I woke up in the apartment and Robin wasn’t there.
There was no coffee made in the kitchen. Something was amiss. We always make coffee for each other. I sent her a text to check in. No reply. Maybe she was off dealing with an urgent family matter or something. I stumbled into the living room and was immediately washed over by a vision.
Robin tied to a lab table. Her PHD advisor, Florence, stood over her. Florence leaned in, whispered something about research projects and test subjects, then stepped back to watch Robin’s reaction as she brought out a stainless steel tray of surgical tools. I knew in my gut this was happening right now. There was no way I could make it to Robin in time.
I woke up in the apartment to the smell of coffee.
---
Robin hates it when Maeve comes to visit. I try to schedule Maeve’s meetings with me when Robin is off at classes, as a courtesy. Making plans like that has been harder since Carla shot me. Robin rarely lets me out of her sight now.
Maeve came to ask your typical oracle questions: How could she get back into the fae courts? It always frustrated me when she asked simple questions like that. I knew she had potential to fix the way this world functions but couldn’t see beyond family and city politics.
I tossed Robin her mother’s ring. It’s a focal point that helps keep away the worst of the visions. Although, I don’t really know a lot about the ring’s previous owner or how those powers could have developed. Pushing that thought away, I let the waves of time and future wash over me.
Gaining power if one is born into power is quite simple. There’s less barriers if you have people on the inside. All Maeve needed to do to let herself back in was wait out the rest of her family. They’d all self destruct before she would and then the throne would be just handed to her. Of course, she could just get Robin and I to stir shit up in the fae world and the pieces would fall together much faster.
Robin asked for an answer next - What was Merov? I hesitated; Robin never asks me questions and I didn’t really want to poke Merov. Not after the whole past life thing. But Robin demanded an answer and there was no way that I was going to lie to my roommate. I focused, diving deep down inside of myself.
I surfaced on the endless ocean of time. Circling in the sky was a monstrous, winged shadow, so big that it blocked the sun. It turned its attention downward to a nearby island. The currents would take me there eventually. Merov didn’t need to depend on random chance.
“A dragon” was the only answer I could cough out to Robin.
We tried to sort out a direction forward that would allow us to deal with the fae courts and Merov. That’s when Robin noticed someone or something lurking on our balcony. I panicked, but Robin remained calm and dragged out the person hiding on our balcony: it was a teenaged girl, no powers whatsoever. Very much not Carla. And then Robin dropped her off the side of the balcony.
I glared at Robin and wanted to demand what the heck she was thinking. I’m not sure if she took the hint or not, but she went downstairs to check on the kid with Maeve. I was left behind under strict orders to not leave the apartment.
I flopped on the couch and stared at the ceiling. I knew exactly why Robin wouldn’t let me leave the apartment: Carla. Carla was the reason my freedom had been stripped away. I understood the fear and the danger; if our positions were switched, I would do the same thing to Robin.
All I wanted was to walk up to Carla’s face and ask why she wanted to kill me. Just a sense of purpose to this violence would make me feel better about it. Then I could justify why she was wrong and why I deserved to keep living. Part of me wondered if she was trying to murder me for the challenge. Like a fox hunt, but through the streets of Boston instead of the English countryside.
The apartment suddenly started filling with smoke. The fire moved much faster than any natural one would. I pulled my t-shirt over my mouth and nose and raced for the door. Maeve met me at my front door again, this time soaking wet. A personal rain cloud hovered over her head.
Carla was dead by the time Maeve and I got outside. The killing blow exposed Robin to a fire magic attack. Maeve helped heal Robin, but the two of them got into a fight about how much healing was worth. I just watched silently. This was all my fault for somehow running afoul of a wizard. I still didn’t know why. Maybe the why didn’t matter now that she was dead.
We fed Carla’s body to the Eye in the basement of Yellow 10 and headed off to crash Merov’s apartment next. Merov wasn’t home, but his staff let us. Turned out that waiting at Chez Merov involved free booze.
I nursed a simple drink and texted Robin. Things had been different since I got shot by Carla. Just mentioning Merov around Robin pissed her off. She was angry that I came to him about the ghoul plague first. I tried to explain that I figured I could tell Merov the threats to his building. Then her and I could deal with the threat to the city. I had a vision of Merov dying. I wanted to stop that vision from happening. Robin pointed out that I managed to do exactly that. She doesn’t need to remind me is that I doomed her to an eventual but uncertain death instead.
Doombringer. That’s what people called me in the past. Doom is one of Robin’s favourite nicknames for me. Nothing ever changes, it seems.
Before I could wallow in my self-pity some more, Merov returned home. He stank of gore. His clothing was covered in odd stains that I really didn’t want to know the origin of. He decided that this outfit was completely unsuited for guests. He started removing his clothing in front of the three of us until he was standing in only his underwear. I’ve seen all of Merov before, but this context was disconcerting.
He and Robin chatted about supernatural politics. I zoned out a little bit until I caught Merov explaining that Tenzin had made a totem to tie Carla to whatever current body she had and to prevent her from jumping into another once the current one was killed.
I dropped my glass.
Carla could be anyone in this world. ANYONE. She could be in this room right now. I scrambled over to Merov and wanted to know why he never told us this. We would have done everything different! Merov asked if I was so concerned about dying because I had seen a vision of my own death. I then promptly lost my shit, as Robin would say.
I’ve never gone looking for my own death. So much about the flow of time is hard to predict. I would be spending the rest of my life looking for a single event that might never happen. Other people’s deaths find me instead. Merov. Robin. Merovech’s friend who I apparently was in a past life. All of Boston. There is so much death in the future. I would never be so selfish to look into my own and be fixated on it. I stormed off.
Robin followed me out. I rambled about seeing death and killing Merov before, which probably only served to confuse her more.
My phone buzzed as soon as we reached the outside. Tenzin. He wanted to know if Merov’s plan would succeed. I asked Robin for a Yes or No answer. After some debating about the sexiness of the answer, we settled on “Yes”. That’s what I texted Tenzin back. I was so exhausted from people asking me to predict local politics. As if there was no better use of my powers. Lying to Tenzin felt like a weight was being lifted off of my shoulders! The questions didn’t have to mean something if I didn’t want the answers to have meanings!
Robin drove us to Derek’s place. I wasn’t sure why, but I think it had something to do with something Merov told her when I wasn’t paying attention. Derek was completely out of sorts; he had saved his partner from some demonic hellhole, but not before the Back Bay werelions gave him a relic to guard until he could award it to their new leader. Now he was stuck being torn between his promise to the werelions and looking after Josie. The guilt from his choices was consuming him.
I knew that feeling. God, I knew that feeling. I told Derek the only way to deal with the guilt was act upon it. He had friends in the supernatural community he could call on. My original idea was to have Robin bodyguard Derek at the fight while I watched Josie, but then Robin reminded me of Carla. Until Carla was put down, Robin would be hard pressed to leave my side.
We couldn’t leave Josie alone, though. I called up Maeve instead and offered her one blank check of a promise - A Solid - to come across town to help us. Maeve has a strong understanding of how fae deals are done. She was in.
We arrived at the werelion fight. Merov was there. Of course Merov was there. That asshole was everywhere. He fought the Pride’s currently leader for dominance. She was armed with natural weapons. Him with a sword. The werelion had Merov dead to rights until something shifted in him. It was like a switch was flicked and Merov went from someone who could pass for mortal to a dragon barely contained in a human shell. The end of the fight was fast and brutal. Merov was the victor.
The Merov who stood in front of us now wasn’t the Merov we saw at his penthouse a few hours ago. The fight drained most of his dragon power and fire, leaving him almost completely mortal. The power would come back. It always did, or my fragmented memories of a past life told me that it would return in a few days. This Merov was that one I fell hard for. This wasn’t the first life where I had fallen for that mortal Merovech either. At least, this time, I had enough sense to know playing with dragon fire was bullshit and stepped way the hell back.
A tiny bit of power remained. Merov’s eyes linked with mine. I could feel his mind reach out and try to connect. Prying, looking for answers as to why things changed between us after he woke up. I showed him exactly why: my memories of when I was Galan and when our suicide pact failed. Captured and tortured by his father’s allies to send a message to anyone who would challenge the ruling powers. My death was stripped of any personal meaning to me.
I think that unsettled him. He wanted me to share my pain with him, to say he was sorry. I just couldn’t. It hurt my heart too much to consider it. We could not be what we were before, in this life or in others.
The werelion pack were busy celebrating their new king. Robin and I left before one of them got the courage to do something about us.
I fiddled with the ring as we drove home across Boston. Idly, I asked about Robin’s mom. I know a little bit about her family from the time I’ve spent with Jack, but that’s only been the odd evening here or there. Robin mentioned a few things, but was very careful about what she said. I thought on that myself and what would happen if she asked the same of me. I asked her to drive us out to Castle Island.
Castle Island has always been my place to hide from the rest of Boston. It has no value whatsoever to most supernaturals. The only person with claim to it is Massie, a ghost who used to serve at the base on the island when he was alive. We got along well, as regretful former soldiers tend to, and he allowed me free access to the island whenever I needed to escape. Before Robin, he was the only supernatural who seemed to get where I was coming from.
I led Robin along the park’s shoreline and talked to her about my past. My family. The terrible things I had to do because the world didn’t allow me any other choice. She shared as well, giving me a deeper glimpse into the Robin most people wouldn’t see. Parts of her personality that needed to remain guarded for her to function in the supernatural world.
And in the middle of all that, there was a moment when the distance between us disappeared and the rest of the world didn’t matter. We had always been two friends who clung to each other as they stood on the oblivion. In this moment, though, there was a hope I didn’t feel before. I know Robin sees her whole life as a futile struggle where she will keep killing and keep avoiding being killed until it just ended. I factored into that as an enabler, the person who helped point her in a direction where she tried to leave this world a better place than it currently was.
I didn’t want to be that anymore. I wanted to be the person who stood by her side until whatever fate consumed both of us. They were the feelings I felt when Robin was infected with ghoul plague, where I twisted time itself to spend as much more time with her as I could.
I shared my deeper thoughts with Robin in the way that we always exchanged our emotions on the uncertainty of life and existence: physically, back at the apartment. Sex is our usual outlet for that sort of thing. It’s the one thing where we’re probably not broken.
In the stillness that followed, Robin asked me what Merov was to me. I told her that he was a mistake.
Sleeping with Merov was a terrible mistake. He could have lived out the rest of his life not knowing he was a dragon from outside of time. Instead, went from a charming playboy who I would have fucked in a heartbeat to a monster bent on taking over Boston. I killed the Merov that was, accidently triggered the gears of revolution and had no idea how to stop it.
The quiet continued, as if Robin was leaving room for me to ask a question back. In a moment of weakness, I asked her what I was to her.
I wasn’t sure what answer I was looking for. She lay silently for what felt like hours until she replied back: I was her friend. I held my breath for a minute. Friend. I could live with friend. Love is a scary, painful thing. I guess I was okay if Robin didn’t feel it back. The last thing I wanted to do was take away her only friend in the world.
She seemed uncertain about her answer, though, as if I was pressuring her into swaying the other way. I squeezed her hand and told her that I was glad that we saw things the same way. But god, it didn’t feel that way. Maybe tomorrow I would carefully bring up the topic again differently. Maybe not as directly. Certainly not after sex. You can love someone as a friend, right?
---
The sky went on what seemed like forever until it finally reached the ocean horizon.
The house we bought was a small, modest place out on the seashore. It was far enough from civilization to make Robin happy and close enough that grocery shopping wasn’t an impossible task for me. The place was old, probably needed a full reno but it suited us just fine. I had jokingly told Robin that I would have to retire from the Red Cross and become a full-time handyman to make sure it didn’t fall apart around us.
Eventually, retiring early is what happened. Not because of the house. Because of the kids. I elected to stay at home until things settle down in a few years. See, dad’s totally the cooler parent. Dad took everyone on a hiking trip down the beach where I taught lessons in building fires with things they could find out in nature.
Mom’s the strict one refuses to teach archery lessons until they’re older. I agree with her, but I’ll never admit that to the kids. Being raised normal, mortal humans is a gift. One that we fought to reclaim so they would never had to fight in the future.
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