Who: Aidan and Knox When: midday, Sunday, June 24 Where: home Status: complete
Knox loved the rain, but he loved it even more when it stopped. When a big storm finally let up and passed, and the air felt scrubbed fresh, and everything smelled wet. It was around lunchtime and he was outside, lounging on the front porch steps and munching on an apple, just listening to the forest around the house. The birds were shaking off and singing, and there was a nice breeze winding its way through the trees. It was all lovely, and he tried to chew slowly and quietly to not break the peace out there.
He had the sense that not all was peaceful within the house behind him, but Knox hadn’t gotten to the bottom of it yet. Nobody was in immediate danger, he was always aware of that much, and sometimes they had to work shit out on their own. It wasn’t always apparent, but he did know how to mind his own business on occasion. Knox knew that if he was needed, they would come to him. In the meantime, he was enjoying the good parts and enduring the bad, just like every other living creature.
Aidan had forced himself to be patient, determined to give Max a few days to tell the rest of the family what was happening to him, but when almost a week had passed he’d reached his limit. He didn’t care if Max wanted him to mind his own fucking business—if something was happening to him, if he was disappearing or sucking the life out of them again, someone else needed to fucking know. It was too much weight for Aidan to bear himself, and yet going to Shayna Mae felt a little extreme, like declaring a campfire a forest fire. It might not be that bad yet. So instead of hunting down his sister, he went for Knox.
“Hey,” Aidan said, stepping out onto the porch to join him. It was still early enough in the day that everything still felt wet, the canopy of trees keeping the sun from soaking up all the water at once. The air smelled fresh and invigorating, and he took a moment to breathe deep before diving into conversation. “You notice anything off about Max?”
Knox felt him coming before he actually stepped out onto the porch, but he wasn’t concerned until he heard the tone in Aidan’s voice. Knox’s jaw paused its chewing for a beat as he looked over and up at the youngest O’Reilly, dark brows drawing together. He finished the bite in his mouth and tilted his head from side to side slightly. “Maybe ... kind of off. But it’s different. Not like it was before he disappeared,” he told Aidan. “Why, what’s happened?” He was pretty sure that Aidan wouldn’t be asking unless something came up, and that was worrisome. Knox felt certain that Max wasn’t an energy-sucking Problem anymore, but there was something different about him. Knox just hadn’t figured it out yet.
Aidan knew that ‘different’ was better than the alternative, but he still didn’t like that it was there at all. It felt like every time they got their brother back, the world seemed set on taking him away. He wasn’t ready to let that happen again, not if he could help it. “Last week, when we went out with Aya, Max walked through a wall. Like it wasn’t even there. Whatever he was seeing, it wasn’t the same as what I saw. Or Aya. It was weird.” More than that, it was disconcerting. Aidan got that Max didn’t want the family worrying over him, but he didn’t feel like they could take another shock either. This wasn’t a secret he wanted to keep. “He’s gonna be pissed I said anything, but… felt like someone else should know.”
He hadn’t had time to form any real expectations of what Aidan might say, but that one was out of left field. “Max walked through a wall?” Knox repeated, the skepticism clear in his tone. “All on his own? No fuckery from Aya?” He knew that all manner of things were possible, of course, but usually things like that took magic, and Max didn’t have any magic. Knox was more inclined to believe that Aya had been playing a trick on all of them. “And what do you mean, he wasn’t seeing the same thing -- like he didn’t see the wall at all?” Knox wasn’t concerned about the last part at all. Keeping a watch over the family was his sole purpose in life, so of course he needed to know about something like this.
“If it was Aya, it was elaborate, and well acted on both their parts. She seemed just as surprised as me. And Max didn’t know what the fuck we were talking about. And besides, I… I don’t think Aya can do that,” Aidan said, annoyed with himself for not being absolutely sure. He knew Aya liked to mess with him, with all of them when she could, but this had felt too real to be a ruse. Was it possible to put up an illusion that only one of them could see? That felt like a mix of different kinds of magic, some too far advanced for him to contemplate, but he didn’t think she could get in his head like that. “I mean, he described the hole in the wall. The dust and the dirt. Could see it on his fingers. I watched him walk through, like the wall wasn’t even there. I felt it with my hands. It wasn’t a glamour.”
Knox didn’t think any of them truly knew everything that Aya could do, and he didn’t trust her an inch, even though she’d been living with them for a while now. Well, as much as a spirit-being who could travel anywhere she pleased through any door could “live” with them, anyway. She came and went. Aidan seemed convinced that it hadn’t been her doing though, and he had to admit it sounded like difficult magic to pull off, with two different perceptions of reality and all. After a thoughtful grunt, Knox took one more bite of his apple and threw the rest of it toward the treeline for the animals to have. “That’s definitely new,” he muttered as he turned his attention back to Aidan. “And Max had no idea how or why it happened? Was this the first time, do you know?”
“I don’t know,” Aidan shrugged. “It seemed like it, based on his reaction. But I also think he could’ve done it and not realized it. Like, he could see a doorway where we couldn’t. I’m sure he’d notice if it happened around here, but this was somewhere none of us had ever been before, you know?” He didn’t know if the doorways Max saw were random or if he was somehow creating them himself, based upon his desire to get from one point to another. It would be cool to have a power like that, but he kept thinking that people didn’t just suddenly have those kinds of powers. They always came with drawbacks. What was the cost? “I don’t think he knows why, but… but he did spend four months in some other dimension. Wouldn’t shock me if it changed him.” It was a fear he hadn’t wanted to voice, but it needed to be considered.
The familiar was aware that he would have to ask Max these same questions to get the truest answers about how he was perceiving the world, but it was hard not to want to interrogate Aidan about the whole thing, because he was worried. Knox didn’t worry about a whole lot when it came to his family, they were all very capable in their own ways, but shit like this had taken them unawares before, and he was determined not to let that happen again. “That place somehow infected him once, don’t doubt it could happen again, especially with him marinating in it all for that long,” Knox muttered, sounding very unhappy about that prospect. “It doesn’t feel the same this time, I don’t think he’s a danger, but ... still might be somethin’. I’ll look into it.” Knox stood up from where he was sitting on the steps and clapped one big hand on Aidan’s shoulder to give it a squeeze. “You did the right thing, whether he gets pissed or not.”
“I know he doesn’t want us to worry, but… it didn’t feel like a safe secret, if that makes sense.” They all had secrets, each and every one of them, and Aidan was generally fine with that. He had things he didn’t want his siblings knowing and he was sure they felt the same. But this felt like one of those things that just might be a problem if left unchecked. If he was wrong and had made a big deal out of nothing, then oh well. His bad. Max could be pissy with him. It just didn’t feel worth the risk. “He didn’t feel like a threat or anything. And we didn’t feel affected. But I couldn’t think of any kind of magic that would do that. And we know nothin’ about that place.” He paused, worrying at his bottom lip for a moment. “We know anyone else who came back from there?”
Knox knew Max very well and he was fairly certain the secrecy was more about keeping everyone out of his business than protecting them from worry, but he wasn’t going to say so. Considering the threat he’d recently posed to the whole family -- by no fault of his own, but still -- Knox felt some stirrings of anger that Max had been keeping this hidden. Even if it was a recent revelation, it should have been shared. He nodded a bit as Aidan said he and Aya hadn’t felt affected by anything, counting that as good news. “Uhhh ... one of Shayna Mae’s friends ... Greer? I dunno if you met her, but her boyfriends came by the house for help when she disappeared. Maybe we oughta check in with her too.” There were probably more out there who’d been casual acquaintances, but his family kept to themselves a lot. “I’m gonna talk to Max first though,” he added with a nod. “Make sure he’s got his head on straight about this.”
“It’s just a thought. In case it’s not just him.” If something from that other world had infected Max, Aidan suspected it had gotten them all. They’d been gone far too long to come away from that place unscathed, though he really did hope that the worst of it had passed, that all they had to battle was the trauma in the aftermath, not another actual threat. He wasn’t jumping to that conclusion yet, but he couldn’t scrape it from his mind, not after last time. If it hadn’t been for Knox, they probably all would have died. That thought ate at him, especially how useless he’d been to stop it. Aidan knew he wasn’t the most powerful witch under their roof, but he’d always thought he could defend himself, especially against his older brother. “I might be scarce for a while. He’s gonna be pissed and… I’d rather not deal with it.”
For his part, Knox didn’t think any less of any of them for the state they’d been in. He knew better than most that there were forces bigger and more powerful than any witch at work in the world. No one had known what was wrong with Max or that he was affecting the others until it was almost too late. Knox was just glad he’d been there to intervene. He nodded again to what Aidan said and patted his upper arm firmly. “I get it. Just stay safe and keep your nose clean, yeah? I’ll let you know how it goes.” Knox was sure that Max would be upset that they’d been talking about him ‘behind his back’ -- a totally human ego-driven concept that always confused Knox to some degree. But in light of recent events, he didn’t really have a leg to stand on, so Knox wasn’t too concerned with his reaction. He could handle Max. He turned to start for the door, intent on handling Max as soon as possible, just in case this was going to develop into a problem.
Sometimes Aidan liked stirring up trouble, but not within his family. This was the kind of thing he dreaded, and he felt guilty even when he was sure he’d done the right thing. It was out of his hands now, and for that he was grateful. He wasn’t good at being the only one to worry over an issue that affected so many. Knox would know how to handle it better than he had. “You know how to find me. If you need anything,” Aidan said as Knox disappeared inside the house. It was probably soon for him to disappear as well. To where, he hadn’t figured out, but if he could convince Aya to tag along, then they could escape to almost anywhere just by walking out the door.