by Mary Dublin
By the time the climax rolled around, Jon was invested in a deep sleep.
Although Sylvia kept her attention on the screen, she noticed right away when Jon's breathing evened out and he relaxed. Still laying on her belly, she scooted closer to his neck and pressed her lips against his warm skin. A mirthful smile was on her face when she pulled away. She folded her arms and rested her chin on them to watch the rest of the movie.
***
Sylvia was jolted awake by the sound of loud, arguing voices and heavy footsteps thundering through the hall. She grimaced and blinked at the morning light coming from the window. She scrunched up her face, realizing Jon must have brought her to bed with him sometime late last night.
Moaning groggily, she was about to lower her head and fall back asleep, but the raised voices from behind the bedroom door didn't let up. The jarringly recognizable female voice brought her to full alertness.
Turning over, Sylvia tried to squirm out from underneath Jon's hand and find a better hiding place, but found herself pinned firmly, unlike the previous morning with Cliff. She cursed under her breath, thrashing furiously in hopes of it being enough to wake him, if not free herself.
"Jon!" she hissed, glancing at the door. "Come on, wake up!”
Jon frowned, tightening his grip on the little person pushing at him. "Come on, Sylvia…" He slurred his words, barely conscious enough to form them.
He started to turn onto his side when suddenly the commotion outside his door broke through his haziness. Snagging Sylvia up in a fist, he sat bolt upright in bed. He shared a brief, wide-eyed look with the fairy before the doorknob jiggled violently, and he shoved his hand under the covers, over his lap.
"Leeana?" Jon called apprehensively.
The noise stopped, and Leeana burst into the room, pushing a stony-faced Cliff out of her path as she went.
"Did I wake you?" she asked.
"Uh… sort of," Jon said, gruffly pulling at the covers over his lap.
"Sorry, babe. I tried calling five times."
Jon held tighter to Sylvia as Leeana approached, sitting on the foot of his bed. Though Sylvia was confined in a hot hand, he could feel the fairy trembling as if she was kept in an icebox. She had to be terrified.
"What are you doing here, Lee?" He regarded her with a weariness that she ignored, scooting closer, but didn't make to touch him yet. She could at least see his guard was up.
"Because I care about you. Two months up in Dover, I saw a lot of places. Lot of people," she confessed. "And I never stopped thinking about you."
She was sorry. Truly, he could see that. But the damage was done. Sylvia's words resounded true in that moment: you don't deserve to have someone you care about hurt you. As much as he couldn't believe he was taking relationship advice from a fairy… she had a point.
Jon sighed, loosening his grip on Sylvia a bit and stroking her once between her wings to comfort her amidst the awkward and tense situation.
"You know," he said, "if you had said that a month ago, I would have taken you up on the offer without a second thought."
Leeana's hopeful face dropped, but she nodded all the same, as if the simple motion could convince him that she truly understood.
"Should've booked an earlier flight," she chuckled sadly, rubbing the back of her neck and peering at him searchingly. "You already met someone else, huh?"
"It… look, regardless, it's not going to work between us. I'm exhausted of pretending otherwise. This game of you stringing me along."
"Jon, I'm sorry—"
Jon shook his head, and she swallowed the rest of her apology. "It's just who you are, I can see that now. I'm not fighting you on that anymore, but I'm done with pretending like what we had between us was written in the stars."
A lengthy pause drew out. Leeana's bubbly smile was a harsh antithesis to the contemplative frown she wore now. A sad laugh shook her shoulders, prompting her smoky hazel eyes to find his. "I just thought I'd see you again… and things would be different."
"You can't keep disappearing and expect things to be the same here," Jon replied, voice just as soft.
"So… that's it then," Leeana gathered, shifting uncomfortably where she sat.
"Yeah. That's it."
The words were more difficult to get out than he anticipated. Spurred by shreds of nostalgia, Jon reached out his free hand, leaning over to place it over Leeana's. Moments later, he felt minor movement stirring within his other hand. His heart skipped a beat—he'd nearly grown numb to Sylvia's stillness. Though he kept his weary gaze upon Leeana, he tensed at the possibility of Sylvia squirming her way into the open. As if this conversation wasn't hard enough without a fairy waltzing into view.
Instead, an impossibly small weight was laid over the side of his fist—her hand. That had to be her hand. The tiny row of fingers glided over his knuckles, back and forth in a soothing motion. He had Sylvia trapped in a fist from the waist-down, and she was comforting him. He was so touched, he nearly gave away her position.
Jon glanced down to his lap. It was for the briefest of moments, but Leeana's gaze was trained on him, and she noticed. A puzzled look crossed her face when she saw his hand jammed under the covers. She seized her hand from under his.
“What the… Were you—?” Leeana shied away, wrinkling her nose. She glanced back at Cliff lingering in the hallway, as if expecting some sort of confirmation.
"What? No!"
"I knew it! I thought I heard you up to something in here." She leapt up, halfway between the bed and the door.
"Even if I was, it's none of your business anymore!" Jon barked back.
Leeana stopped, turning to throw him a particularly venomous glower. ”I shouldn't have even bothered to come back. You're too good for this sort of thing."
"What? Half-assed apologies? Yeah, I'm really missing out.”
She gaped at him from the doorway, lingering for a moment like she had more to say. Whatever hesitated upon those pink-painted lips, he would never know. For in the next instant, her expression had hardened.
"Screw you too," Leeana muttered. Ensuring she left him with those poignant last words, she strode from the room swiftly. Cliff stepped out of her way, and she flipped him off when he opened his mouth.
Only when the front door slammed shut did Jon withdraw Sylvia from her hiding position. She looked frazzled, shaken. He didn't say a word. He didn't ask if she was okay, and he didn't apologize for any discomfort she may have experienced. He just held her as carefully as he could. Tucking her messy hair behind her ear with a swipe of a single finger, he laid the fingertip on her cheek and touched her with the utmost slowness.
Sylvia's chest continued to rise and fall heavily. Pulling her legs close on his palm, she slowly met his gaze as he touched her face with care. She frowned. Any uneasiness she felt suddenly seemed unimportant. He had to be feeling horrible after that encounter. She leaned forward, gripping the finger on her cheek. "Are you okay?"
Jon shrugged with a half-hearted smile. "It was a long-time coming, anyway," he muttered.
Cliff cleared his throat as he ambled closer to them. "How bad you roughed up, Sylv?"
Sylvia briefly assessed herself. Her healing wing was sore from being jostled around, but that would pass. "I was just… taken by surprise," she responded, giving Cliff a grateful look. "Thanks for keeping her out of the room for as long as you did. Any sooner, and she would've seen me. And things probably wouldn't have gone so smoothly."
Cliff gave her a small smile and pulled back the curtains to search for Leeana's exiting figure amongst pedestrians. "Yeah. Cause that was so smooth." Still leaning toward the window, he snuck a sidelong look at Jon. "You need a minute?"
"No." Jon stood up. "All I really want right now is a strong cup of coffee."
Jon held Sylvia higher as he walked, and the apartment once again rushed past as he walked through. Sylvia looked around at the kitchen in anticipation, sitting up on her knees in Jon's palm.
"Cof
fee?" She paused in thought, sure she had at least read that word before. "Is that like… Starbucks Coffee?"
"Hold up!" Jon stopped short, and Sylvia suddenly found herself held mere inches from his face. "You don't know over half the food we eat… but you know about Starbucks?" He faced her with an incredulous grin as he leaned against the kitchen counter.
"It's everywhere." Cliff shook his head, peering into the nearly-empty coffee bin.
"Still don't know what coffee is," she pointed out shyly. "I've just read the word before. Humans tend to leave things laying around on the side of the road. Starbucks containers included. So, what's coffee?"
"It's made of ground up beans mixed with hot water." Jon paused, replaying his own words in his mind. "That actually sounds kinda gross when you say it like that… but it wakes you up when you're tired. That's all you really need to know."
The coffee maker sprang to life with a series of clicks and water settling into place. Jon set her on the table and the two men walked back and forth, expertly dodging each other as they went about their own breakfast rituals. Finally, Cliff sat down with a plate of steaming food. He looked at Sylvia, then jumped back up to rummage around for a saucer of some sort.
"Sorry. This is the smallest plate we have."
He set down a red dish with a diameter surpassing her entire height. The table vibrated again when Jon placed his bowl of cereal and milk. Sylvia marveled again at how he could much such gigantic movements could look so casual.
Sylvia scooted close to the red plate and looked curiously at the sliver of spongy white substance Cliff had portioned for her off of his own plate. It came as no shock to her that she couldn't figure out what it was, and she hadn't paid much attention to him while he had prepared it. She reached a hand out to sample the unfamiliar food, but hesitated, looking up at Cliff.
"What is this?"
"Egg," he told her, like it was obvious. "You know, from a chicken?"
Sylvia leaned away from the plate with a wrinkled nose and didn't touch her breakfast.
Cliff heard Jon getting out a mug from the cabinet and turned over his shoulder. "Hey, pour me a mug?"
"You can't walk five feet to make it yourself?" Jon asked with a dismissive laugh.
"You owe me." Cliff insisted.
"For what?"
"For saving your skin earlier. Don't forget to add a shot of creamer."
Jon's argument fell out from under him. Cliff smirked as Jon reached overhead for an additional mug. Sylvia let the sounds of each man's morning routine lull her into a state of quiet thought. It was short-lived; Jon's voice rose again and captured her attention.
"Dammit!"
Snapping her head up, Sylvia leaned this way and that to get a look over Cliff's broad shoulder: Jon had over-poured the coffee, spilling over onto the counter and splashing the scalding liquid onto his thumb. To her, it looked like gallons and gallons from a hot spring were at risk of going rogue on him. Luckily, it didn't seem to be worth more than a splash of cold water onto the scalded skin, Sylvia noted with relief. Jon wiped up the mess and came over with the two mugs in hand—along with a quarter teaspoonful for Sylvia.
"Careful, it's really hot," Jon warned.
Steam curled out of the dark liquid in front of her. She glanced at Jon skeptically and leaned toward the coffee, finding its scent simultaneously strange and pleasant. A smirk found its way to her lips.
"Come on, how hot can it be?" She received her answer a moment later when she burned her tongue. Squealing, she flinched away and covered her mouth. The taste was lost to her, overridden by the heat.
"I warned you." Jon gave her a sympathetic smile, already rising out of his seat to return to the freezer. "Here." His fingertip was pinkened from the chill, a sliver of ice offered. "Suck on this. Burning your tongue sucks, I've been there."
He was quiet when her miniscule fingers touched his as she retrieved the ice, and only continued when she was focused on doing as he said, "I, um, got a hot chocolate this one night. I was freezing, it was windy… so I went to chug it and I burned my entire tongue. Couldn't taste for a week."
She gave him a weak smile, hardly fazed by the raw ice pressing to her fingers as she held the sliver to her mouth. Once the pain ebbed, she gave him a sheepish look. "Thanks. Hope I can still taste."
After a while, the coffee didn't give off as much steam. Behaving more cautiously, she took a hesitant sip. The odd, bitter taste of it made her pause. She pursed her lips and tilted her head, unsure if she liked it. Then a strange sensation crept into her. Her eyes widened, and she sat up straighter. Although still undecided about the taste, she knew she liked the feeling it gave her. Prepared for the heat, she took a longer, fervent sip.
Jon stirred his own cup and took a slow sip, watching Sylvia's reaction out of the corner of his eye.
"What do you think?" he asked with an eager smile, when she put the teaspoon down again.
"Can I have more?" she said before a split second of silence followed his question.
"Sure." Jon grinned, taking the teaspoon from her. He raised his eyebrows as he dipped it into his own mug—she was awfully jittery. "Hey, um, try drinking this one slower." He didn't release it right away when she went to take it back. The moment she tugged it away, she took a long drink.
Cliff watched them interact, never saying a word to interrupt but certainly not speaking his mind. Eventually, he exhausted such private thoughts, and he went back to looking his phone. Sylvia made a mental note to get a better look at one of the humans' phones at some point. It was a curious sight, watching Cliff swipe his thumb relentlessly across the screen, leaving her wondering what could possibly be so immersive on that little device. If it was as interesting as television, she couldn't blame him.
Cliff paused in his swiping and sat up straight in his seat, frowning at the screen with a scowl that seemed to chill the whole kitchen.
"Hey." He scooted his chair closer to Jon's, holding up the phone for him to see. "I think I may have found another case."
With the teaspoon of coffee weighing her down, Sylvia could only crane her neck as the phone was passed from hand to hand. Unfortunately for her, the contents of the phone were shielded from view. She used Jon's face to gauge the news instead. He lowered his mug of coffee, a frown pinching his face into a serious scrutiny. Whatever the case was, it didn't bode well. Uncertainty snaked through her. Taking down a killer dog felt like an accomplishment enough to last a lifetime. Apparently, they felt far from the same.
Jon nodded and passed back the phone. "Whereabouts?"
Cliff smirked, but it verged on a grimace. "You're not gonna like it."
Fourteen
“I‘m not staying here." Sylvia's tone was final, but she knew she didn't have a real say in the matter when it came down to it. Once they shut the door behind them, what could she do? Her only choice was to make sure that didn't happen.
She held her ground atop Jon's dresser, arms crossed. The humans were almost ready to head out, as far she could tell. Not much time left to convince them.
She sought Cliff across the bedroom. "You're only checking things out, aren't you? Maybe I can help." She focused on Jon then, pinching her eyebrows in a silent plea to back her up.
Jon stopped in his tracks, looking rather flustered by her imploring look. Behind him, Cliff continued to adjust a utility harness. It clipped twice, around his waist and across his chest, providing a variety of pockets and holsters all the way around.
Abandoning his own utility harness laid out on the bed behind him, Jon came over to the dresser, bringing a more intimate edge to the conversation. Resting a hand on the dresser, he lifted a single finger toward her. Though he reached for the wings folded at her back, he couldn't quite follow through. The finger chickened out and folded back into a fist with the others.
"Your wing isn't entirely healed yet," Jon pointed out quietly.
"Which means I'll be stranded wherever you leave me," she countered.
; It was a better argument than trying to test her flight right then and there. She wasn't interested in risking a rip in the thin, newly-formed membrane. She folded her wings a little tighter, remembering she had told Jon just yesterday that she could get around the apartment fine without them. At the moment, being able to climb down a couch didn't cut it for her.
She fixed Jon with a serious look despite the way he loomed over her. It wasn't the time to be intimidated. "I'm better off not being alone," she pressed. "What am I supposed to do if someone walks in? Besides, I managed to help you put that dog down without my wings."
Jon's hand lifted away to scratch the side of his face. A thoughtful look entered his eyes, and Sylvia could see it happening: remarkably, she was getting under his skin. His hand came back down again, this time resting palm-up on the top of the dresser. Sylvia recognized that gesture now as an invitation.
"I can't even argue that you'll weigh us down," Jon said with a small smirk.
"She knows where we're going, doesn't she?" With heavy skepticism, Cliff raised his voice toward the other side of the room. "There's not room for sightseeing."
"She did alright last time." Jon rubbed his lips together, his brown eyes unwavering from her face. Sylvia felt a flash of heat rise to her cheeks, wondering if he was reliving their brief kiss, same as her. She suppressed a smile, even as Cliff heaved a massive sigh.
"Fine. But she's riding with you. I don't need that kind of distraction while we're working." He fought off a shiver. "Those little feet digging into you…"
Jon moved his hand closer to his chest, making everything about him suddenly verge on surrounding her again.
"I think we'll manage," he said.
The look on Sylvia's face was almost smug, if not triumphant at her success in convincing him. Constantly aware of the steep height disadvantage she had around the humans, it was nice to know that she could still have a say in not being left behind. And it wasn't only for her benefit. She was determined to not be dead weight.