How to be Badass (2nd Draft)

Dustin supposed that he should have known from the moment he went home with Allen for the first time that he was bound to never truly escape from his past.

When he had left the demon realm for the last time, it had been in fear, and with the intention of leaving behind demons and their wrongdoings behind forever. Of course, the world was never going to be so gentle to you. It kept on hammering until the lesson stuck. And so, Allen had found him, and Dustin had found Allen, and even though he had distanced himself from the world he had left, he was still irrevocably connected to it. The tide was out, but he was still standing in the ocean.

Now the tide was coming back in, and Dustin had to make the decision to walk out to greet it. Sparrow helped, without knowing it; Sparrow was kind, and insightful. She made him feel less like he was flying into what he’d been trying to run away from and more like he was calmly going to meet it and tell it to go to hell.

Granted, he’d only known her for some hours, and he didn’t have many other people on which to base his perception, but she seemed genuine, wise, and up-beat. When he asked what had happened with Allen, she told him that they had found him in one of his bouts of possession and had taken him into custody. They had reason to believe that he was involved in a pattern they’d been observing for many years.

Dustin had a suspicion that he knew what that pattern was.

It wasn’t his story to tell, though.

“I thought all the demonslayers had been wiped out a couple decades ago,” Dustin said, at some point. His curiosity had been eating him, but he was worried it might be a sore spot, considering they were those who had been wiped out and he was of those who had done the wiping. Sparrow seemed easy-going enough, though.

“That’s not wrong,” Sparrow said. “Those were the old guilds. These days it’s just the six of us, and only our leader was actually trained in the original guilds. The rest of us got pulled in by her afterwards.”

“Oh,” said Dustin. “So she’s… the only survivor?”

“The only known survivor,” Sparrow corrected, “though I suppose it all amounts to the same thing. We don’t have anyone else to rely on, or communicate with.”

Dustin nodded. “I mean, if she got out it stands to reason that some others would be too.”

“I agree, but Mimi has a lot of survivor’s guilt,” Sparrow said. “She desperately wants there to be survivors, and at the same time hopes there isn’t because she’s given up on them.” After a pause she added, “Don’t talk to her about any of this stuff. It’s not something she likes to think about. She gets grumpy.”

Dustin thought that was reasonable. It wasn’t, after all, a pleasant thing to remember. She’d likely lost family as well as friends, and likely twice in a row with the attack on the area guilds to cripple them and then the master guilds to finish them off. Oh, and her entire culture and way of living. That, too.

When they got to the house—an old, quaint building that looked like it had originally been a real fixer-upper. Upon examining the porch, which was rotting, and the wooden front siding, which was faded and peeling, he decided it might still be a little bit of a fixer-upper, but still, quaint.

“Hop the first and last step,” Sparrow advised as she shut the door to the car and locked it. “We’re not really sure they’re going to hold up much longer and I’d hate for that to be your first impression.”

Dustin smiled and followed her up the steps, avoiding the first and last step which indeed looked like they were ready to give in to the light at the end of the tunnel. They looked like they’d originally been some shade of green, but there wasn’t much of that left.

Inside the front door opened up into a small mudroom/entrance hall, and then went up a step into what looked like the rest of the bottom floor plan, but it was all one room. There were so many blankets—Dustin was instantly endeared. It was so cozy and there was a big, rustic fireplace in the right wall.

“I left Allen on the couch,” Sparrow said.

There were a lot of couches, but Dustin figured out which one she meant. When Allen saw Dustin his face flooded with relief.

“Dustin?”

Dustin stopped on his way over to Allen to turn back to Sparrow. “Be careful with the others. I am probably the most open-minded out of us, in regards to your demonic side. I’ll bring them round as best I can, but just… be aware.”

Dustin grimaced, and nodded. It might have been too much to hope that everyone would be as lovely as Sparrow.

Allen’s face lit up when he saw that Dustin had his saxophone. “Thank you,” he said, pulling it onto his lap gratefully.

“Yeah, of course,” Dustin said. “So this is wild.”

Allen rolled his eyes. “Yah.”

“How do you feel about it?”

Allen lifted one shoulder non-commitally and said quietly, “I’m… having a lot of trouble with it honestly.”

Dustin nodded and sat down beside Allen on the couch. Allen shifted so that he was sideways, feet on Dustin’s lap and head at the edge of the couch. “I am, too,” Dustin admitted. “Objectively I think it’s a good thing, but I’m a little bit scared of six armed women who’s purpose is to kill my kind.”

“I’m sorry,” Allen said, looking up at the ceiling. “I thought about not telling them where you were but…”

“It’s fine,” Dustin said, shaking his head. He started picking at the lint on one of Allen’s socks. “I’d rather know what’s going on with you and know you’re safe than be left in the dark for my own good or whatever.”

That was true, but it was still a sacrifice. Dustin knew he’d be able to defend himself if he wanted to, but he wasn’t sure he wanted to. There was a reason he hadn’t even tried to use his power since he’d had to when he permanently moved to the human world. Magic behaved differently here. It was more potent in a world starved of it, seeping into the atmosphere and spreading like oil over water. Thin, noxious, deadly. He tightened his lips and focused harder on the pilling on Allen’s socks.

“I won’t let them hurt you,” Allen said. When Dustin looked up at him, his eyebrows were low over his eyes. Determination, strength. Allen wore his eyebrows like a shield. Dustin wished Allen would believe in his own strength.

Dustin’s lips quirked up. “Thanks, man,” he said.

Allen shrugged sheepishly. “It’s my fault you’re here to begin with.”

“I think this is good,” Dustin repeated. “It might be different and scary but you couldn’t stay living the way you were forever.”

“Couldn’t I?” Allen said, eyebrows still very low.

“It was tearing you apart,” Dustin said, voice more earnest than it usually was. “It wasn’t sustainable for you. Emotionally, I mean.”

If Dustin had known there were still demonslayers still he would have found them for Allen. They were the only ones who had any chance of helping him.

Allen didn’t say anything, and Dustin didn’t press him. Sometimes it took time for Allen to organize his thoughts into words. He was much more tumultuous than Dustin was. Eventually, he said, slowly, “I don’t know. I’m really scared. I’m scared for my mom. I’m scared for me. I’m scared for the people I might kill when they can possess me whenever they want… Once they know the deal’s broken, they don’t have to play by the rules anymore.”

Dustin couldn’t hear the panic in his voice, but he could see it in his body language. His eyebrows went down, down, and his fingers were tracing circles around his wrist bone.

“You won’t know if they can help until you tell them the full story. Have you done that yet?”

Allen shook his head. “I panic when I try. I’m sort of panicking again right now.”

Dustin stroked Allen’s leg absently. “What about it makes you panic?”

Dustin let Allen struggle for words again, waiting. He didn’t know much about Allen’s early years with his… condition, but he did know about the later ones.

“It’s… all muddled. I know what I do is awful, I mean you’ve heard me complain about it enough, but it’s for my mom, and my dad—it sounds stupid but my dad scares me. I don’t want to disappoint him. Even though I hate what he’s done, I don’t want—”

He broke off. “Okay,” Dustin said softly. He could see tears in Allen’s eyes again, and Dustin felt bad for asking. “Do you want me to tell them? I don’t know the full story but I know enough, I think.”

Allen shook his head stubbornly. “I should be able to tell them. If I’m going to betray my family then I’m doing it. I’m going to get around this.”

“Making the decision to tell them is a big step, you know,” Dustin said. “You know what you have to do, even if it’s hard. And you made the hard decision, which means you’re strong.”

Allen snorted. “Yeah, right. I’ve been murdering people for years, and I have the right to throwing a hissy fit when someone asks me to explain why.”

Dustin frowned. “Hey now, first off a panic attack is not a hissy fit. One is a genuine reaction and the other is a bratty kid who doesn’t want to eat his veggies.”

Allen snorted again. “But dad, I don’t want to murder people this week.”

Dustin let out a single chuckle. Inevitably, living a life like Allen’s fostered a dark sense of humour. “Hey, think about it, this week you probably won’t, eh?”

Allen smiled grudgingly. “It doesn’t seem… real.”

“Think anyone could give us a tour of the house?” Dustin asked.

“I don’t know, where did… the lady who brought you go?”

“Sparrow? I’m not sure. I was more worried about you.”

“Cheese,” Allen said. “You lost our guide.”

The front door opened, and Dustin and Allen both tensed as they turned towards it. Allen swallowed. Dustin’s hand stilled on Allen’s foot.

The woman who came in was small, latina, and she had a smear of what looked like paint on her face. When she saw Dustin and Allen, she waved, and walked over.

Looking at Allen she said, “I’m glad you’re not dead.”

Allen let out a strangled laugh, and Dustin’s lips twisted into a confused smile. “Yeah, I can’t say I am, too, but thanks.”

The woman smiled a little. “We’ll try to change that.” Turning towards Dustin, she said, “You’re Dustin? The half demon?”

“Yes,” said Dustin. “Though I really don’t like that label.”

“It’s what you are, though,” she said.

“You didn’t ask if he was Allen, the human.”

She tilted her lips in a way that said she didn’t quite think that was the same thing, and truthfully neither did Dustin, so he added, “That’s not really what I meant. I am ashamed of my demonic parentage and I’d rather it not be what defines me.”

“I haven’t met many half demons before,” the woman said. “In fact, I haven’t met any if you don’t consider fighting a meeting.”

She sounded cheeky. Dustin smiled and shook his head. “I’m not sure that counts. I’ll try to make a better impression.”

“So far you’re doing just peachy,” she said. “I’m Char. What do you two like to eat?”

To eat? The question took Dustin so off guard that he shrugged and turned to look at Allen. Allen also shrugged. “We normally just got take out.”

Char shook her head. “Tsk,” she said. “That just won’t do. I’ll have to make something good…”

And off she walked into what looked like the only other room on the ground floor. “Do you know that one?” Dustin asked, watching her leave.

“Yeah,” Allen said. “She’s the one who gave me CPR when I was ‘dead’.” He used his fingers to make quotation marks.

“Oh,” said Dustin. “She… seems nice?”

Allen hummed. Five minutes later, Char re-emerged from what Dustin assumed was the kitchen. “Do you guys want me to show you around while the meat thaws?”

Dustin and Allen exchanged a look, and then looked back at Char and nodded. “Okay,” she said. She still had the smudge of purple on her cheek. She either didn’t know, or didn’t care. “Let’s go. Neither of you guys have dietary restrictions? Allergies?”

“Um,” said Allen said, shaking his head

“I don’t need to eat as often as normal humans, but otherwise I’m fine,” Dustin said mildly.

“Wonderful,” Char said, reaching up to pull her hair out of the messy bun on top of her head. She scrubbed her fingers through her hair quickly. “Let’s go, then. That’s the kitchen, this is the sitting room. It has a tv and more comfort items than any household has the right to.”

She strode across the room to the stairs behind the front door, and Allen and Dustin scrambled to follow her brisk pace. Up the stairs, which Dustin took two at a time because they were tiny, there were several doors.

“That’s Kidd’s room,” she said, pointing at the first door on the left. It was splattered with all sorts of colours. It looked cheerful and violent.

“Fascinating,” Dustin said.

“That’s my and Fay’s room,” she said, pointing to the first room on the right. It was burgandy with complex black patterning on it. “That’s your guyses room,” she said, pointing to what seemed to be the only plain white door in the hall, “that’s Sparrow and Mimi,” now pointing to a door that was covered with doodles in a truly startling variety of styles, “and that’s Queri’s and Mimi’s.” The last door was bright pink.

“Wait, I thought you said that was Mimi’s?” Dustin said, pointing at the doodled door.

“It is,” said Char, snarkily.

Okay then.

She pushed open the door to what was apparently his and Allen’s room. It was spacey, sparsely furnished, with only two twin sized beds and wardrobe. It was noticeably dusty, except for the bed that Allen seemed to have slept in. “It’s the guest room usually.”

At the end of the hall, there was a right turn. “This is where things get a little more confusing. We’ve got two parts of the house; one’s easy-access, and the other is a little harder to find because it’s got our demonslaying crap.

“All the demonslaying stuff will be up through the attic. On this floor we have a library and a couple of offices. Library is through any door in this hallway to the right. You can explore it later if you want. Down the hall that wraps around the other side of the library are the offices. They’re supposed to be for everyone but really one is mine and Sparrow’s, and one is Fay’s. Queri does her work in her bedroom because she’s a masochist.”

Allen’s forehead was scrunched up when he finally said, “How many of you are there…?”

“Six,” Char said brusquely. “Good luck learning all our names.”

“Thanks,” Allen mumbled, and Char smiled.

“Remember mine because my hair looks charred,” she said, pointing at her black hair. It looked far too shiny to be charred.

Allen’s eyebrows went up a bit.

“The door to the attic is on the cieling, see it there in the middle of the hallway? Queri made a lovely little ladder to unfold for you so it’s super easy to use. Just pull the rope. It’ll be full of junk but there’s a couple of doors leading off in different directions that have actual rooms. We can show you those later… Sorry for that being so rushed, but I want to get started on food prep.”

“I can help,” Dustin said tentatively. Char seemed nice enough, but she was also very… forceful.

But she smiled at his offer. “Thank you, but this is your first night and I am going to prepare a proper welcome meal. Also, I don’t know you well enough to let you prep in my kitchen.”

Dinner was delicious. It had been years since Allen had had a real, home-cooked meal. His father hadn’t made food for him since before the white room, and of course it had been even longer since his mother had. Allen himself had tried to cook a few times but the best he’d managed was eggs. Mostly he got take out whenever he found enough cash wafting around the house.

Char had made steak kebabs, with bell peppers and onions, and watermelon topped with mint and ground pepper- which sounded weird, but tasted delicious. It was so strange and wonderful that Allen forgot to be afraid for a while.

Everyone was home for dinner it seemed, except for Kidd. She apparently had a shift that didn’t end until 8 pm. The table was full of friendly banter, which Allen listened to but didn’t contribute to, unless asked. And he was, a couple of times. Sparrow nudged him and asked what instrument Dustin had brought, and Allen had told her it was his saxophone. “So you play jazz?”

“Jazz, swing, blues,” Allen shrugged.

“That is so cool,” Sparrow said. “You should play for us sometime.”

Oh god, no he shouldn’t. He cringed, but said, “Maybe.”

Sparrow had laughed. “You look like you’d rather die.”

Allen flushed, and shrugged again. He was beginning to realize he did a lot of shrugging.

“Art is a very personal thing,” Sparrow had said. “It’s like your soul standing naked. It’s natural that you don’t like the idea of playing for us. Yet.”

Yet. So many implications in one word.

Dustin hit it off pretty well with Sparrow, too. They seemed to have a similar, dream-like view of the world. Allen loved that about Dustin. He’d seen the worst the world had to offer—literally lived with demons—and he was still so in love with it. They waxed poetic about shapes. Char seemed to mellow out with him, but some of the others (Mimi, the big lady who had been there when Allen had been taken, and Queri, the black lady that seemed to be her second in command, and a scowling white woman named Fay who Allen thought must be the one who had walked in on him falling apart earlier) seemed to avoid him. Lips tightened when they glanced in his direction, and their conversation seemed to flow around him like water over a rock; impersonally, uncaringly. Though Allen found it unlikely that they didn’t care. Like himself, Allen thought it probably had more to do with caring too much. It bothered him. He scowled at his food as he ate.

When the food was consumed and Kidd came home, Mimi suggested they move to the sitting room, where there was more room. Looking right at Allen she’d said, “We need to talk about what we’re doing with you.”

Again, that overwhelming sense of panic. He wasn’t exactly sure how he made it out to the sitting room, but apparently he looked functional enough that no one took note. He was on a very soft armchair.

[thought montage]

“Allen.” The sound of his name shocked him out of his crumbling thoughts as he snapped his head up. He barely registered a pillow soaring across the room in time to catch it. He traced back the path of flight to Kidd, who was frowning at him. He curled his hands into the pillow and hugged it to his chest. It was grounding.

Everyone settled; Sparrow had her arm around Char where they both curled contentedly in a rather large armchair. Queri, Fay, and Kidd all sat along a three-seat couch. Despite the fact that they were clearly not as cuddly as Char and Sparrow, each seemed loose and comfortable with one another. Knees knocked, thighs pressed, Queri leaning in to Fay to pluck a shed hair from her collar bone. Allen considered moving to the love seat that Dustin had settled on alone, but to move at this point seemed strange so he stayed put.

“Let’s start easy,” Mimi said. “How long has this been going on?”

Allen’s stomach twisted and he balled his hands in the pillow and scuffed his feet on the ground. “Nine years,” he said. “On Wednesdays.”

There was complete silence in the room.

“Have you-”

“Are you saying-”

“-it was only you-”

There was a waterfall of voices, and Allen cringed, drawing his feet onto the chair and trying to control his breathing.

“Everyone shut the fuck up!” Mimi yelled, and everyone did. “You’re saying that every Wednesday, for nine years, it’s been only you?”

“The one and only,” Allen said tightly, derisively.

“Why?” Mimi demanded. She sounded angry. Allen couldn’t blame her. Adrenailne pinged down his spine and spread from there into his fingertips, making them tingle.

“I—I didn’t have a choice—” Allen said, struggling with the words. “My mom—” Tears were in his eyes again. Goddamn it, he did cry a lot, but this was excessive. He squeezed his eyes shut and fell silent.

“You’ve been murdering innocent people for nine years and all you can say is my mom?” a voice sneered. The words split Allen open like a bag of flour and all his hurt from fighting that feeling exactly spilled out through it. The tears came hot and fast and Allen pressed his face into the pillow.

“Fay!” someone else said, a reprimand.

“What? It’s true, he just said it,” the sneering voice said again. “Look at him, he’s crying now. As if he’s the vitim here. He was crying this morning too. Is that all he does? He’s weak, and I bet that’s why his dad treats him like shit—”

“You have no right to say that!” That was a voice Allen knew well; Dustin’s, but raised in anger in a way Allen had never heard it. Deep, powerful. It had lost his trademark gentle edge.

“Why not?” Fay shot back. “It seems like a pretty simple situation to me.”

Anger seeped into the panic and flared, burning through him like a chemical reaction, the panic making it stronger, faster. Anger was easier than fear. It had somewhere to go. “Shut up!” Allen growled, the pillow falling from his hands as he stood up to gesture at Fay violently. “What the fuck do you know? What the fuck do you know? You piece of shit, I bet your mother didn’t love you and that’s why you can’t understand it. And I can’t blame her.”

Everything burned. His eyes, his throat, his heart hammering. He breathed heavily, and each breath wasn’t enough, wasn’t enough. It gasped from him. She didn’t know anything—his life was anything but simple. He knew that part of the reason he was so upset was because he agreed with her, and that hurt even more.

The room was silent.

“You guys are both out of line,” Queri said softly.

The anger went out of Allen as quickly as it had come, the reaction burnt out of him, leaving only exhaustion. He slumped back onto the arm of his chair and put his face in his hands. He would not say he was sorry. His face was wet against his palms. A tear had found its way into the crease between his lips.

“You need to rethink your methods,” Dustin snapped back, voice tight, and touched Allen’s shoulder lightly.

“Take him upstairs, Dustin,” Sparrow said softly. “You know where you’re rooming?”

“Yes,” Dustin said. “Thank you.”

Dustin guided him away, and Allen switched from covering his face to trying to wipe it with his hands. Unfortunately, skin wasn’t very absorbant and it mostly just spread everything around.

“I’m sorry,” Dustin said quietly. “She doesn’t know anything, you know. You don’t deserve anything that happened to you. And it’s anything but simple.”

Thank you, Allen thought, too burned out to say anything. Resentment and hurt still hunkered like a coal in his chest. He could feel it searing his breath.

“You don’t have any PJs, do you,” Dustin said once they were in the room. Allen shrugged and kicked off his pants before curling up on the mattress closer to the door. “I only really brought your sax and some sweaters.”

That was very Dustin-like. Something thoughtful, and something warm. The familiarity of it was like a refreshing trickle of water.

“Thank you,” Allen said out loud, and cleared his voice softly.

“Mmm,” Dustin said absently, sitting down at the top of Allen’s bed and carding his fingers through his hair, and then Allen’s. Allen closed his eyes. “Do you think you can sleep?”

To be perfectly honest, the thought of sleep right now was terrifying. He had enough nightmares when he hadn’t been assaulted by a lifetime of his own guilt and grief and moral confusion. Images flashed through his mind even while awake; his mother’s body, comatose, his mother’s body, dead, the glistening of blood on the floor of the white room. He shuddered, and shook his head, as if he could dislodge them.

Softly, Dustin began to speak. He was reciting a poem, Allen realized.

“Whispering to each handhold, “I’ll be back,”

I go up the cliff in the dark. One place

I loosen a rock and listen a long time

till it hits, faint in the gulf, but the rush

of the torrent almost drowns it out, and the wind --

I almost forgot the wind: it tears at your side

or it waits and then buffets; you sag outward...

I remember they said it would be hard. I scramble

by luck into a little pocket out of

the wind and begin to beat on the stones

with my scratched numb hands, rocking back and forth

in silent laughter there in the dark-- “Made it again!””.

Allen wasn’t sure what the words meant, but the sound of Dustin’s voice and rhythm to his words lulled him. He’d never understood Dustin’s love of shapes, in words or otherwise, but there were moments where he got it more than others.

“Budge over,” Dustin murmured, and Allen did. He sat with his back up against the headboard, one hand on his book and the other in Allen’s hair. “I’ll be right here. Try to sleep.”

Allen didn’t sleep, but he did cry. It felt awful. It felt wonderful. Each sob tore itself from him and Dustin’s hand in his fair murmured and lulled at the shame he felt because of it.

After Allen had left, Char whipped around at Fay, taking her arm off of Sparrow to do so. “What the hell was that? He might have been harsh, but he’s not wrong about the fact that you don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Fay’s eyes flashed defiantly. She’d always grown stronger in the face of opposition. “I was not wrong,” she said icily.

“No one has ever taken shit from you in this household, Fay,” Char said. “And no one is going to start now.”

“Whatever,” Fay said, and Char’s temper flared further.

“Leave it,” Mimi said, pushing her hair back from her forehead. “Not the most important thing right now.”

“Okay, then what is the most important thing right now?” Char said. “Isn’t Allen the whole point of this conversation?”

“Yes,” said Queri. “But not his feelings.”

“His feelings are important, too,” said Sparrow.

“I’m not saying they aren’t,” Queri said. “They’re just not the most important thing. Fay wasn’t wrong about the fact that he has been killing people for years. It’s worse than we thought because this means that the operation that is manipulating him has put more thought into this than anything else we’ve witnessed.” She glanced at Mimi to confirm this, deferring to her seniority in dealing with demons.

She nodded her agreement. “They’ve kept that kid under their thumb for nine years. That’s a long time. He’s either a fantastic actor or he wasn’t happy about what he’d been doing.”

“Weakling,” Fay muttered. “He could have just left. His mom’s in a coma anyways.”

Kidd was being disturbingly quiet, and Char glanced at her. She was looking at Fay, eyes narrowed, digging the side of her foot into the carpet under her chair. She was tense, avoiding contact with Queri beside her. When she realized Char was looking at her, Kidd met her eyes and shook her head slightly as if to say “nothing” and instead fixed her gaze on the carpet.

“Stop being an ass, Fay,” Sparrow said. “There’s no one for you to impress, or fight. Put your dukes down. You’re looking for her, aren’t you?”

“I was going to start tonight,” Fay said, scowling. “Even if he is a dumb shit.”

“I said put your dukes down,” Sparrow said, still sounding mild. “You’re burning yourself out without taking anything with you.”

Fay growled, but acquiesced.

“What do we absolutely need to find out? What can’t wait?” Mimi directed.

“If there is anyone else like him,” Queri said. “It’s the only impersonal fact, and the only one over which we have no current control.”

“Other than the entire rest of the operation,” Char commented dryly.

“Yes, well,” Queri said, “this is part of figuring out the rest of the operation.”

“Do you think his dad is in on it?” Sparrow asked, brushing a piece of hair behind Char’s ear. She blinked at the contact, and then took a deep breath. She might be pissed at Fay, but her fighting Fay was not going to be any more helpful than Fay fighting anyone else.

“It seems likely, doesn’t it?” Char said, sitting back. She was still scowling. And sending glares at Fay. “I mean, it’s one thing to convince a young child you have control over their mother’s life. It’s another to keep a fourteen year old boy believing the same thing, without another authority figure to back it up.”

“What an awful thing for a parent to do,” Sparrow murmured. “Being possessed once a week for years… I can’t imagine the trauma.”

“You act like it’s not his decision, too,” Fay sniped. “But I think his dad must have been in on it, too.”

“What bothers me,” Mimi said, “is that they were able to convince a full grown man that they have control over what happens in a hospital. That shouldn’t be possible, unless he’s really dumb.”

“Or demons are finally figuring out how to have more influence in the human world,” Char said. “Without hordes of demonslayers around to keep them under wraps, it was only a matter of time until they figured out how to… spread their wings, so to speak.”

Mimi glared at nothing in particular. “Bastards,” she said. “Take your eye off them for two decades and they get into all sorts of trouble.”

“Two decades is a long time,” Queri said.

“I know,” Mimi muttered. “I was trying to be funny. Because nothing about this is funny.”

“Oh,” said Queri. “Well, commendable effort.”

Mimi was clearly very angry. Char was too, and presumably so was everyone else, but it must be worse for Mimi. She’d chosen to take back up the mantle of a demonslayer despite everything she’d gone through with their destruction and she still couldn’t stop the demons from gaining more and more traction.

“Who wants to try to figure out if there’s anyone else like him?” Mimi said, sounding tired now. “Someone with more tact than Fay or me.”

Everyone who was not Fay or Mimi glanced at one another. Char thought about volunteering. She wanted to understand Allen better. Maybe that was a bad thing, if she wanted to gently extricate only a bit of information.

As hard as it was to admit it, Char was also a little bit afraid of the maternal feelings she felt stirred by this boy. With those feelings came a fierce ache of missing for her own child, an ache she’d been supressing for years. But there it was, unfurling in her heart and tugging at its strings. I’m stronger now, though, she thought. I can protect myself and those I love.

“I’ll do it,” said Sparrow. “I think I’m tactful. And Dustin likes me too.”

Mimi’s scowl darkened.

“Don’t scowl like that, Mimi,” Sparrow said. “He’s got an beautiful soul.”

“He’s a half-demon.”

“And he’s been nothing but kind,” Sparrow said. “Give him a chance.”

“What if he’s working for the operation?” Mimi said. “It would be perfect. Allen trusts him completely.”

“If we find any evidence of that we can deal with it when it comes up,” Queri said. “I can’t say I’m comfortable with him either, but Sparrow’s right. He seems lovely.”

“Fine,” Mimi snapped. “But I’ll break his neck if he so much as breathes wrong at any of you.”

“That’s enough for tonight, then,” Queri said. “Everyone should get some rest. Or get some work done.”

Char did need to get some work done, but she was restless again. She thought about calling Emmanuel. What would she say? Hi, I know I disappeared and left you to raise our child alone but now I want to see him again. Thoughts, concerns?

Great.

The meeting might have been disbanded, but the house was far from ready to sleep. Kidd went to her room, stewing. After thirty seconds of sitting on a bean bag chair, she got up and started pacing. A few more minutes of this and she left her room. She took care to be quiet, twisting the handle before pulling her door shut.

She thought Fay was more likely to be in her office than her room.

Knocking softly, Kidd opened the door and stepped in.

“Yo,” Fay said, lifting a finger in greeting. “What’s up?”

Kidd looked at Fay uncertainly for a second, and then said, “I’m here about what you said to Allen.”

Fay shrugged. “What about it? I think it was true.”

Kidd didn’t say anything for a bit again, opening and closing her fists at her side. She grabbed onto words as they flew by in her mind, trying to assemble the scattered sentiments into something she could express.

“All I’ve seen him do since he’s gotten here is panic, and cry, and then half-ass insult me,” Fay said bluntly. Seeing Kidd’s shift in posture, she defiantly added, “It’s true.”

“You don’t know him, Fay,” Kidd said, squeezing her eyes shut and rubbing them hard. “Fuck, you don’t even know him, who are you to know if what he does is justified or not?”

“I don’t need to know him to know that he’s a brat.”

“You don’t know him. And you’ve told a victim that it’s their fault that they’re a victim. Now he’s crying in his room and—”

“He’s crying again? Nice,” Fay said, not catching onto Kidd’s rapidly rising temper in the least.

“No, you fucking shut up!” Kidd yelled, throwing diplomacy to the wind. Fay’s eyes glinted upwards angrily at the sudden outburst, but Kidd hadn’t stopped talking. “I wasn’t treated right at home, remember? I ‘sulked’ because I knew no one would would take me seriously—or—or understand. I wouldn’t talk to anyone. You know how many times I was called a brat? Wouldn’t take what I deserved, no. Do you know how many times my parents,” she spat the word, “called me pathetic, told me to suck it up, to stop sulking? You were here when I first came home! How can you even think that? You told me… You shut up.”

Kidd was breathing hard now and she stopped suddenly, her voice hitching and she suddenly sat down on the ground, heavily. She slammed the heels of her hands into her eyes and let out a choked noise. “Fuck, I am stupid though. I shouldn’t cry. I’m stupid. I’m stupid,” she muttered, breath fluttering out of her erratically. Deja-vu fluttered through her mind, and she remembered another time she had sat crying in Fay’s office, and the stark difference in Fay’s mindset. Kidd wondered what it was that caused the difference—why had Fay been so much more understanding of her situation than Allen’s? Was it the fact that her abuse had been at least partially physical? Had it been that it was already validated by the court cases that ended her relationship with her parents?

Fay didn’t move, looking at Kid, clearly unsure of what to do. “They hit you, though,” Fay murmured.

Kidd looked at Fay in exasperation. “You think it was the physical stuff that left its mark on me? Those healed by the time I was out of court. It’s the emotional trauma that still affects me to this day.” Allen was so young, and the image of him, small and vulnerable on the chair as Fay ripped his walls down hurt her more than the memory of her mother’s nails on her skin. “It doesn’t matter if his dad didn’t hit him.”

Fay didn’t say anything more. Her face was stoney, but Kidd knew she would think about what she was saying. Kidd took a deep breath to settle herself enough to say, “Because of my time here I’ve gotten to learn how to heal myself. Allen hasn’t had that luxury yet.”

Kidd punched the ground softly once, twice, and then said, “It’s unhealthy for a kid, you know, to grow up hiding their emotions because no one will take them and see that maybe they are there for a reason. It’s not healthy for us to stop feeling so that we can stop feeling like we’re… like we’re alone. No one helps us. So instead we choose to feel nothing. We get labeled a sulk. A teenaged delinquent who is determined to be sad. Too bad for us. We don’t matter because we don’t look strong enough.”

Kidd got up abruptly and left.

She didn’t want Fay to answer.

Mimi awoke first at midnight, and then again at one in the morning, shaking as her heart escalated well above its sleeping rate. Dead. Dead. Dead. She touched her belly, feeling it whole and smooth instead of serrated and spilling. Just a dream. Blind with the need to find someone warm and alive, she fumbled out of bed and to Sparrow’s bedside. Her hand still trembling, she put her hand gently on Sparrow’s collarbone, just to feel it rising and falling. Just a dream, just a dream. She couldn’t go back to sleep yet, the texture of her dream still alive in her mind, on her skin. When she opened the door to Queri’s room she was still up.

Bless. Queri got up and took Mimi’s hand softly in hers. “Dreams?” she asked quietly, pulling Mimi down into the crook of her neck, even though she was more than half a foot shorter than Mimi. Mimi nodded, feeling her breath shudder out of her. She put her arms around Queri and she was warm, warm and alive and there.

“Come on,” Queri murmured, leading Mimi to her bed and sitting her down. “It’s okay.”

She didn’t say it wasn’t real because even if it wasn’t, what caused them had been. So she didn’t.

Instead Queri turned on a couple gentle lamps and sat with Mimi, rubbing her back and murmuring quiet assurances until the dream faded enough to be considered unreal once again.

“Thank you,” Mimi said quietly, once she could, drawing away just a little. When she did, she tilted her head. She couldn’t put her finger on it, but Queri looked off. Mimi might not be especially perceptive, but she’d been living with Queri, and had been her closest friend, for sixteen years. “What’s wrong?”

Queri shook her head. “It’s that boy. Allen.”

“Ah,” said Mimi, pulling herself the rest of the way onto the bed to sit cross-legged. “He’s worrisome.”

“Yeah,” Queri said quietly. She absently brushing Mimi’s hair out of her face. “I feel like there’s more to it then his mother. You have to give a demon permission to possess you. I mean, I can see how they would manipulate a young child into allowing possessions, and once the dad is involved maybe even a little longer, but he was really very upset. I can’t help but think…”

“But what?” Mimi said.

“I don’t know. I can’t think of anything. But.”

“I see,” Mimi said.

Queri took a deep breath. That was a very un-Queri-like behaviour; she usually didn’t need any tricks to keep herself in check. “Is that it?” Mimi prodded. She had thoughts on Allen, too, but the situation generally angered her too much for her to be able to make anything coherent out of them yet.

Queri shook her head again. “I’m—I don’t know. I’m so tired and this Allen thing is new and overwhelming me so I’m thinking of things I’ve been trying not to…”

“Are you going to elaborate…?”

“I wasn’t planning on it,” said Queri. “It involves you. And it distresses me greatly.”

Something in Mimi panged painfully, but it was tinged with hope. Stop it, she scolded herself softly, habitually. She might have been in love with her Queri for more than a dozen years, but she had learned how to manage it without much trouble. There was no reason that she should think those words had anything to do with reciprocated feelings.

“Oh,” Mimi said. “Is there anything I can do to help?”

Queri made a derisive sound and said, “I don’t know—stop being beautiful? Stop being wonderful?”

Maybe that was what this was about then. Mimi brushed her hair behind her ears, trying to disguise the small explosion of feelings this set off. So many colours rioted inside of her that she had to bite her lip to stop herself from laughing. More in a blue-screen-of-death way than a genuinely happy way. “I have far too much fun being both of those things.”

“I know. I don’t actually want you to stop. I just,” Queri paused for a second. “If this was a courtroom I’d be in so much trouble. I’m not speaking clearly at all.”

“You’re not in a courtroom, darling.”

“I know.”

There was silence.

“I don’t—I’ve never even—” Queri couldn’t make it thorugh the sentence, and Mimi couldn’t fathom what she had been trying to say. Still, Mimi got the feeling that she gave up on that line of thought when she instead said, “I can’t—you know—do anything that will get in the way of my duty to the people here.”

“And neither can I,” said Mimi. She hated it. She hated that she believed it. But the fact remained: Whether or not Queri returned Mimi’s feelings didn’t matter. Mimi had never told Queri how she felt for the same reason; if things went south between the two of them then that would be a third of the total known population of demonslayers that couldn’t work together properly. There was too much at stake.

“Stay here tonight?”

“You know I will.”