Author's Note: We start off with Sean's perspective, but by the end we have all the boys fairly transparent...must have something to do with the moonshine!
Song for this Chapter: 3005 by Childish Gambino Perfect song for a party hosted by Cernunnos. He means it; he'll hold down this scene until 3005! What's a thousand years to hang with friends to him?
Sean slammed the door of his Jeep and looked appreciatively around Cerridwen's Cove, as he now referred to her little plot of lake property. It was a beautiful place. The lake was fed by the river that flowed down through the middle of Mystic Mountain, and the whole water scene almost made him nostalgic for home.
Almost, not quite. Mystic Mountain couldn't be separated from his mother, and he wasn't sure he was ready to see her, so he put the thoughts of visiting his childhood home away. He had another awkward reunion to deal with tonight.
Tonight would be the first time he had seen Dru since the concert. Since she broke up with him. Since she remembered her past life and decided she might as well become Cernunnos's Queen, since she'd already had his kid two thousand years ago.
Personally, he thought her logic was bullshit. It was like some kind of cosmic path of least resistance she was putting herself on. But he was done fighting for them, since she wouldn't.
He wasn't thrilled about seeing her, about going to this party, but Carrie was determined to go and support Cernunnos. He'd be damned if he'd let her go alone and have to watch The Braided Bastard and Dru together without backup. Besides, with his eyesight returned and Spring Break over, he had to go back to class next week anyway. He might as well see Dru tonight and rip the band-aid off.
Carrie threw open the door and walked out onto the porch, crossing her arms and smirking as she looked him up and down.
"Lookin' good, Cutie," she cooed, gesturing to his tight grey jeans and fitted black T-shirt.
He shook his head. "Not as good as you, Goddess." He meant it. He wasn't sure if it was the absence of his sight that made him appreciate her more, or if was just the constant need his body felt for her since they started having sex, but every time he saw her now, he was struck at how gorgeous she truly was. He had been aware of her looks before, but now it wasn't just her features he admired. It was her radiance.
He moved quickly to the porch and captured her face in his hands in a sensual kiss. She smiled.
"You like?" she twirled, and for the first time he noticed her clothes. A frayed denim skirt that buttoned all the way up the front, a black crop top, and pristine Converse. Her glowing red hair hung loose around her shoulder, the ends of her almost longer than the hem of her shirt.
"Very co-ed. Very sexy," he assured her. "You sure you wanna do this? I could think of better things we could do."
"Hmmm. Do they involve whips and chains and whispered torture spells?" she teased.
"Hey, that's not fair," he feigned hurt. "I've been a very good boy."
"Yes, you have," she patted his chest. "I've been thinking...maybe after this party, would be a good time to let the sexwitch play a little."
"Please don't tease me, Goddess," he growled, grabbing her ass.
"I'm not teasing." She looked him straight in the eyes. "I have a feeling, after this party, you might need...extra release."
He sighed, closing his eyes. "Don't worry, Carrie. I'll keep it together. I promise."
"I know you will. I believe in your control. I just wanted you to know, we can work it out later, ok?"
He nodded and took her hand, leading her down the stairs.
"You didn't use the fairy door," she said. "I could have re-made us to Hearne's camp."
"I didn't want you to have to spend the energy," he opened the passenger door for her. "I thought at this party, you might need...extra glamour."
She stuck her tongue out at him. He pinched it between his fingers and she giggled.
When they arrived at the camp, dusk had already fallen, and a dozen cars were parked haphazardly below the lodge. They joined Isabel and Reese on the walk up the stairs. The girls looked a little nervous, he thought. He wasn't surprised. He too, felt that this was more than a party. The class knew from the rituals that Hearne and Carrie both had powerful magic, and now, walking up the stairs, Sean could feel the power pumping out the open windows, along with the music.
Sean patted Reese comfortably on the shoulder. "Don't worry, this will be fun," he assured her, as Carrie beamed at him.
He hoped he was right.
When Sean made it to the deck, he was surprised to see that the party included two dozen of the Mystic Mountain men. They stood around with glasses of liquor and cigars, looking perfectly comfortable with magic on the wind. Well, they would be. Every one of them was married to a Mystic Mountain Covener. Half of them had daughters who were also witches. When they spotted Carrie, a number of them lifted their glances and hooted at her. She waved cheerfully.
Martin Buchanan detached himself from the group of cowboy booted gentleman and approached them.
He smiled broadly at Carrie and held out his arms. "Good to see you again, Irish."
She giggled and hugged him tightly. "Martin!"
Sean and Martin glanced at each other in confusion. Martin's eyes cut involuntarily to Hearne, who was in conversation with Tandie, Leander and Steven. His eyes returned to the Carrie, his face expressionless.
"Hearne and I are...old friends who like whiskey too much. Sean is my new...friend," she winked at Martin. To Sean, she simply said, "Hearne and I ran into Martin and some of his friends at Malone's before the Spring Festival Concert. She smiled. "Calloway really enjoyed the cheesesticks there."
"And playing beer pong with you," Martin laughed.
Sean looked at her with a mock disapproval and she shrugged. "I told you, I'm not good with kids. Drinking games is more my wheelhouse. Calloway's glasses were filled with ginger ale," she said a little defensively, and Sean and Martin laughed heartily.
As they moved inside, Sean finally spotted Hearne talking with two older men, one lean, tall, and blond, the other small, dark and wiry. Sean was pretty sure the tall, fairer man was the Sabit Board of Trustees, and perhaps the other one was a board member too.
Carrie stopped in the middle of the floor as Hearne met her gaze. She nodded slowly at him, and he nodded at both her and Faraday.
"Cutie," she said carefully. "Can you see his horns?"
Sean jerked his eyes to Hearne's head, and stared hard. "No. Can you?"
"Yes," she admitted. "They've been poking through since the lightening strike. Nothing like a bit of self-sacrifice to make Cernunnos feel like a real god again," she grumbled. "But I just wanted to make sure he had remembered to shield them from mortal eyes."
Sean didn't respond, because at that moment Dru breezed in from the back deck, carrying a large tray. Hearne broke his conversation with the men and looked at the assortment of grilled skewers of meat with appreciation, and said something in Dru's ear. Her mouth worked and she picked up a glass of wine from the bar, using it to diffuse her smile as Hearne kissed her temple. The Board President looked a little uncomfortable with Hearne's open involvement with a student. Sean sympathized with the man. He felt a million times more uncomfortable, watching Hearne and Dru interact.
She looked different. She looked a little paler, a little darker in the eyes. He thought maybe her hair was a little darker than her natural caramel. Had she dyed it, or was this an unconscious magical glamour she was wearing? Or maybe her honey looks before had been the glamour.
Because now she looked so...sure. Devious. Delicious.
He couldn't look at Dru anymore, because when he did, he couldn't breathe. He looked down at the goddess beside him, who smiled brightly up at him, and felt the clench in his throat relax. He reached for her hand, grateful for the ease her touch gave him. How was it these two women had switched aspects? When he met her, he thought Carrie was the dangerous witch, and Dru the sweetheart. Now, it was the opposite.
They made their way inside, and were immediately intercepted by Finn and Lana. To Sean's surprise, Finn made a two-fingered gesture to his eyes, then to Sean's and pulled him into a hearty hug.
"Glad you're better, brother," Finn said.
"Brother?" Sean snorted. "Too soon, Finn."
Finn grinned and cut his eyes at Lana. "One day, maybe."
Sean pulled him aside, "Let's have a chat."
Finn gestured to the back deck, which was unoccupied. "Lead the way."
Leaving Carrie and Lana in conversation, Sean gave a cursory nod in Dru and Hearne's direction as he snagged two beers from a large tin tub on the island and headed out the back door, with Finn right behind.
They drank the beers in silence for a few minutes, listening to the frogs singing in the forest.
"Well, good chat," Finn said, slapping Sean on the arm and preparing to head back inside.
Sean grabbed his forearm. "Wait. Lana shouldn't have told you that we are twins."
Finn jerked his arm away and took another long swallow. "Oh yeah? She should have left me thinking you were her stalker?"
"Did she tell you why we keep our sibling relationship private?" Sean growled.
"She said it was because you were ashamed of being from Mystic Mountain."
"That's what she said?" Sean was shocked. That wasn't the reason, but did Lana actually believe that was a separate truth?
"Yeah," Finn put a hand in his pocket, and waved his beer. "I mean, I could see that. Hell, I'm ashamed of being Roman godspawn, at this point."
"That's not why. It's not even true," Sean said impatiently. "Look, Lana's not the only witch. I'm a witch too."
Finn drank his beer slowly, looking Sean over. "A male witch is a very rare thing, isn't it?"
"Yes. Even rarer, are witch twins. And witch twins with both the male and female magical energies..."
"I see," Finn's eyes suddenly looked hard. "You two are a very powerful duo, huh? Magical partners, even more in sync than mated witches. Power like minor gods, when you work together."
Sean nodded silently. "Something like that. Until our mother bound my magic. But now it's unbound, and we aren't planning to work any magic together, okay? No one can know what we are. It's too dangerous for her."
"Dangerous for Lana? Why?"
Sean took several heavy swallows of his beer. "One of my gifts is the Sight. When I was a kid, I had a vision of Lana and I in the future. Probably about our age now. We were in cages, somewhere outside, somewhere here in the mountains. There was fire and rain, and lots of strangers. And I don't know how, because I didn't see that part, but somehow, they were hurting her. They wanted us to use our magic for something. Something that could only accomplished with the magic of a strong magical partnership. Something they said only male and female witch twins could do. I don't know what it was the strangers wanted me to do. Something awful. Something I didn't want to do. Or maybe something impossible, something I couldn't do. I just know that Lana was in agony, covered in blood. She was begging me to make to make her torture stop. In my vision I...I...I think I killed Lana with my magic instead. To end her torture."
He killed his beer and set the bottle carefully on the deck rail, looking out into the darkness. "What kind of strangers are in the mountains that might want me to do something awful, Finn? Something that they would torture an innocent witch to accomplish?"
"Fuck," Finn murmured.
"Yeah, fuck." Sean agreed. "Please tell me you haven't told Mercury..."
"No, gods no. But godsdammit..." Finn smashed his fist on the deck. "Look, you're totally right. I wish I didn't know you were twins. Mercury is a god. He doesn't have that creepy god's eye spy power like Hearne, but sometimes, Mercury can...see shit in people's eyes. That's how he knew what Dru was. He showed me what he saw, how she crazy she was in her past life..."
"Dru is not responsible for the things Druantia did," Sean said automatically. "She's not the same person. She just has the memories."
Finn looked at Sean quizzically. "If you really believed that, you wouldn't be so pissed at her about her past life kid with Cernunnos."
Sean wished he had another beer. "I'm not pissed at her, I just...I can't fight the kind of history they have. Right now, she's lost in her feelings from her past life, and that shit is going to play out however it plays out between them. Look, we're getting off track here."
"We need to stay off track. Don't ever speak to me about the twin thing again. The less it's brought to the forefront of my mind, the better for us all. No one else knows? Not even Dru?"
"No one but the gods and our parents. My mother even altered the memories of the Mystic Mountainers. They all believe we were a blended family. You know, like Lana was my mother's kid with a man that wasn't my father, and I was my father's kid with another witch."
Finn nodded. "Good. That's good. We'll keep it that way, all right? The whole point of Sight is that it's a warning, right? We're duly warned. We'll keep her safe. She's a Priestess now, under the protection of two powerful gods. It'll be okay. Lana is not really on Mercury's radar, anyway. She's not..."
"Good enough to catch his notice?" Sean said a little bitterly.
"It's not that. Look, at first, I let Mercury know I was dating Lana, because I was always trying to get away from him to see her. Ever since I switched sides, I've been trying to walk it back. If he truly understands how I feel about Lana, he'll know, I'm no longer loyal to him. So the shit I say to Mercury about Lana now, it's all bullshit, you understand? When I'm with him, I even think bullshit about her, so that's what he sees, in case he's looking too hard into my eyes."
Sean laughed a little. "So, when you're with Mercury, you front like Lana is just some trashy piece of ass you like to bang."
"Pretty much. But you should know..." Finn rubbed his lips slowly. "I'm all in, with Lana."
"I hear your words, Finn, but if you break her heart—"
"Never gonna happen. I love her, okay? Too fucking much for me to even get a grip on," he admitted. "Listen, I know you are her twin and this is TMI, but we make this...green magic shit. And there's nothing like it. Lana says that only happens—"
Sean groaned, leaned against the deck railing, and raised his eyes to the dark, star-strewn sky. "Once in a thousand lifetimes. Goddammit, the Greenspark? You and Lana? Are you serious?"
Finn grinned and slapped him hard on the arm, nearly knocking him over. "As a heart attack, brother."
Just then Hearne came out the door with Tom Sully, the bartender from Malone's. Hearne had a handful of stacked glasses and Tom had a jug of moonshine.
"Problem, Gentlemen?" Hearne asked, looking from Sean to Finn with a smothered smile.
"No," Sean said tightly as Hearne passed the glasses around, as Tom poured generously.
"Good."
Finn took a swallow and grimaced. "Blackberry shine? Really? I thought whiskey was your thing."
"Tom has convinced me we need to acquire a taste for the local offerings."
"Plus, it's cheaper for a crowd," Tom blurted cheerfully, tilting his own glass.
"So, funny story." Hearne gestured at Tom, with a finger pointed from the hand holding the glass. "Tom here is my really good friend."
"You and Tom are buds now? When did that happen?" Sean asked, swirling his shine sullenly. It was probably made in Mystic Mountain. Some of the men owned and operated a legal small scale distillery there.
Tom grinned and shook his shaggy head like a dog. "Oh, about six thousand years ago."
Finn choked on his drink. "You're kidding."
"Gentleman, may I introduce Sucellus, God of Forests, Grains, and Spirits. Hails from Gaul."
When no further explanation of Tom's divine conversion followed, the two younger men shrugged and shook hands with the bar owner, while Hearne launched into a tale of their exploits on a hunt four thousand years ago. Tom refilled their glasses. When the story ended with both gods completely drunk, Sucellus up a tree, Hearne's horns impaled into the trunk of the same tree and being gored by a wild boar for hours before he could sober up enough to work himself free, even Sean couldn't help but laugh.
"That boar was an evil critter," Tom shook his head with a final chuckle. "But he made damn fine sausage."
Hearne grunted and clinked his glass to Sully's.
"Remember how you and Carrie fought after that, because your blood-lettings were about to start? Just to piss you off she did that dance that was all the rage? The Dance of the Seven Veils? That was some hot, twisted stripper action—"
Hearne looked at him sternly. "Remember how I tore the tongues from three of my huntsmen who wouldn't shut up about Carrie's little striptease?"
Tom sucked in his breath and took a hasty gulp. "Yeah, I do remember that, now. Sorry, Nuno."
Sean and Finn exchanged a wary glance. "Don't judge me," Hearne said sharply. "I restored the fuckers' tongues."
"The next day," Tom murmured into his glass, "and only because Cerridwen made you. She said they shouldn't suffer on account of her."
"Well, she shouldn't have given them a show, should she?"
Hearne and Tom burst into laughter.
"You always were a jealous bastard, when it came to her." Sucellus remarked.
The drink was wearing on Hearne, he shook his braids playfully side-to-side. "Not anymore!" He clapped an arm around Sean. "I haven't killed this one yet."
"Appreciate that," Sean asked casually, taking a slow swallow.
"You should, because it has been a close fucking thing," Cernunnos stared Sean down with fluorescent eyes. Then, he gestured casually to Sean with his glass. "But I'm over it. In fact, I'm so over it, I'll even give you some relationship advice. Watch yourself if you piss Carrie off on a full moon at Litha. She goes fucking crazy."
"Thanks for the tip." Sean took another gulp.
Sucellus sucked his teeth and shook his head.
"That's bullshit advice, boy. It ain't Litha, and it ain't the full moon that makes her crazy. The advice he should be giving you is don't get her pregnant and run off for a season of blood-lettings. No, no, Cernunnos—" Sucellus stopped the Horned God's objections with a pointer finger, "No, you know it's the truth. I'm your friend, but I still call a spade a spade when I see one."
"Blood-lettings aren't Faraday's business, are they?" Cernunnos said irritably. Then he shot Faraday a warning look. "But he's right...watch yourself with the other thing. She would flip out to have an accident."
Sean looked uncomfortable. He took another long drink.
Cernunnos glared at him suspiciously. "You understand that she's a fertility goddess, right? She's is made to move from the Maiden to the Mother and beyond. When she's...distracted, she may lose focus of the fact that she doesn't want to switch aspects, and her nature could override that."
Sean choked on his shine. "I...uhhh...fuck. No, I didn't know that. She said it was...all good, in that department."
Hearne slammed his glass down and whipped around, staring at Carrie intensely. After a long moment, he relaxed. "Yeah, that appears to be the case. She's not just relying on her will alone."
"You can...tell?" Finn asked incredulously.
"Of course," Cernunnos waived his hand dismissively. "I can tell if women are breeding, barren, at a time of fertility, and if they are altering their bodies with contraceptives. Carrie's using some kind of...magical contraceptive potion."
"Magical contraception?" Sean looked absolutely green. "That's been known to fail, at least up the Mountain."
Cernunnos grunted in disagreement. "Carrie is the most talented witch the world has ever known. Her brews never fail."
"Good to know," Sean said quietly, and reached his glass out to Tom. Tom grinned and filled it generously.
Finn shifted against the rail. "So Lana..."
Sean choked on his shine again.
Hearne grimaced. His eyes flicked to his priestess. "Not currently breeding a mini-Finn, if that's what you are worried about."
"Of course not.," Finn said a little indignantly. "I only meant...she's healthy?If she wants to have kids one day...?"
Sean had relaxed and taken another soothing sip, but choked again at Finn's words.
Sucellus slapped him forcefully on the back. "Jesus, you're a jumpy son of a bitch when it comes to the subject of procreation."
Hearne laughed. "It's a modern world. Children are no longer just the domain of women. These boys know, if they make kids, they are invested for life."
"They don't have to tell me that," Tom groused. "I got three at home. Hell, two of 'em might not even be mine, and I still provide for and love those little twerps. " He slung an arm around Sean. "You're right. Magical contraception don't always work. If I was you, I'd back that shit up."
Everything was quiet, for a moment, and then Finn burst out. "Lana, though...?"
Hearne grinned. "Perfectly healthy. In fact, highly fertile. Watch yourself. I know all godspawn instinctively desire to leave a divine legacy, but I'd like to get this Pantheon going strong before you and Lana overrun it with little Romans, allright?"
"Dude, don't even joke about Lana having his kid," Sean groaned. "It makes me nauseous."
"Don't worry, brother," Finn drawled. "I won't mind if she wants to name one after you. Not the first one, of course. Maybe like the third or fourth son."
Sean grunted and tossed out the remainder of his shine. Finn laughed so hard tears streamed down his face.
"Right, enough bullshit about women and babies." Hearne snapped his fingers and their glasses were suddenly in a neat line on the deck rail. He rubbed his hands together crisply. "Business, Gentlemen. I call to order the first meeting of the New Celtic Pantheon."
"Wait, shouldn't we get Cerridwen? And Dru?" Sean asked.
"And Lana?" Finn remarked.
Sucellus looked at Hearne like he didn't understand the words coming out of the younger men's mouths.
"Listen, fellas," Sucellus drawled. "The witches are mighty fine and intelligent, but they like to talk too damn much. If we want to make anythang at all happen at this party tonight, best to leave them out of the early planning stages."
Hearne sighed. "No, they are right, Sully. I guess it's really not a boys' club anymore."