Guess who's back!!
lowkey disappeared because i contemplated whether or not i was ever going to write again but i am so here ya go
i also might publish a new book at some point so wait for that one lol
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"Vic," Mike sighed. He scrubbed his face with his hand and gave me a tired look. "How... how have you been?"
I raised my eyebrows at him, putting the book I was researching down and folding my arms.
"How have I... been?" I repeated, looking at him blankly. "Is that really what you're asking?"
Mike rolled his eyes. "I haven't seen my brother for something like thirty years. I think I'm allowed to ask what you've been doing."
"You're allowed to ask," I said, "I just don't know why you want to. It's not like you actually care or anything."
Mike rubbed his neck awkwardly. "I do care."
"You haven't bother to contact me once, in those thirty years," I said defensively. "Yet you seem to be very buddy buddy with Jaime."
Mike smiled a little. "Are you being so offish with me today because I told Jaime about the ward thing?"
I shifted uncomfortably. "I don't care about that."
"Have you seen Kellin lately?" Mike asked.
I actually hadn't seen Kellin for the last month. I frowned, thinking it over in my head. The only other times I'd managed to get rid of Kellin for this long was when I'd packed up shop and moved somewhere desolate. Even then, it'd taken a few weeks for him to use his stupid gift and come knocking on my door, preceding to kill my pot plants or something.
"Why's he avoiding you?" Mike asked. "That's not... like him is it?"
I looked down at my hands, unsure of how to respond to the question. Mike knew the relationship I had had with Kellin and he knew what it had fizzled out into.
I sighed, "I'm sure he'll come round eventually. He unfortunately always does."
Mike smiled, a small smile but I saw it before he turned away, pressing his face into a book and beginning the research he was supposed to be doing.
"You can deny it," he said in a sing-song voice. "But you forget I know."
"Know what?"
"How it used to be between you. How close you guys were."
I tasted battery acid in my mouth from his words. "Well, it's not like that anymore."
Mike shrugged. "You guys couldn't exist without each other."
Mike looked up at me before shrugging again and pulling a book out of the shelf. "You still can't."
"Bullshit."
"It's not," Mike said matter-of-factly. "You can't exist with Kellin and he can't exist without you. You're... drawn to each other somehow - whether it's friendship or hatred."
"This isn't a fairytale," I scoffed. "There's no such thing as being drawn to somebody."
Mike sighed and I could feel him smirking across the room. "Tell me, you're disappointed that he hasn't shown up, aren't you?"
"I'm not," I snapped. "If anything, I'm relieved. It means I can work in peace."
"You can lie to Jaime about this all you like," Mike said. "He wasn't there in the 1900s, so he never actually witnessed the two of you."
"What you're implying," I snapped, shutting the thick book closed with a heavy thud. "Was illegal in the 1900s. We both could have been killed, so let me tell you, we definitely weren't-"
"But it's not illegal now," Mike shrugged. "This isn't the 20th century or anything."
"Mike," I snapped. "Kellin and I were friends. You know I was-"
Mike put up a hand in defense. "I know, I know. Dani and all of that. I remember her, don't worry. I might not want to remember her after all of these years... but I do."
"Then you understand why I hate him," I sighed, looking back down at the table and trying not to be overcome by years of emotion. Even after a century, the memories never failed to haunt me.
"I don't actually," Mike said slowly, carefully. He knew he was treading over a line here and he was trying his best to tiptoe as gently as he could over it. "Nobody knows what happened to them."
He looked up at me, waiting for me to offer an explanation. I hadn't spoken about this for years, promising myself that I would try to put it all behind me. I hadn't managed to forget yet, no matter how hard I was trying to.
"I don't know myself," I said in a final tone.
Mike sighed, the disappointment rolling off his shoulders like fog. "Vic, it's been a hundred years. How could you still feel guilty?"
"It's my fault," I said in a soft tone. "I was the reason for-"
"You didn't do anything," Mike said quickly, jumping to mend the hole he had created. The one thing I did not want to talk about was this and he had forced me into it.
"You were a kid, Vic."
I opened my mouth to argue that it was Kellin and I who had destroyed the school. That it was actually us who had done all those things all those years ago.
Mike didn't know I had had a hand in it though. Nobody really knew what had happened except Kellin and I'd never stuck around long enough after that to recover with him.
But Hayley walked in and all thoughts of the destruction we'd caused flew out of my head.
"Did you find anything yet?" she asked cheerily, placing two huge binders down on the desk.
Mike and I exchanged glances and then shook our heads.
-
"Maybe we can go back there someday," Tony said lazily, his eyes closing shut as he spoke.
"You want to go back to the place where you almost died?" Jaime asked quizzically. "Can you believe these young people and their shenanigans, Vic?"
I laughed at that, especially the way Tony rolled his eyes impatiently and snapped back that he was practically the same age as us.
"You're like our child," Jaime teased. "Vic and I are your gay dads-"
"I'm bringing this conversation to a stop immediately," I said, laughing. "I don't think I can joint parent with you."
"But you're open to being in a relationship with me," Jaime grinned, pointing a finger in my direction. "So marriage is a yes, but children are a no."
"Everything with you is a no," I said. "I'm happy to sit in my abandoned old tower with my cat, reading up on ancient spells."
"He's literally Mother Gothel," Tony laughed. "Think about it. He lives in a tower and he broods."
"Does that make Kellin his Rapunzel?" Jaime laughed.
"Hilarious," I snapped. "But Rapunzel was held a hostage whereas I would prefer Kellin as far away from me as possible."
"You're still like every mortal fairy story ever," Jaime shrugged. "The mean old wizard lives in his tower alone with nothing for company except his mean old man-thoughts."
"And nobody bothered the mean old wizards," I said, waving my hand and making a cup of tea appear. "So the old wizards lived peacefully."
"And they died alone," Jaime finished. "I mean, can we at least try and get you a girlfriend?"
"I don't want one," I said. "Aren't you being hypocritical? I don't see you with a girl."
"I don't need one," Jaime said, grinning. "I can't tie-" he gestured to his whole body - "all of this down."
"Because who would saddle up with him for eternity," Tony said smugly.
"Precisely," I agreed.
Jaime and Tony had left an hour later, mumbling something about places to go and people to screw. I had waved them away quickly, uninterested with their plans to go to the mortal world.
"You can come out now," I said, flipping through a book idly. "They left."
"How did you know I was here?" Kellin asked awkwardly, running a hand through his hair. He appeared a few meters in front of me and I glanced at him absentmindedly.
"Just because you can get through my wards," I told him, my gaze still on the pages of the book. "Doesn't mean I don't feel the shift that comes with your presence."
"The shift?"
"The energy in the room changes when more people are in it," I explained. "I can feel your magic increasing the energy levels in the room."
"So I couldn't ever sneak up on you, is what you're saying?" He said, smiling slowly.
"You could," I answered, "if I wasn't paying attention."
I looked up at him, smoothing a page from the book. "You know that though. You know about the shifts I feel and you know how to deflect me and prevent me from being alerted to your presence."
Kellin stayed quiet, letting me finish.
"So, why are you pretending that you don't know?" I asked. My voice should have held spite or malice but it was calm and even. I didn't feel anything but curiosity towards the situation.
"I like hearing you explain your magic," Kellin said gently. "I haven't heard it in a while."
"We haven't held a proper conversation for a hundred years," I said.
Kellin's gaze dropped. "I know that."
"Why are you here?" I asked. "You haven't bothered me for a month and now you're suddenly back and it's just to... spy on me?"
"I wasn't... spying," Kellin said defensively.
"You hid and eavesdropped on the conversations I had with my friends," I countered. "Just because they didn't know you were there, doesn't mean I didn't know."
"If I didn't want you to know I had come," Kellin said, "you wouldn't have known."
"So why let me know?" I sighed. "How many other times have you spied on me without me knowing? Please say none because it's creepy as fuck."
Kellin laughed. "I'm not that obsessed with you, dear."
I smiled, "but you are a little obsessed."
"You always knew that though," Kellin said softly.
The whole atmosphere in the room changed then and I could taste the foreboding feeling that was leaking into the room.
"Why are you here?" I repeated. "Why did you go."
Kellin sighed, leaning on my desk and turning his gaze back to the book on spells I was reading.
"I left to figure some stuff out," he said after a while. "I'm back because I did."
"What was it?" I asked but I already knew. Even after a hundred years, I recognized that familiar slump of his shoulders and the way his fingers were tensing at his sides. I could see his cheeks getting redder with every second that ticked by and how he was looking at everything in the room except me.
"I'm sorry," he mumbled. The words seemed to wash over my like a flood, cutting out my hearing for a second and preventing my lungs from breathing. "For Danielle. For Ryan, Brendon, everything. I'm sorry."
He still refused to look at me, crossing his arms over his chest. "I know it took like a hundred years for me to apologize, but if you think it hasn't been killing me all these years as well... it has. Really badly Vic. And you're the only one who'd understand and the only one I can talk to about this."
"Why are you saying this to me all of a sudden?" I asked.
"Because of what Jaime said," he sighed. "About us."
"Kellin there's no-"
"There's no us? Yeah, trust me, I know."
I opened my mouth to say something else but he kept talking, so I stopped, waiting for him to finish.
"Mostly I hit this realisation after I saw somebody in the mortal world... who looked exactly like an older Dani. Like if Dani was normal and living a normal life? She had a boyfriend, she was laughing. She was so happy, Vic."
Kellin sighed, sucking in a long breath. "And it got me thinking, what if that was all that was in store for Dani? She could have been that happy, with some nice boy and well... now she's-"
"She's where she's always been," I sighed, closing my eyes at the memory.
"She knew, Vic," Kellin mumbled, looking up at me. "She knew that day."
"We don't know if she knew."
"She did. You can't tell me that she didn't know exactly what would have happened."
I heard the flutter of wings and looked around for my cat. I called her and she started to pad over to me but stopped when she saw Kellin instead.
All he had to do was smile and hold out his hand and she had flown up to sit herself around his shoulders.
"You're a traitor," I whispered to her, making Kellin laugh.
"How are you doing, Sky?" he asked, scratching between her ears until she was omitting a steady purr.
Kellin turned back to me uneasily. "Vic I-"
"I can't talk about this right now," I said honestly. "Maybe over a period of time... but just not right now. It's too much - you coming here and bringing all of this up-"
"You're right," Kellin said, picking Wings up and setting her down gently on the table. "I shouldn't have sprung all of this on you so soon."
"I've coped with it for a century but being mad at you." I scoffed at how stupid it was.
"I know." Kellin said. "I was partially mad at you too."
"Partially?" I smiled.
"Well why do you think I always came round looking for you?" Kellin smiled, swaying on his feet.
"To annoy me," I laughed.
"That was just for my personal entertainment," Kellin smiled. "Otherwise you'd be too boring."
"We'll talk about what happened," I said gently. "Slowly."
"Right," Kellin said. "Yeah. Okay."
He hesitated, a frown crossing his face.
"What?" I urged.
"I missed you." Kellin ran his fingers through Wings's fur and sent me a sideways glance. "I missed talking to you."
I sighed. "Me too. It hasn't been... easy getting through this."
"You'd think that even with a hundred years," Kellin laughed bitterly. "You'd manage to move on with something."
"Maybe because we holed it up," I offered. "We never ever talked about what happened and it festered inside us like a wound."
"Maybe," Kellin shrugged. "We'll get through this though. Like old times."
I smiled. "Just you and me-"
"Against the world," Kellin finished, returning my smile.
After a few minutes of silence, Kellin pushed off of the desk and turned to me.
"I should get going," he said. "Don't want to overstay my welcome."
I didn't say anything for a while, just thinking about whether or not to make a decision that would change everything. I could leave things alone and everything would more or less remain the same, or I could do this and send my life down a dark spiraling road.
"No," I sighed, choosing to take the latter road. "You can stay here if you want."