Not Until We Are Lost

Evan was leaving Jack's house, phone and charger in hand. She hadn't said he could take it, he was just taking it anyway. He doubted she had a phone at the moment that it would work for, and he needed it. She was also not exactly aware that he was leaving. As soon as he was sure that she was asleep and not going to wake up, he'd gotten himself away from her. Going so far as to pretend that he was just going to the restroom, then from there gathering his things and taking off.

The phone was charged enough for him to turn it on and for dozens of texts and calls to come through at once. The burst of communication drained the battery again, so Evan didn't dare read, look at, or listen to anything. He had to get back to the house and plug the phone back in before he did that.

He was feeling the guilt again. That crawling nagging that started at the back of his neck and flooded over the rest of him in waves. He enjoyed Jack a lot. He liked Jack, too. But Niks. There was something about Niks. Being with somebody else was ... well, it wasn't Niks. The stupid thing was that Niks wasn't his, and hadn't shown any interest in him in that way. She'd kept all of it very professional. Even at the labs...

Evan shook his head. The guilt this time was much worse than it had been, and he had no idea why. It wasn't like he'd even seen Niks around this place. He had no idea if she was here. If she was back in Electric City, thinking that he'd gone ahead and taken off, despite what the Tower wanted of him. That was within his nature.

But how could he put himself on hold for a woman who didn't even look at him twice?

The unpleasantness wasn't just internal, either. Evan's distracted thoughts had kept him from looking where he was going, and suddenly, the fairy was there.

( bad boy )

Evan had found his cell phone finally because Jack had called him. It wasn't an item that he did his best to keep track of. Really, he only had it so that the Tower could get a hold of him easily. It was a very basic model. A very old one, too. The screen was not even in color. It made and received calls, and that's all that he needed it for. It also did texting, but so far he'd only really done that on one occasion, and the occasion hadn't lasted long before a phonecall was made.

After the call from Jack, the battery died. He couldn't even keep the damned thing on long enough to try to retrieve the phone numbers and attempt to get a hold of Niks. Part of him hoped that she was still back in Electric City. Part of him hoped that she was here with him. And part of him hoped that if she was here, Simon was not. But he figured he couldn't get that lucky and if Niks was here, so was the fairy.

He decided that he would meet with Jack and then figure out the next step from there. Even if the next step was having to get a whole new phone, since he was sure that nobody sold the chargers for the one he had anymore. They'd probably laugh at him. Think it was a joke. Maybe he'd be able to find the charger once he wasn't frantically looking for it. If he just walked away now and came back to it, the need wouldn't be so high and he'd find it in the one place he hadn't thought to look.

He felt relieved that Jack was here. Somebody that he knew. He wanted to see her and make sure that she was alright. That she hadn't ended up in a really bad situation. Not that he would have called his situation bad. Mary was a very attractive woman. It was a bit awkward, at worst. But since they hadn't actually done anything, it didn't seem to matter.

Evan wondered if Mary were having any better luck finding what she was looking for than he was. He hoped so.

Not wanting to look like a creepy peeper, Evan had wandered away from the street with the house where he'd woken up. He wanted to see the rest of the town that they were in. He wanted to know if it went beyond this street, mostly. And he also wanted to know if the rest of it was as jacked up about the Easter and Halloween mix as this street was, or if it was localized. Maybe that was partly due to the Tower, that need to know.

And it was. It was the whole place.

He looked for the nearest coffee shop, Jack had said she was going to try to find coffee first. Since he couldn't text her or call her, he was just going to hope he hadn't missed her.

Evan shifted slightly in his sleep. The dreams that he had been having weren't really exciting at all. Ever since the day he'd woken up feeling so pleasant, he'd tried to recapture the feeling, telling himself that he was going to repeat whatever dream he'd had that night. It never happened. Or it hadn't yet.

Despite the confrontation with Simon, Evan didn't have any nightmares about fairies chasing after him, or looming over him monstrously with big pointy fangs and blood on their hands. He didn't have any nightmares about Niks shunning him, either.

He was vaguely aware of the warmth in the bed with him, and he gravitated toward it. His arm wrapped around the other body, pulling it close and holding it tight. The soft skin under his hand caused a sleepy smile, waking him up a little more. Evan buried his face into a pile of hair, breathing deep of the scent. His leg even slid over the lower half of the person sharing the sheets with him, all the better to hold on tighter.

Something tugged at him. Bringing him closer to the surface of wakefulness. Evan didn't remember going home with anybody last night. The sheets were far too soft to be in his own apartment, and there were too many pillows on the bed. So this either had to be her house, or a hotel. But there was absolutely nothing in his head that indicated he should be in this situation. After talking to Simon, he'd brooded for a little while, and then he'd gone to get a drink.

Evan opened an eye and found himself looking at blonde hair. That was new. He tried again to recall the previous night. He would have bet money on remembering stumbling home alone. Could he have gotten back up later, gone back to the bar, and gotten too drunk to remember anything else? He supposed anything was possible.

He wasn't quite sure what to do, so he just stayed still, listening to the woman breathe. He didn't know what her name was. Hell, he didn't even know what her face looked like. It must have been a five or six cab night.

Simon watched the woman walk away from him, annoyed by her. Annoyed that she stank of Evan Vang. Annoyed that once again, the puppy was involved in his life somehow without an invitation to it. The Tower had caused the intrusion before, and now it was due to some woman. A stranger. Somebody that Simon had no connection to and no obligation toward.

He decided that he was going to seek out the infant, if nothing else than to let him know that there was knowledge about an illicit meeting with somebody who was not Niklas Wright. It was a tidbit that Simon enjoyed quite a lot. Considering that he knew how Evan felt about Niks and how she felt in return. This would be a weapon against the boy. He still would not tell Niks, but Evan didn't need to know that fact.

All Simon really wanted to do was hurt the artifact hunter.

It was easy to find the lad, holed up in his office. Right where he should be. His desk covered in busywork. Things that the fairy had sent down to him. Not that the boy would ever know. He didn't have any clue that Simon had that kind of pull in the Tower. The fairy didn't knock, just went in, closing the door behind him. He moved through the space, looking at the objects within.

( Evan sighed )

The dream was nothing abnormal. Just one of those sorts that comes along when you've been spending too much time in an office, unable to do the things you really loved to do. He was filing papers. Endless papers. Every time he thought that he was almost done, he'd look at the stack would be almost to the ceiling again. His phone constantly rang, but when he answered, nobody would be there. The office he sat in was abnormally small, the sides of the desk almost touching the walls on both sides, the front of it made it so the door couldn't open all the way. But the faceless people who wandered in from time to time didn't seem to think it was all that strange.

Evan hated it.

He spilled cold, too thick coffee on himself while reaching to get more papers to file. How big was the damned cabinet anyway? How could it fit all of this? He stood too fast, the chair not going back very far because of the wall directly behind it, and he felt the bruises start to raise on the backs of his knees. That was a strange sensation, he'd never had a dream be that real before.

Exiting the office, having to squeeze through the door with a lot of effort, Evan was confronted by a set of stairs. They went down only. There was nowhere else to go, unless he wanted to return to the office, which he did not.

He walked carefully, unsure of what was happening or where he was going. His only thought was that in this dream, down could only mean a more hellish place than the office he'd been sitting in. He was going to end up somewhere where he had to sort number two pencils by the shade of their yellow and how much length there was between the point and the eraser, he was sure of it.

Complicated partner relationships, vindictive fairy, irritating succubus and now a missing cat boy. Evan's life had become far too complex for his own liking. He liked things being easy. Not messy. Being caged in the Tower building was clearly the antithesis of everything he liked, beyond the fact that he hated being in an office.

While he couldn't claim responsibility for most of the problems that had heaped on his shoulders, he could - and did - when it came to the cat. What had happened to Mikey had happened because he'd had a hand in it. If he hadn't agreed to help Niks, she would have never been able to get him into the Tower. He'd supplied the sedative. He'd drugged the cat. And then he'd physically carried the boy to his fate.

Evan felt like an asshole.

He'd thought about finding Max again, but this wasn't a night for laying burdens on friends. This was a night for drowning sorrows. Of maybe finding somebody and making a giant mistake. The bar Evan had found wasn't anything he thought he'd find the PI in, or anybody else that he knew for that matter. It was run down, shitty, and mostly empty.

And Evan was about three beers in already.

Getting the sedative had been a little more complicated than he'd thought it would be. It turned out that the Tower was okay with handing the stuff out when it was for a plot or assignment that they handed out. If you had those credentials, they gave it out like candy at Halloween. But they were a little more cautious when it was for something that they hadn't spearheaded. They didn't seem to care very much that it was for a possible discovery that would benefit them, or that it was surrounding a pick-up that they had arranged.

Luckily for Evan, the person who was in charge of the labs when he'd gone to fetch the sedative had been female. It didn't hurt that she was an introvert. And it made it easier that she was a bit mousy. While she was very protective of her job and didn't want to get into trouble, she was not quite so protective of herself and easily fell to his charms. He felt like a bit of a jerk for manipulating her, but he'd made a promise that he would get this and help Niks out.

He arrived at the apartment almost a half an hour late. There was a whole vial of sedative in his pocket and a syringe. He didn't really want to hold the kid down and give him a shot, but if it came down to that, well, then he was ready. His other pocket held a can of tuna. The kind that had a lot of liquid in it and stank to high hell. The hope was that the odor would overpower the scent of the drug. That the flavor would eclipse the bitterness. If the kid was a werecat, or even just somehow a cat who could become human as he seemed convinced, then there was going to be a problem with his senses. They would be much more sophisticated than any human had. What Evan and Niks might not be able to detect, Mikey would discover with ease.

Evan knocked, thinking of strategies while he waited for an answer.

The presentation had gone well enough. Evan had even shown on time and had all the proper paperwork. He answered questions after going into some depth about the porcine charm; Niks was polite enough to avoid pointing out a slight flub by one of their co-workers. Thankfully, Evan caught it, and he didn't rip the guy to pieces with knowledge. Niks would do it later because the guy should have known better; their jobs were life or death, and said co-worker was edging closer to the death side of the 'or.' Even if the main topic of discussion did seem very strange; the item in the wrong hands could actually cause a good bit of damage.

She had clapped with the rest and slipped out as soon as it was over. She didn't want to bother him right after; instead, she went down to his office to see if he was okay. While he seemed fine - she'd heard he was pretty good at poker - she had a sneaking suspicion something was off. It could have simply been presentation jitters.

Niks knocked on his office door, hoping she wasn't interrupting anything.

"Evan, have coffee for you." They had to take care of something later, but she wasn't going to mention it. Not yet. Evan didn't seem the type to need reminding, not if he agreed to it. She'd see if that were the case. "Or, it's five o'clock somewhere as they say."

The night had been rough. The dreams were horrible. Someone or something had come for her, taken her from her bed, and held her. They'd fed her, but the energy didn't feel right. Then they deposited her a new place that was not at all her home.

As Bo stretched awake, she realized that the dreams were true. Or partially. She sat up and looked around at the normal everyday hotel room. It wasn't her place with Kenzi, and it wasn't any other bedroom she'd been in recently. It didn't feel like any place she'd been before, which meant she had the urge to stab. Or cut, definitely beat.

She slipped from the bed, wondering why someone took the time to tuck her in but not to dress her. Not one to be bothered by her body and lack of clothing, she moved through out the room, relaxing only a fraction when she found the usual black of her daywear, including the boots with heels that made her definitely taller. She didn't worry about the height, so much as she did like the way the heels made her legs look.

She worked quickly to get dressed, not caring that these may not be her clothes. She doubted they were as they felt much too new. She also didn't care that the small cache of knives looked nothing like her own. She was taking them.

Bo the Succubus who chose the humans and recently killed the Norn headed out of a hotel bedroom she knew wasn't her own. Or that was what she thought before she found a couple dead looking damn close the throes of passion; they were tangled up with each other on the couch. She couldn't remember feeding off them, and when she leaned over to hopefully save them, nothing happened. They had been dead too long, or she didn't kill them. She didn't know, but she wasn't staying any longer than she had to, which meant leaving what turned out to be a freaking suite.

"Why can't I end up in places like this on a good day?" She mumbled. She'd have to find a phone can call Kenzi. She couldn't bring herself to call Dyson; what if what she'd done had been for nothing? Though, she was tempted to hook up with Ryan - she felt a little shaky, and a quick fix from a fellow Fae might be what she needed.

She got a block away and came to a stop in front of a rather normal looking building. Something here called to her, whispered to the hunger she was worried would be too big after what she'd done. But, she couldn't for the life of her and her bloodline figure out what it was. So, she ended up standing in front of a window, staring at her reflection, wondering what the hell, what the very depths of Hell was she doing.

Niks: [text] Call me. Now.

Evan: [text] oooooookay....

( A conversation between partners )

Max looked at himself in the mirror and considered the five o'clock that shadowed his jaw. He rubbed it, considering the face looking back at him. It didn't feel like the same face; getting a few drinks into his gullet could be a possible fix for the problem. He just didn't feel like himself.

He fixed his tie, or more put it on. He rarely stepped out of his office without the usual uniform of a private eye. A gumshoe, a flatfoot, a dick. He always smirked at that last one; he had been called that before when on cases, and yet it didn't stop him from doing what he had to to make the rent. He was always on the verge of getting tossed out on his ass for being late, which was saying something, seeing as he was usually pretty damn good at keeping his bills paid.

The p.i. pulled on the trench and the fedora before leaving his home away from home; he slept more nights in that office than anywhere else lately. He'd taken to sleeping in it more because something about the city lately had felt different. He didn't know what it was, and he wondered if it didn't have to do with meeting that damn man.

Bar was the only choice to drown that uneasy feeling.

He sat at the bar and ordered his regular. All he had to do was get buzzed.

The Historian sat at her desk, her brows furrowing a little. Her dreams had been missing something, but that was bound to happen. One couldn’t always go to the Dreaming, to the Dreamlands, all the time; it wasn’t good for the soul, or maybe she was just trying to rationalize. Then again, the Dreaming had been feeling crowded, or at least the small area she visited.

She reached out for her phone but stopped. Who could she call? Who in the world could she call right now? Evan wouldn’t understand, would he? And, Simon would just give her issues. He did like making her life difficult.

Slipping from her desk in her Tower office, she grabbed her jacket and her cell phone. Her mind worked through reasons. She stepped out into the hallway and came to a stop to look one way then the other. Evan’s office was one way, Simon’s rooms the other.

If this were a story, one of them might simply know she needed them. This wasn’t a story. It was the real world. Or as real as it ever got.

( Read more... )

Simon knew. Of course he knew. There was very very little that went on in this building without him knowing about it. In fact, if it happened within his city, cities he had previously claimed, or to people he had claimed, he knew about it. So of course he knew about the silly little boy that the Tower had put with Niks. He knew the second the boy entered the building, then the second that he'd entered her office. When she finally arrived, he knew that too. Even if he hadn't been upstairs, he'd have known that. He'd placed all the wards. He'd protected her. And he'd put a few extras in to make sure that nobody tampered with something he considered to be his.

He knew that they'd flirted. Oh, how that had raised his ire. Worse yet, she was actually attracted to the buffoon. How could she be? A brute like him? An absolute infant? In comparison to the fairy, ANY fairy, the boy was ridiculous. Simon had no idea how she could possibly entertain any ideas of liking him. Tolerating him as a partner was one thing, they all did what the Tower told them to, to an extent. But this had gone long beyond tolerance. She had flirted with the artifact hunter. To make matters worse, he was American. Not new to America, not with any correct upbringing and then transported to America. He had been born there. His parents had been born there. His grandparents. It was a shame, really.

Perhaps it would have been one thing, had Simon put the American artifact hunter child in place as he had Archer. But he hadn't. His fingers were not in this particular pie. She might think that they were. That could only make things worse. Niks thinking that he had placed the idiot there to play with her, thinking she would play back. What might she do then? He couldn't think of it. It was horrifying.

( Read more... )

Sit in here and wait. That's all Evan'd been told. They'd given him a pretty skint tour, told him only what they thought he needed to know, which wasn't nearly enough for his liking, and didn't answer any of his questions. That, they said, was for his new partner to deal with. They also hadn't told him who that would be.

Of course, none of this was new. He'd been in the Tower for a long while now. But it never ceased to irritate him that they could be so close lipped with their own. Or maybe it was just this branch's way of dealing with the new ones. Brush them off on somebody else, that way nobody gets too attached if there's a death, and if somebody is, it's just one. He knew that being Tower wasn't a good way to expand your life. Or assure that you would live to any acceptable old age. But he did love his work, and didn't have any plans to leave it any time soon. No matter how they decided to treat him, or where they decided to send him. Like this place. Evan was pretty sure that this was a punishment for something he'd done. There were no big infractions in his file, but plenty of smaller ones. Continuing digs when he'd been told to stop, moving to new digs without asking permission. Buying artifacts for way more money than had been authorized. It all came out the way the Tower and his superiors wanted, but they didn't enjoy his lack of obedience. He was called hot headed a lot, too independent, of course, as long as he suited them they'd never see him gone. They'd just put him in tiny shitholes until they thought he had learned his lesson.

He never did.

They never seemed to notice.

They'd made him clean up for this meeting. His previous few days had spent trying to identify something he'd picked up. He'd been greasy and haggard, unshaven and rumpled. Evan had had a feeling that they wouldn't let him in the building if he didn't tidy himself. It seemed to him that there were more uppity types here. What did it matter in the end? As long as he got to do what he wanted to do, he'd try to follow their rules and avoid whatever peeves they had. Hopefully they'd see fit to send him back to where the real artifacts were sooner than later. What could he find in a little off beat town like this?

Evan played with the arms of the chair he was sitting in, realizing that it was really quite nice. This whole office was wholly different from his own. Quite neat. Before he'd packed it up, his office had looked like a tornado had blown through. Papers, books, artifacts everywhere. A computer buried somewhere under it all. Writing implements scattered to the winds. He did not feel that things would go well with him and his new partner.

( Read more... )