We're best friends forever."

We'll fuckin' see about that, she thought to herself, cringing under his grasp as they walked towards the parking garage.

Being Bambi sucked sometimes. Her ability came and went, and there was no way to turn it off completely. Sometimes, she could feel a vision coming on, and she could break away from the situation before it hit her, but she didn't like to do that, because the whole point of having visions was to have them, right? At any rate, it happened at bad times on rare occasion, but really it had never done anything so severe as what occurred to her that night.

The problem with it being connected to physical touch, of course, was that it made touch complicated. And Bambi didn't need anything more complicated than it already was. Fortunately, she'd been with Leon for long enough that her ability had sort of learned to "mute" him, as it were. She touched him almost every day; there was no way for her to get visions that much, not unless she were to just get a live feed of him eating lunch and arguing with Judge Judy during his mid-afternoon break from the office. As laughable as that would be, the visions only served to tell her things, or more importantly to warn her, so that she could in turn warn the subject - or not, as had been a few cases before she'd met him.

Since she hadn't had any visions in a while, she felt pretty comfortable, and they fell into a routine. Bambi sometimes slept in the guest room when she felt jittery, something she felt incredibly bad about, regardless of how much she didn't express that. She hated to leave him alone at night. It was so stupid, that she felt protective of him, but the man needed it. It seemed like he'd spent a large chunk of his life protecting others, which had landed him in this massive, magical mess, and now it was up to Bambi to protect him.

Except Bambi was just one witch, with a stupid precognitive ability based on intimate contact, and she couldn't even control her pet goat. Speaking of the goat, Black Phillip - so affectionately named after the goat in VVITCH - was awake, and standing at the edge of the guest bed, staring at her. She stared back at him in the darkness, and the two of them stayed like that for a while. Edward always called it "mind melding", but really, Bambi just thought it was a staring contest with the goat - and sometimes, when she did, she would space out a little, and she would come out of it with a sense of something she needed to do. Right now, she felt very strongly like she needed to go back into the master bedroom.

"Really?" she whispered to the goat. "But you hate Leon," she said.

The goat just bit into a piece of the blanket and began trying to chew on it, which earned him a swat from Bambi on her way out.

"No," she hissed. "Go back downstairs if you can't behave," she commanded. When he didn't move, she narrowed her eyes. "Go, or I'll take you down myself and put the baby gate up."

At that, the goat turned and left, and if an animal could walk with righteous indignation, it would have been that fucking goat, right then. Bambi rolled her eyes, glad that nobody had been there to witness it. What a unique, and strange, familiar her father had given her. Irulan hadn't gotten one yet, but Bambi had helpfully suggested a white goose, and Mikhail had been tickled at the idea. She shook her head as she walked down the hall, pushing the door open into the shared bedroom Bambi and Leon had.

Leon was out of the blankets, sprawled across her side of the bed, which made her smile - but he was twitching in his sleep, which immediately wiped the smile from her face.

"Stop," she heard him say. He rolled over quickly, drawing an arm up. "Stop!" he said again.

"Oh, shit," Bambi muttered. Night terrors. She rolled her eyes, feeling guilt welling up in her chest. He so rarely had them when she was around, and since he hadn't mentioned them in so long, Bambi had stupidly assumed they'd stopped. She crossed the room, crawling into bed with him, and very, very carefully, placed her hand on his shoulder, stroking it lightly.

"Leon," she whispered. "Wake up, you're dreaming." She put just a little honey on her voice, giving it that magical push to try and get to him through whatever was clouding his brain. Bambi's magic didn't often work on Leon directly due to his encapsulated power, but she'd found that her candied up voice sometimes proved influential. She could try, it wouldn't hurt, right?

He stirred in his sleep, and she said his name again, this time a little more loudly. She still didn't want to shake him - that's how she fucking got hit last time. He'd never stop apologizing for it, and she wasn't mad about it, but boy when Edward had showed up to work that morning and saw her, he wanted answers immediately.

"Wake. Up." There was no more sugar in her voice; now she was speaking at normal tone, firmly. "You are dreaming. Wake up."

Finally, it worked, and she jumped back as he swung, just like she fucking knew he would. He sat bolt upright in the process, and then immediately put his hands to his head. "Fuck," he breathed. "Fucking fuck." It took him a minute to realize Bambi was there, and then he reached out, grabbing her and pulling her closer. "I'm sorry," he said, resting his head on her shoulder. "Didn't hit you, did I?"

"That's amateur shit," she told him with a smile. "I learned to move." She kissed him lightly, realizing that he had been sweating, and raised a hand to touch his hair. "Jesus, what were you dreaming about?" she asked, wiping it on his arm.

He laughed, then pulled away, turning and standing up so that he could go to the bathroom and splash some water on his face. "It was - I don't know," he said finally, drying his hands on the towel. He felt a little better, but if we're keeping track, he still felt overall like hammered shit. He didn't want to tell Bambi about his dream, honestly; he knew keeping shit from his loved ones wasn't the best idea, but at the same time, he just didn't want to feel all the feelings it made him feel. He climbed back into bed. "Are you going to stay?" he asked, looking at her. Something in his face said he wanted her to, even if he was always open to her choices.

"Yeah, of course," Bambi said, a look on her face that said that she'd never considered an alternative. "Come here." She held her arms out to him, and he scooted over to her, enjoying the feeling of her embrace. Also, his face was pressed into her chest, which was a fucking win as far as he was concerned. He pulled away after a few blissful moments, straightening back out. Bambi stared at him for a long moment, admittedly lost in his dark brown eyes. She thought of nothing, but felt that tug from before - that need she'd had to go to him. Wordlessly, she leaned forward, and began kissing him.

Not so long after, clothing was discarded. Rolling around like weasels was always a good way to cheer someone up after incredibly violent and detailed night terrors that they repressed, so it was no surprise that the energy level was fairly high. Unfortunately for Bambi, as she lost herself in his eyes again, on the verge of ecstasy, a vision ripped through her, and her gasps became less of pleasure and more of fear. Leon, though, realized immediately what was happening, despite it not having happened in a long time, but she had gripped him so tightly that he almost couldn't sit up.

It wasn't until her fucking eyes rolled into the back of her head that she let go of his arms, and he was able to sit up, not really throwing her off of him, but getting out from under her and kneeling next to her as she sort of fell into a ball on the bed. "Bambi, Bambi, come back," he coaxed. Fucking Christ, this was a long one.

She began to cough, like she'd been holding her breath for too long, and he gently patted her back, offering her some of the blanket as she came back into the present. "Fuck," she hissed, accepting it shakily. She jerked her hand away from his, though, and shifted so that he couldn't reach her back anymore. He held his hands up to show that he wasn't going to try and touch her any further, and she took a few moments to get her bearings.

During that time, Leon got up and got her water. When he brought it back, she was sitting up, her chemise back on, and she was staring intently at the carpet. "Here," he said, holding it out. "How do you feel?" His voice was laden with genuine concern; he didn't know if he loved her or if he was just so attached to her. He didn't know if love was a good word, considering he didn't really know what love was, if his past was to be understood in clarity. The word was so tainted to him now, but he knew that he cared about her, that was certain.

She was quiet for a while, and then looked at him. She looked like she was in physical pain for a moment, shaking her head as she remembered the scattered pieces she saw. She could only see them as non-linear, past/present/future all colliding on top of one another, and it hurt her fucking head.  "Who the fuck is Cassandra?" she asked, her voice stressed and betraying her fatigue.

The glass of water slipped from his hand and fell to the floor.

"Come out, it can't be that bad," Bambi called. She was seated on a soft grey couch in the back of a clothing store, though seated didn't really describe it so much as she was draped across her best friend Reese. She had her feet over the arm, and was sprawled across both cushions, a pillow beneath her head that was nestled on Reese's thigh. Reese was angled the same way she was, and he was tossing trail mix into Bambi's mouth every so often. So far, she was catching most of it.

"Did you pick this out?" Leon's voice said from behind the curtain. "I'm not wearing this." He stood in the spacious dressing room, staring at himself in the mirror. He looked fucking ridiculous. "What is this even supposed to be?" he demanded.

"Haven't you ever seen the Three Musketeers?" Reese asked, popping some M&M's into his mouth. It was the only part of the trail mix he cared about; Bambi could enjoy all the raisins and nuts she wanted.

"Yeah, when I was a kid," Leon said. "They didn't dress like this."

"No, the new one. Look, just come out so I can see you!" Bambi snapped.

Leon heaved a sigh, and then drew back the curtain.

"Wow," Reese said. "That is a lot of gold brocade."

"Ohhhh my gooooood," Bambi breathed, sitting up. "Leon, you look - "

"Fucking ridiculous," he spat. "What are these, bloomers?" He turned around, gesturing to the turquoise blue fabric of the pants. "The only thing I like about this is that it comes with a cape." At that, he tossed the gold sheet around, striking a pose for a second, and then reverting back to his irritated stance. "Bambi, if I dress up like this, you are dressing up like Lady DeWinter."

Reese snorted, and Bambi swatted a hand back idly as she laid back down, missing him entirely, but succeeding in smacking the trail mix bag. "No, I've already got my costume," she informed him. "It's you that's been entirely frustrating about this whole ordeal."

"I don't see why I can't just go as like, Bucky Barnes or something," Leon said. "You'd think you'd jump at the chance to put black eyeshadow all over my face."

"You really think you're Bucky Barnes material?" Reese shot, arching a brow. He abandoned the trail mix, laying a hand down on Bambi's midsection casually. "Please. You're more like angsty Batman. You practically scream DC to me with your broody eyes and secrets," Reese said, raising his other hand to wiggle his fingers as he spoke.

Leon huffed. "Well, I'm out of ideas."

"How are you guys doing back here?" Roxy asked, interrupting them. "Oh - wow, that is... that is something," she said, looking at Leon.

"See?" he shouted, jerking his hand to point at her. "Even the girl who runs the store thinks it's stupid!"

"No, no," she said, though she was on the verge of laughing and was absolutely not convincing them at all. "I just, uh, hm - I don't think being swathed entirely in gold and blue is your colour story," she said tactfully. "I like the throwback to another era, but this is way too much fashion for you. No, what we need is..." she put a finger to her chin, thinking. "Hey Whit, can you come here for a sec?"

A second redhead emerged. "What's up? Hey, Draco, hit me," she said, turning to Reese and opening her mouth.

Reese rolled a blue M&M around in his fingertips, sizing Whitney up. "With pleasure," he said suavely, and tossed the candy to her. She caught it expertly, and gave him a wink. Reese and Bambi exchanged glances, grinning to eachother. Sometimes, he missed his twin in crime, but sometimes, not sharing was okay, too.

"What are you thinking for tall, dark and smoldering here?" Roxy asked, approaching Leon and slowly circling him.

"Ooh, something fantasy-medieval-ish, but not Orlando of Buckingham," she said, gesturing to the outfit he wore. "What about..." She trailed off, walking to a massive rack of costumes, and began digging. She pulled out a simple white linen shirt and a pair of black leather breeches. "Can you grab me the boots for this?" she asked, looking over her shoulder at her sister, who nodded and vanished into the stock room.

"Once your done trying to get your way out of that golden maze, try this," Whitney said, handing him the clothing.

"What is it supposed to be?" Leon asked, suspicious.

"You'll see," Whitney told him, raising her brows. Roxy reappeared, and she took the boots and handed them to him as well. "Quickly, now, we're closing soon."

Leon disappeared, mumbling things that they couldn't hear but were surely not positive. He was happy, at least, to strip out of that fancy bullshit they'd convinced him to try on. Why had he let Bambi and Reese drag him here? He should have lied and said he had to work for the Halloween party, but Bambi was looking forward to it so much. He was incredibly suspicious of what she was going to be, too. Knowing her, she'd take one of her brews and just shapeshift into something, which he would consider cheating, and he would 100% inform the costume contest people of.

He pulled on the top and bottoms, and sat down to tug the boots up. He glanced quickly in the mirror, pausing for a moment. Why did he look familiar? He looked like a character out of something he'd seen recently, but he couldn't put his finger on it. Slowly, he brushed his hair out of his eyes, staring at himself critically. He needed a haircut, that was for sure. But, moreover, he looked tired. Like, tired tired. It wasn't that he wasn't getting enough sleep, either - it was this magic in him. He felt like it was going to eat him from the inside out at times like this.

"Babe, come on!" Bambi yelled.

When he came back from out of the curtain, Bambi and Reese were both sitting up, with Whitney between them. Christ, he thought to himself. When he had been more adventurous... He rolled his eyes, dismissing the thought. "What do you think?" he asked.

"What are you supposed to be?" Bambi asked, genuine confusion on her face. "You look so familiar."

Reese snapped his fingers, sitting forward suddenly. "Prince Caspian!" he shouted.

"Winner, winner, chicken dinner!" Whitney said, slapping his leg. Her hand lingered a moment, which Reese positively did not miss. "What do you think? It's fantasy, but not glitter and gold."

Leon shrugged. "I like it," he said honestly. "It's simple. It's just like, three things. I could probably find a sword or something to accessorize, but - you don't think people will ask what I am all night?"

"No, I think they'll know," Bambi said, a tone to her voice he didn't trust.

"Bambi, what are you going as?" Leon asked, for the hundredth time.

"Weeeeeell," she began.

"Oh, for fuck sake, you two lovebirds kill me," Reese interjected. "She's going as the White Witch."

Whitney clapped her hands, and jumped off the couch. "Okay, so one Prince Caspian costume, coming right up! Bambi, you already got everything you needed from us earlier this week, right?" she asked, lingering at the entrance of the dressing room. When Bambi nodded, Whitney gave them a little wave, and went to go ring everything up.

"You were gonna go as the fucking White Witch and you were actually going to let me dress up like Buckingbloom?" Leon asked as they stood at the counter to checkout.

"No!" Bambi said. "No, I just... really wanted to see what you'd look like in all that silly royal frippery," she admitted. "Can you blame me?"

"A little," he said hotly. When she leaned over to give him a kiss on the cheek, he smiled. "A little less, then."

"Oh? How do I get the blame meter down to not at all?" she asked, nuzzling his neck a little.

"Aw, that's so cute," Roxy said, interrupting them as she read off Leon's total. "You guys are gonna have a great time at your party, I can feel it," she said, which gave Leon a slight pause. He looked at Roxy as she ran his card and handed it, and his bag, back to him, and inwardly grimaced. That was a fucking Fae if he'd ever seen one. Aloud, he said, "Thanks so much, you two, have a good night," and headed for the door.

"Damn," Reese said as soon as they got outside. "Those sisters? I'm getting crazy energy spikes off of them."

"Yeah," Leon said dryly. "Fucking Fae."

Bambi perked up. "Really? I didn't even realize," she muttered.

"Let's be real, Blake, when Leon's around, you don't realize anything outside of his sphere," Reese japed, opening the door of the car and sliding in.

"That's not fair," Bambi snapped. "You'd only realize his sphere too if you know how bi-"

"Bambi," Leon warned.

"How bright it is," she corrected herself.

"Right," Reese said. "Anyways, I got their number, so, it wasn't a total bust. That and seeing Leon in those fancy digs. Dude, you gotta dress like that at least once a month. Do it like, the first Monday of every month."

Leon rolled his eyes, but Bambi only picked up on Reese's energy and the two of them gabbed at him mercilessly the entire way home.