by Nicole Field
Avi whined softly, pressing closer; Hiraeth's arms rose around him in a gentle embrace, rocking him softly. "We've got a good setup back in the van," Avi grumbled weakly. "This is just for portability in case you had anything. C'mon…"
"I don't think I have anything that can remove a curse that wouldn't also be removed by just killing the curser," Hiraeth admitted gently. "But we can sort through stock and see if there's anything that can undo the lock that was put on him." He rubbed Avi's back, a soft ruffle of dry hand over satin cloth, and Avi leaned into the touch, greedily drinking it up.
A little embarrassed by this demonstration of affection that clearly wasn't for him, Keith glanced aside. The Snakeskin Girl was watching them, fond and a bit pleased; from the softness on her face, this sort of clingy behavior from Avi was probably a lot more familiar than the aggressive front he'd shown Keith and Lucas.
God, Keith hoped that Avi wasn't insecure. He was definitely not old enough to handle having his boyfriend's kids feeling like he was going to steal their dad's attention.
"Keith, anything you think you can do?" Lucas asked.
He'd asked it quietly, but even so, the Snakeskin Girl's head whipped around, and Avi lifted his own a little, not turning but clearly paying attention.
"I, uh, maybe?" he said, flustered under the attention. "I can look, at least—"
"How would he be able to do anything?" Avi muttered sullenly.
Hiraeth tweaked his ear swiftly, drawing a yelp. "He's very talented, you know! They're both smart and brave and kind and clever and I love them very much."
Keith went red, staring at his feet. He could hear the Snakeskin Girl giggle, and Lucas let out a little surprised oh.
Avi's steel-toed boots came into view a moment later as he approached, moving just a little too close before stopping. "Seems like my dad's got a high opinion of you," he said flatly.
Drawing a slow breath in, Keith forced himself to look up. "I mean, I have a high opinion of him too," he said, trying to stand his ground while his stomach did flip-flops. "I don't know that any of my skills will be useful but I have… I mean, more than just sight. Telekinesis and pyrokinesis might be useless, but I've got psychometry and the ability to pick up associations on things, and I can prod around in people's subconscious. If nothing else, I might be able to see or feel some kind of connection between an item here and, your, uh…" He searched for a name to use and settled weakly on, "Fish."
"Fish," both Avi and the Snakeskin Girl said at once, one with horror, the other with delight.
"Well, if you'd tell me what you want me to call him?" Keith ventured.
"'Fish' is fine," the Snakeskin Girl said, laughing. "Dumb Fish. It's what we call him half the time anyway."
"Sure, okay, I mean, we know who you mean." Avi huffed a breath. Another cherry blossom drifted down and Keith forced himself not to try to catch it before it hit the ground. "I don't know that I like this, but as long as you're just looking, it's fine."
Keith attempted a smile. "Sure," he said. "I'd love to help. Lucas…"
"Don't know that there's much I can do but… I can sort through shelves more easily than you," he said. They both knew how narrow and crowded the storage room was, and how much Lucas hated walking through objects. Still, Keith nodded. They were in this boat together.
Avi pointed. "Then go look at the dumb fish."
Keith went, drawing a deep breath next to Hiraeth to inhale his wet-leaf smell and center himself a little. Hiraeth put a hand on his side lightly, giving it a little squeeze, and tilted his head. He didn't say anything, but his concern for Keith was clear.
A bit reassured, Keith shifted his gaze to the fishbowl. The polychromatic fish inside was waving his fins lightly, slowly drifting as he seemed to gaze back at Keith.
He let his eyes go unfocused, trying to sense something off the fish and, after a moment's hesitation—not entirely sure how protective the fish's partners were—he dipped a finger into the bowl, lightly touching that small back.
Although he refused to let his consciousness sink into the fish's—he didn't know him, and playing around inside somebody's mindscape was dangerous to both of them if not necessary—he let his mind touch a little. He felt a darkness there, centuries of history wrapped up in the curse, wound in and around the small form under his fingertip, wrapping up a sense of wry humor, betrayal, need, loneliness—
Keith drew a sharp breath. "He knew the guy who cursed him."
"Did he?" the Snakeskin Girl asked. Keith wasn't sure if this was new information to her, or if she were just curious about how much he knew.
He shrugged. "It feels that way. There's some kind of old grudge in this. If they didn't know each other I'd be really surprised."
"But can you find something that can undo it?" Avi asked impatiently.
The fish nommed Keith's fingertip lightly—a warning bite or a playful kiss, he wasn't sure which from the mixed feelings he'd seen there, but either way, he pulled his fingertip back quickly, blushing. "Maybe," he said. "I mean, I can try to feel out objects in the back room that feel like they'd… resonate with the curse in any way?"
"Good enough, I guess," Avi said. "Saves us having to try everything."
*~*~*
By mid-afternoon, Keith had what he was pretty sure was revving up to be a migraine. He could no longer tell what things were giving off halos from spiritual energy and what were doing it because of the throbbing headache.
Still, with the Snakeskin Girl and Avi handing him objects one after another, he didn't feel ready to stop yet. He wanted to make a good impression and, besides, their boyfriend still needed help.
There wasn't a lot of room in the back for people, and Hiraeth had figured it might take a while anyway, so he'd opened up the shop while the others searched. Keith simultaneously missed the company while feeling completely overwhelmed by the number of people here and their near-constant focus on him.
Fortunately, Avi and the Snakeskin Girl began to debate over adding a piece of jewelry they'd found into Fish's tank—less because they thought it'd break the curse and more because they thought he'd enjoy it. Keith took advantage of the lull in their attention to wave Lucas closer.
At once, Lucas drifted through the shelves to rejoin him. "Doing okay?" he asked, softly.
"Headache," Keith mumbled back. "Can you go ask Hiraeth to bring me a glass of water?"
A cool, weightless hand passed over Keith's forehead, tender and soothing. "No prob, fam. I'll be right back."
Their tether didn't let them go far from each other—just a few rooms apart at best—but fortunately, the shop wasn't all that large. Lucas could probably go hang out upstairs if he wanted to; he had more than enough space to talk to Hiraeth in the main shop. They would both feel the strain—that much happened when they were more than even a few feet apart.
But it was doable.
Lucas headed out of the back room, and his doing so seemed to catch Avi's attention. He pointed out a section of glassware to the Snakeskin Girl—presumably because, being literal vessels themselves, any enchanted glassware might interact with whatever was going on with Fish—and then came over, crouching in front of Keith.
Despite the scrutiny, Keith tried to keep focusing on the box of keys in front of him. He slowly dropped another two in the reject pile; both were enchanted in some way, and maybe Hiraeth would be able to say how, but neither of them felt either enough like Fish's whole situation or enough unlike it for him to feel that there was any connection. But Avi didn't move, and finally Keith had to look up. "Uh?"
The look on Avi's face was hard to read, too much of a mix of emotions for any one to seem to bubble fully to the surface. Keith was a little tempted to try to reach out with his empathic skills, but those were weak and hard to consciously control at the best of times, and with his head in the shape it was in right now, he'd probably pick up only the worst feelings and misread the situation more because of it.
After another long moment of ju
st staring at him, Avi said, "You know you're temporary, right?"
"Uh." Keith turned a key over and over in his hands, trying to use the cold metal and uneven weight of it to keep himself centered over the sudden spike of anxiety. "Like, existentially?"
"That too. Definitely that too," Avi said. "But dad falls in love easily. I'm not saying he'll throw you over—he and my mom are still good friends, and all that. You might stay friends with him for the rest of your life. He's got a big loneliness in him that he keeps trying to fill. But you shouldn't be the one to do it. Even if he can fall in love with a human because he's like that, you should let him go. Let him get some space from you."
"Cool," Keith said evenly. "That's a cool thing to say."
He bit down on his lower lip a moment later, heart and head throbbing in time with each other, in time with his panic and hurt. He was staring at Avi now, as Avi stared back at him in shock. His eyes looked brown from a distance, but were actually, Keith noted, a deep dark pink, like cherries themselves.
"I didn't mean—" Avi seemed actually taken aback, expression almost hurt—though it shuttered a moment later. "Whatever. I didn't expect you to get it. Guess you can be as careless with him as you want."
"What is your deal?" Keith began, his head feeling ready to explode, jaw clenched. "I'm literally trying to help you—"
"Scia," the Snakeskin Girl interrupted them both—with part of Avi's familiar name?—putting an arm between them and glaring at Avi in warning. "Could you not? He is helping us right now."
Avi took a step back from them both and nearly ran into a shelf. "I know he's helping us, but if I'm going to warn him off, I'm not going to… to drain him dry of his use first!"
"Well, you should," she said, rolling her eyes. She gave Keith a sympathetic, too-wide smile. "No, seriously though, I don't mean to sound callous. He's just overly worrying about his dad when he should be worrying about our Fish while letting his dad live his own life, you know?"
Keith glanced away from them both. "I didn't… look, I'm with Hi—with him because we both want to be. We went through a lot of stuff together. He's… good to me and Lucas, and I think we can be good for each other."
"For now," Avi muttered ominously.
The Snakeskin Girl threw her hands up. "Go sit over there," she ordered Avi, pointing to the back of the room. "There's some tools there, at least two of them feel off somehow so go take a look."
Avi gave her a bit of a haughty glance, tossing his head—nearly knocking some teacups off a shelf behind him as his antlers grazed them—and stalked to the place she'd pointed out. It wasn't terribly remote, given the small size of the back room, but it was at least partially obscured by a set of shelves.
"Sorry about that," she said, plopping down in front of Keith.
Suddenly longing to be anywhere but here, Keith just shook his head. He lowered his aching eyes to the key in his hand, decided the aura around it was just a symptom of an ocular migraine, and dropped it in the reject pile. "It's fine," he muttered.
"It's not fine," she said. She put a cool, dry hand over his, gently patting. "I bet you were worried about meeting us and now it's gone all to pot because Avi's got a daddy complex."
"I don't have a daddy complex!" Avi yelled from his corner.
"Complex feelings about his daddy's feelings, anyway," she said, undeterred. Avi's attitude didn't seem to even make her blink. Then again, Keith wasn't sure she could blink. "Just give him time, okay? You seem nice, and his dad likes you, so he'll come around."
Keith wasn't sure he could get more miserable, between the headache and the conversation. He shrugged and nodded.
The door from the front opened and closed, and Hiraeth poked his head uncertainly around the shelf between them and the door. "Uh, was someone yelling about a daddy complex…?"
"No," all three of them said in horrified unison.
"All right, good, that'd be odd," Hiraeth said. He came around the shelving unit and offered Keith a glass of water. "I hate to run but I'm heading back out. I don't want to leave Lucas alone right now."
Stomach flip-flopping, Keith stared up at him, knuckles going white on the glass. "What…?"
Hiraeth glanced toward the door into the front, then lowered his voice. "Some girls came in shopping. From what he said, his sister was among them. They left, he's fine, he wanted a moment to recover, but… I don't want to leave him alone if he's sad, right?"
Keith didn't remember getting up, but he was on his feet. The container holding the keys had fallen from his lap; they were clattering to the ground in what felt like a slow-motion waterfall. "I'll go with you," he said.
"Your headache—"
Keith chugged the glass of water, as if it were something standing in the way of him and Lucas, then set it down on a clear spot on the shelf. "It's fine," he said. "I'll be back shortly," he called to the others, and pushed Hiraeth out ahead of him as they headed into the shop.
*~*~*
Lucas was seated on the counter just as Hiraeth tended to do, his legs dangling, his arms braced against the surface as much as he could brace against anything, head tilted back as he gazed up at the ceiling.
"Hey," Keith called, softly.
He wasn't sure if he should be relieved or sorry that Hiraeth had waited until the girls had left to come to get him—on a practical level, he was sure Hiraeth had to; he was his shop's only worker, after all, and he both needed to be there if they needed anything and to make sure that they, normal humans, weren't handling any of his special items in any dangerous way.
Keith hadn't seen Shaunee since Lucas's funeral. He wouldn't have known what to say to her if he did. She'd never said anything like it at the time, but he had to imagine that he was little more to her than the cause of her brother's death. That Lucas had thrown himself into the road to save a stranger might speak the world about her brother's personality, but that didn't mean you'd want to spend any amount of time with the stranger who lived on instead.
Still, he didn't like the idea that Lucas had gone unseen and unheard when she was right there in front of him, that Keith hadn't been there to in some way help translate Lucas's needs and feelings toward her. Even though Hiraeth was able to see and hear Lucas, he didn't know the history—wouldn't have even known who she was until Lucas had managed to say anything.
Lucas didn't look up, and although Keith couldn't be sure he'd heard his quiet call, he knew that Lucas could feel that he was closer than before. Hesitantly, he came over, leaning against the front counter and putting a hand on Lucas's.
Finally, Lucas glanced down at his face. Although Keith had worried that there might be a void there instead of his expressions—something that happened to ghosts when they got absorbed in thinking about something other than maintaining their existence—instead, there was just exhaustion and grief.
It hadn't been the smartest worry, Keith had to admit. Even if Lucas was thinking entirely about her, there was no way for anyone to separate it from his death.
"I'm okay," Lucas said to the unasked question. "I mean, not great? You know, right?"
"Yeah," Keith said. He did his best to wind his fingers together with Lucas's. "Jeez. I'm sorry."
Lucas shook his head slowly and smiled. It looked tentative, like he was trying it on for size, but genuine regardless. "Nah. I mean… it was good to see her. She's doing okay. She looks healthy and happy and she's… you know, growing up. I guess she'll be entering college in a year or two. There's worse ways to see her than laughing with her friends."
"I just wish…" Keith let it trail off. He wished a lot of things, none of which were particularly great, when it came to Lucas dying to save his life. "It'd be nice if you could talk to her a little. Reassure her or whatever."
"'Hey, I'm dead, but doing okay'."
"Yeah, that," Keith said. He smiled weakly, leaning his face into the cold spot where Lucas's chest was. "Or just even if you could see more of her."
Lucas sighed softly. "If wishes were
fishes…"
"I don't know about granting wishes," Hiraeth said, coming over and also leaning in, rubbing his cheek against the spot where Lucas was, "but she might come back tomorrow, if you two want to be around then."
"Tomorrow…?" Lucas went a little wide-eyed, gazing down at them. "What do you mean?"
Hiraeth pulled away to gesture at a section of shelf with several porcelain dolls on it. Keith, remembering the recent incident with dolls, couldn't quite withhold a shiver. "She was eyeing one of those."
Lucas bobbed his head, almost eager. "She does love dolls. She's got a little collection, yeah."
"I told her it was on major sale and I just hadn't got around to changing the tag yet, and that I thought I had some accessories for it in the back I could dig up if she came back tomorrow," Hiraeth said. He rubbed the back of the neck. "I thought I could buy you some time if there was anything you… you know, wanted me to say or to do or… anything like that."
For a moment, Keith thought Lucas was going to cry. His brows drew in and his face screwed up, but he just nodded instead, letting out a rough, wet breath. "Thanks. I'll have to think about it."
"I don't know if she will come back," Hiraeth said, clearly a little nervous, almost babbling. "She said she'd try to, which a lot of people use as a polite no, and even if they mean it as a yes that doesn't always mean they make it. But, you know, come here tomorrow anyway and we can hope."
"We'll need another day to finish looking at the stuff in the back anyway," Keith admitted. "You've got a lot there and trying to compare it is… a bit time-consuming."
"And headache-inducing, I know." Hiraeth slid an arm around Keith's waist, tugging him closer too, leaning on him. "I appreciate it. I really do."
Warmth flooded Keith, pushing back the anxiety and grief and hint of resentment. He leaned against Hiraeth too, pressing closer, one hand still holding Lucas's. "I know. It's fine. We'd like to help."
"Are you three done out here?" Avi called from the back room's door.