Blackshot Ghosts [Closed]

[CastoffCaptain]

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​

Kara ignored the glass of alcohol Maverick shoved at her.  At his assumption about death, her lips pursed into a thin, wan line, one which didn't part for a long time after he'd finished speaking.  Silence stretched between them.  It was lean and hungry thing that devoured any human sounds in the diner, leaving the hiss of the grill to underline the fact that Kara was still digesting his words.  Then, with a blink, she took a deep breath and let it go.  One might have mistaken it for a sigh of resignation but for the strangeness hiding behind her dark eyes.  The pink tip of her tongue darted out to moisten her lips as if freeing her to speak.


 


"Who the hell are you to speak for people who've died?  How do you know whether it was easy for them or not?  And how the hell can you sit there and admit that being left behind is harder than dying and then, in not so many words, ask me to show you where your friend is when he pretty much said you're likely to die if you poke your nose in it?  Don't you know that'd make me the one left behind, not to mention any friends or family you have?"


 


She spoke low, leaning forward so that what she said reached him, each word razor-sharp and cold.  Everything he'd said had come from a pit of grief.  Grief was just love turned on its head.  And love could lead to deeds no human being should ever commit.  She shook her head as if in answer to a question asked nearby and then continued quickly where she'd left off, barely a heartbeat in between her last question and the next.


 


"If you can't promise to get the cops involved, can you at least take a couple of days to just... just stop?  To think instead of act?  Like it or not, Maverick,  we're connected now.  His life, his death, touched your life, and now you're grabbing onto mine.   I'm not going to die with your death on my conscience.  I won't.  I can't."


 


She pressed herself into the plush booth back, fingers finding the reliquary hanging around her neck.  Holding it seemed to calm her a little, but the wild-bird flutter of her heart still showed in the curve of her neck.  [SIZE=10.5pt][/SIZE]

 

[MysteriousStranger]

Head still in his hands and fingers deeply intertwined with tufts of his messy hair, Maverick's eyes were locked on what coffee remained in his mug. While it seemed unclear if he was listening to Kara at all, each  and every word that came out of her mouth made his mouth twitch and the tension in his shoulders tighten. He dug at his scalp until she was finally done, and immediately after, he freed a hand to form a fist, and sent it flying into the top of the table with a loud smack and a shake.


Slipping. Everything was slipping from his grasp.


"You don't get it," he snarled, too far gone and too exhausted to at least try to keep his voice from holding every bit of rage and hurt currently flowing through his body like the iron in his blood. "You don't fucking get it. I can't. I can't. I can't-"


Again, there was this barrier of communication, things he could barely explain to Ayden before, so he opted not to. And while she was even making sense, at least, he'd be able to see that if his vision wasn't so cloudy, he couldn't allow himself to think about Leo and Stella, his friends and he'd even claim family. How could he tell them? It was simply painful without adding in the complication that he'd have to explain that he learned all of this from a tiny goth who saw dead people.


Not to mention he was still thinking on old information, because it was too much to process his world view while he was barely scrapping by with his brother's death. Used to be a bullet to the head lasted for but a moment, and then nothing. One moment compared to a million. 


"It all comes back, every fucking thing, and nothing makes sense-He's my brother, my goddamned brother." There was that dangerous way the vulnerability was seeping into his tone again, and he had to lock it down.


He turned it into aggression, glaring up into Kara's dark eyes with his hollowing own, and leaning forward with his arms on the table to make himself perfectly clear. "Look, you're not my fucking keeper, this isn't your problem, and at the end of the day, I'm going to do what I have to do. One way or another, I always get the fucking job done. Tell me where, and I'll owe you a favor, no questions asked. Everyone wins. All right?"


There was a hard exhalation of air next to him, along with his name in that tone. "Jaxon..."

 

[CastoffCaptain]

She heard the name spoken. Of course she heard it, filled with admonition and an attempt to reign in Mav's temper. It was as much a warning for her as it was for him, at a very different angle. Before she could check herself, Kara jumped at Mav's slamming fist. It didn't lessen her embarassment to see that it had the same effect on the other patrons. Only she stayed put. The two older women wrapped up their dinner immediately, standing up with their purses clutched tight, all stares and whispers. The trucker moved more slowly, but he, too, made to leave, an action that Marnie frowned secretly at, keeping the expression tucked away as best he could..


Kara wished Maverick could hear Ayden. Wished that by doing so, it could alleviate his pain. But it wouldn't.


Because it was his brother.



Kara had no claims to sibiling blood. There was no bridge to familial love there, and yet she'd seen a hundred hurts going back a hundred years created by a brother or sister, their love and loss and betrayal and ties.


Therefore, when Maverick-- Jaxon-- said he couldn't... Kara understood. Still, her anger remained. It glinted behind the eyes locked on the man in front of her. It shone like onyx, swept across the anguish he felt and sliced through the layers of revenge he had planned. She glared at him. Her fingernails cut into her palms, keeping her from letting go her fury that ached to meet his insistance on bloodshed. Kara kept sill, although to do so brought her blood to a boil.


Remember.


Remember what it is to be normal.


Remember.


Remember what it it is to not know about what comes after death.


As hard as it is to pretend.


"I don't need a favor. You meet me tomorrow, we'll go there, wherever it is, if he remembers it, all right? And if we call the cops when we find him, that's cool, too, okay? Otherwise, no go. You go home, you find someone to talk to, you get drunk, high, whatever you need to do, but you just leave it for the night. I know it's not what you want to do, and I know you won't sleep tonight, but what your brother needs is not to have you dead next to him, you get me?"


Her eyes closed for a long moment, mascara meeting eyeshadow, dark against dark.


"I know you think I'm talking shit," she said, and met his eyes, "but I've got a clearer picture on this than you do at the moment. He's not going anywhere." Her brows tightened. "He's still with you. Understand me?"

 

[MysteriousStranger]

Maverick by nature wasn't a patient man, and Kara's insistence on delay did little but vex him further, feeding the more intense rage below the surface. She wasn't budging, however, and though it pained him to no end to acknowledge it, he doubted he could do anything to make her do so. While he passively noticed the massive exodus of other customers, which he did feel a slight pang of guilt about, he kept staring down at the woman across from him, as if he just looked intimidating enough she'd eventually cave.

Then he grumbled under his breath, biting back the retorts he wanted to throw at her about how cops were fucking useless, and he could handle himself just fine, never mind the fact that he didn't give a shit about the danger. He needed the location, something, to go forward, which meant for the moment he had to play by her pesky rules, no matter how much it pissed him off.

"No, I don't understand you," he replied. Though his body was tense and his muscles tightly wound, which made him want to punch something, his voice was layered with exasperation and exhaustion. His back slumped against the booth, his body sunk down, and his legs pushed out further in front of him. "But that hardly fucking matters at this point."

He scoffed, mouth twitching at the sides as he did so. His face twisted into a scowl as his gaze dropped to the alcohol filled glass on Kara's side of the table. "But all right."

Drunk. Getting wasted was sounding like a better idea every second, but then he'd have to deal with the aftermath tomorrow and tomorrow was already filled with unpleasant shit he needed to deal with. Fuck, maybe he did need to drink. On that note, he barely moved to reach across the table, snatching up the remaining bit of bourbon that Kara hadn't touched since he had slid the glass toward her. Tilting his head back, he drained the cup, before setting it back empty upon the table.

"Where?" He asked, though the question held a lot less fire than his previous ones. He waved a few fingers in the air as he clarified, "Place and time for tomorrow."

Maverick felt watched, like eyes were carefully examining him. It wasn't just paranoia. By his side, Ayden was watching him like a hawk with his brows furrowed, and with a sigh, the ghost apologized on behalf of his brother, something he was accustomed to doing, "He's passionate-" there was a pause as he swallowed the bullshit, "-about things."

 

[CastoffCaptain]

He could glare at her all he wanted; despite the flint behind his pain, Kara sat certain in her own safety for the moment. Here and now, sober and watched, Mav wasn't about to strongarm her into doing what he wanted. At least, she was mostly sure of it. One could never tell with the living. She killed her smirk before it could surface-- one couldn't tell which way the dead would jump, either, if she wanted to nitpick it.


Her rings scraped Formica when he stretched for the liquor, fingers snatched out of his reach. The sudden withdrawal of her hands from the table hinted at the unease building behind her stable facade. She swallowed, waiting for him to get to the one thing she knew she couldn't wriggle her way out of without facing some sort of karmic wrath. Or his, should he manage to find her wherever she holed up hoping he'd just disappear.


"Here. Ten o'clock," Kara said instantly. There was no way in hell she was going to meet him at her apartment. He was dragging bad energy behind him like a ship snagged in a minefield, and she didn't want to be anywhere near him when he --or it-- exploded soon. She needed the buffer a few hours of sleep would provide. "I don't tend to get up earlier than that." And you probably won't either, she thought, if you take a flying leap down a whiskey bottle tonight.


But then her focus shifted and a subtle calm unpinned the nerves from their tightness. Without anyone left in the diner to judge but the men surrounding her--dead or alive-- Kara looked at Ayden in full. Saw him. Accepted his presence and was at ease with it. A small but bittersweet smile brushed one corner of her lips.


"He should be." A shake of her head dismissed his apology. "You're family."


A glance flicked from one man to the other caught the similarities they probably hadn't noticed while Ayden was alive; their eyes, tinted by the same brush. Their earlobes curving just so. The hardness they wore about them like armor. And something else. Something buried less deeply in the dead man than the one now bent on vengence. The flicker of it was gone as soon as it had been noticed, and Kara didn't bother to dwell on it. They weren't monkeys on display, and Mav's roiling emotions were as palpable as fire, difficult to stare at.


Standing quietly, Kara slipped out of her side of the booth and mentally braced herself for the wintery bite waiting for her outside of the diner, her gaze locked on the darkened diner windows.


She sighed.


"Take him home, willya?"

 

[MysteriousStranger]

Maverick stared blankly at Kara, taking a moment to process her last sentence. At first, he assumed she was referring to Marnie, which made no sense, unless if she was suggesting something he seriously doubted she would. By the time he had put two and two together, Ayden had already responded to the ghost-seeing woman with a nod of his head, "Of course. Thank you, miss, for your time. And patience."

Though he didn't hear his brother's response, Maverick finally realized that she had been referring to the ghost, the same person she had, he assumed, responded to moments before. Unlike his brother, Maverick had a less eloquent response. After drumming his fingers on the table, he lifted his chin slightly in acknowledgement to Kara, grumbling, "Yeah, sure."

Home. The thought made him feel hollow and bitter. With the knowledge that he held, facing Leo and Stella would be like walking on fire. He didn't lie very well, and those two could smell his bullshit from a mile away. He supposed he could get into his apartment the back way-avoid the trouble tonight-but it was a conversation that had to happen. And he had to be the one to break the news. He told himself he was waiting for proof so they'd believe him. Lying to himself, that had always been fair game.

Leaning to the side, he reached into his back pocket to pull out his wallet, flipping it open so he could shuffle through what little cash he carried on him. He plucked the largest remaining bill he possessed from its folds, leaving the ten on the table.

Inhaling sharply, Maverick shoved his hands into the pockets of his worn jacket as he stood from the booth, stretching out his legs as he did so. He had to force the smirk on his lips and fight his muscles to relax his shoulders as he quipped, "It's a date, 'Sonic." It sounded strained and fake, unlike the other shit-eating lines he had thrown at her throughout the night to wear on her nerves.

His gaze drifted from Kara, who he had startled-perhaps more-with a slammed fist, to Marnie, whose customer base he might have just put a dent in, and then dropped suddenly to the floor as he cleared his throat. "Sorry 'bout the scene, man."

Having nothing more to say, he trudged out the door, lifting his head only once he was clear of the window. He marched down the street at his own pace, breath forming misty clouds with each exhalation, seemingly unbothered by the cold that burned into his exposed skin.

 

[CastoffCaptain]

*
there was a reason
i collided into you
*
​

It took less time than she expected to fall asleep that night, once she'd finally climbed into bed. It was the getting there that felt monumental. There was no doubt that tomorrow would turn into a basket full of crap, and the longer she stalled, the longer she had until morning. Unfortunately, nerves caused Kara to put down tasks shortly after she'd picked them up, and so her anticipation of meeting Mav resulted in a half-cleaned apartment, a blog read without absorbing, and a necklace she'd started yesterday no further along in its creation than being nudged around her work table a couple of times.

All the while, she felt B's gaze on her. He sat in his usual spot by the massive wall of windows that overlooked the harbor, his hand on his box, face impasive. He was a fixture she'd come to rely on, a bastion against change, and his gentle smile smoothed her ruffled feathers. There was no need to discuss the situation. It would play out how it would, and she'd both ride the current and guide it, and maybe she could give Mav and his brother a little peace in the meantime.

Whether or not it would come at the cost of her own was another story.

She slept. B kept watch. The stars slipped through sky in their eternal current, and all too quickly, the sun rose over the city.

*
calling your name in the midnight hour
reaching for you from the endless dream
*​

------later-----


"No, quit!"

Kara wasn't exactly laughing, but a grin was building. She stood against one of the pylons holding up the Ell's tracks, her reliquary pinched between two fingers and an inch from her mouth. She'd arrived early and eaten breakfast at the diner before Marnie's shift had begun, mainly to keep from getting an earful from him, but also to give herself enough time to settle into the idea of what was to come. Despite her thick sweater and multiple layers, winter still forced its way under her clothes and set the hand that held the necklace to shivering.

"There's gotta be some appeal to it. Besides, it's not your whole toe."

The city didn't breathe much here. The crowds tended to flow around it, and although the diner had its share of patrons, the concrete field beneath the elevated train was generally avoided-- by the more upstanding citizens, at any rate. It was barren now, save for a stray dog nosing around a trash can at the far end. So Kara didn't mind when an unearthly finger tugged at her necklace, drawing the bone away from her teeth.

She laughed then, a secret sound from which a vapor cloud blossomed into the chill, staring at a spot that only a few inches in front of her and considerably taller.

"Prude," she teased, but the word was anything but cruel.

*
so many miles between us now
but you are always here with me
nobody knows why
*

​

 

[MysteriousStranger]

Kara had been right. Maverick didn't sleep that night. To be fair, he hardly tried.

Instead, for the first few minutes that he crossed over the threshold of the tiny apartment above Leo's bar, he slammed his left fist repeatedly into a brick wall until his knuckles were bruised and bleeding, and the pain, the sharp pain blazing through his hand like wildfire, grounded him in the here and now, reminded him that this was real. As real as the red splotching over his broken skin.

With a curse, grunt, and after raiding the cabinet he kept his liquor in, he wrapped up his hand with gauze, continuing on to do the wrist while he was at it, and afterward wrapped the other. He spent the next hours wailing on a punching bag set up in the corner of the living room, releasing his pent up rage with each swing of his fist. Even still, with the sheer amount of it burning within him, each small drop that leaked out did little to tame the inferno boiling underneath his skin.

But, fuck, did he try until it was the next day. Until his knuckles were sore. Until sweat stained his brow. Until exhaustion got the better of him, and he found it difficult to keep going. So he succumbed, collapsing into the sheets of his bed, where he stared at the ceiling for what felt like an eternity, trying not to think.


——Later——


Finding the restaurant again was easy enough. Getting there on time was a whole other story for Maverick, and he wasn't particularly concerned about it. Just surprisingly shy of ten minutes after ten, the ex-soldier arrived at the diner dressed in his usual attire of worn jeans, jacket, and a layer of shirts to ward off the cold. Instead of entering, he placed a palm against the window, leaning forward as he peered inside to look over the patrons.

"Fuck," the word was thrown through gritted teeth, earning him a wayward glance from a passerby. He glared in return, shoving off the window to glance behind him, his hand reaching up to tug at his beard.

His first thought was that she had decided not to show, and his second raced to figure out ways he could work around it. He hated relying on someone, so fucking helpless, in a way such as this. Then, before panic could truly set in and with a little guidance from a nudge on the shoulder, he picked Kara's black-on-black attire out, and felt his shoulders relaxing. Though he doubted some people would believe it, he didn't like feeling on edge.

With a sigh, he started trudging his way toward her, reaching a hand in his pocket to produce a freshly purchased cigarette, which he immediately shoved in his mouth. He didn't have a chance to light it, due to the invisible force that plucked it from his mouth and tossed it by his feet.

Maverick's brow furrowed, his mouth twitching. "Prick."

His boots came to a stop a few seconds later, leaving a few feet of distance between him and Kara. His eyes darted first around their surroundings, taking in the environment that gave him the impression that either the woman of small stature in front of him had guts or a death wish, maybe both, to loiter around here by herself, before settling on her with a tired gaze that probably displayed how well his night had gone.

"Thought you stood me up, 'Sonic." He gave her a smile that didn't meet his eyes by a long shot.

Slowly, he went to lean his back against the same pylon, head leaning to watch a stray in the distance. He wished he had some food on him to give the thing. Perhaps he'd buy a biscuit from Marnie's before they departed.

"Please tell me you secretly know some ancient, lost martial art form. Or at least are packing a knife."

 

[CastoffCaptain]

Footsteps broke the solitude. The literal state of her aloneness fell away in shards when Maverick spoke, because he was here on the empty pavement with her, breathing, living, in pain and thoroughly human. But the reality was different. She could tell from the ugly hues beneath his eyes that he hadn't slept. The weariness in his voice was clear enough for a five-year-old to detect. He was ready to face the bare bones of what the morning would bring, but he still couldn't stand where she did. Kara would have bet her meager life's savings against him having some sort of spiritual breakthrough overnight. He was still not quite capable of belief.


And that kept her on the opposite side of line death toed between them.


"I wouldn't do that," Kara murmured in answer to his first statement. Then, jamming her hands down into her pockets, she took her time figuring out what exactly he'd meant by the next part. Either he was worried about her being here at the ugly fringes of the city, or he was referring to what might happen in the next hour or two. She peered at him sidelong, a tendril of dark hair curling its way over an eye.


Unable to decipher his meaning, she said, "I have you, don't I?" Her tone was flat. She continued in the next breath. "We need to get a few things straight before we do this, provided your man here wants it to happen. Things like... what it's going to be like if he's been dead for a while, especially depending where his body is," please not the harbor, "how you're going to refrain from touching a damn thing at the scene, and how exactly we're going to let the cops in on it. And," she paused for emphasis, staring hard at him to make sure he was following her, "what happens if the people who did it to him find out you've discovered him. You understand? Otherwise, no deal. I mean it."


The stray dog trotted toward them, then halted, legs stiff. Its tail snuck between its legs and for a heavy, white-eyed moment, it watched the space beside Maverick without moving. A growl started deep in its chest, ending on a whine before the instinct snapped the animal into action. It bolted, ears back and terror hot on its heels.

 

[MysteriousStranger]

Maverick's eyes narrowed as he watched the stray depart quicker than it had approached. He took a glance to his side, scratching at his jaw as his brow furrowed and his lips pressed together in a straight line. While he could make people scramble with a heated glare, animals typically tolerated his presence; he doubted that occurrence had been his fault, which raised more questions, and he was already drowning in a sea of them.

He closed his eyes for a moment, huffed out air from his nose, and cleared his throat before speaking, "I know it isn't going to be pretty. Never fucking is." The statement was bitter, resentful, and he pushed off the pylon with his foot after the words had left his mouth. Then he paced back and forth; his boots scraped against the concrete with each one-hundred-and-eighty degree turn on his heel he made, and he jerked at the silver chain around his neck, chewing on the metallic, round beads that composed it.

No deal.

Normally he kept his word, and this woman was demanding obedience. That part only irked him. It was just some knee-jerk reaction born of a deep-set resentment toward authority. What really stuck a thorn in his paw was how he had no choice in the matter. No control. Again, being at someone else's mercy wasn't something he did well or gracefully.

"You're awfully demanding for someone of your size, 'Sonic," he finally grumbled, afterward of which he firmly set his jaw. He made a few more rounds of his back-and-forth marching, before coming to an abrupt stop, turning to face Kara with an irritated stare that he was too tired, too wired to attempt to soften. "Add in some homophobia, and you'd make a great drill sergeant." He snorted, raised a hand to snap off a mock salute, and reluctantly, yet sarcastically rumbled, "Yes, ma'am."

After crossing his arms over his chest, he continued, "It truly touches me to know that you care, but if the pieces of shit that did this decide to come after me next?" He grunted, lips tilting upward slightly as his gaze darkened. "Let's just say they better not fucking miss." The pointer finger on his right hand twitched, forming a hook as if he were pulling a trigger.

 

[CastoffCaptain]

The more Mav spoke, the more Kara's jaw worked. Her lips pursed, holding back her anger as much as possible, but it filtered through each breath and rose up in a glare that was darkening like a thunderstorm. Chin tilting upward, she paused before answering him, once more seeming as though she were listening to a whisper too quiet for the rest of humanity to hear. A half-nod and a huff followed.


"Yep. I agree," she muttered. "Normannorum."


Then, to Mav, an eyeroll starting the avalanche which was to come, "You know, for someone so blatantly military, you have a real problem recognizing chain of command. I live with this." Her hand flapped several times between the dead man at her side and Ayden, indicating her meaning. "I sleep it, I breathe it, I have been it since day one," she flung her arms out in a gesture of what might have been surrender to her fate, her eyebrows flying high, "but it doesn't take a freakin' expert to know you're lying to yourself if you think this is gonna be anything like losing a man on the battlefield. This is your brother who's been shot in the head, Maverick," she spat the nickname at him, her tone twisting its true meaning back at him like a knife, "and if he thinks you're important enough to for him to come back from the dead to try to protect you, you should try your best to fucking respect that," Kara jabbed a finger at him, then thumped herself in the sternum with her thumb, jiggling the pendant hanging from her neck, "and show some fucking respect for me, while you're at it. I don't have to do this for you. I can walk away right now and sleep just as well at night."


She stepped closer to him. "No more bullshit. This is business, and it's nasty. No more smirking, no more jokes at my expense, no more 'Sonic'. My God-damned name is Kara, and I'm doing you and your brother a big favor and yes, B, I said 'God-damned'. Get over it!"


She threw the last at the space beside her, her hands tensed at her side, boots planted wide. The air there flickered then, bending like jagged light across a river, and the temperature plummeted.


"Whatever," she growled, and turned back to Mav, bracing herself for the eruption to come.

 

[MysteriousStranger]

Kara ranted and Maverick met her gaze with a stone cold glare throughout it, feeling a sort of rage icing over him that burned cold instead of hot, a fury that showed itself not through his motions, but from the lack thereof. Darkness circled within his emerald eyes, and it didn't waver from the black of her own, even when he felt a chill run down his spine that wasn't caused from the weather, or when she spat words not meant for him. He could make the assumption that he wasn't the only one being stalked by the dead, yet he couldn't focus on anything else at the moment besides her words, which had started to awaken something buried deep within himself.

He challenged her step by taking one of his own, moving forward until he was a mere uncomfortably short distance away, as if he were trying to force her to step back. His muscles were tensed, pupils dilated, and heart beating fast with the intense rhythm of a war drum. His thoughts were muddled, but through that cloud was one that he could grasp with clarity.

He leaned forward so that their eyes were level, his nose flaring like a bull's with each accelerated breath of air. His voice was sharp as a knife as he hissed, "Don't talk about shit you know nothing about. Respect? You want fucking respect, and yet you stand there, telling me I know jack shit. Doll, I've been on both sides of the bullet more times than I can count. I probably know more dead people than you do, only they don't fucking talk. So, yes, I know exactly how damned nasty this is."

"Nobody asked for this, Jaxon." Ayden had a way of speaking softly, yet making his voice carry with weight. Maverick heard him, and it felt as if a knife had been impaled and twisted deep within his gut. And all too easily the anger turned into pain.

He wanted to walk away, just walk fucking away, but he couldn't. Worst of all, he needed her.

Maverick's jaw clenched as he swallowed his pride, and he growled out a sigh, dropping his glare to the toes of his boots. "Look. Hate me-hit me if you have to-but my brother was a good man. Better than fucking most. He doesn't deserve-" He couldn't finish the sentence, so after a pause, he jumped into the next, "And, Kara, if you can't see that, then you don't deserve respect."

 

[CastoffCaptain]

Grief and anger are a crucible in which misunderstandings brew. Kara had been expecting Mav to explode in fury, and so when he crammed his way into her personal space to bully his way back into control, she didn't blink an eye. But his insistence that he and she stood toe to toe when it came to the dead knocked a streak of surprise onto her face which was quickly smothered by disbelief. It was nothing but a lack of understanding, but the stupidity of it all it still kept her from responding immediately.


He, on the other hand, kept talking, and not just to her.


When he stopped, Kara swallowed hard. Her throat clicked. In that moment, she realized just how big Maverick was, and how stupid it had been not to have done this in a much more public space. B's presence notwithstanding, it would take only a moment for Mav to snap and hurt her if he wanted. She didn't know him from Adam, and was pretty sure he was two straps short of a straightjacket. Still, done was done, and if he was going to keep standing here in her bubble, then fine. But he'd heard his brother, she could tell, even if he still refused to acknowledge the fact that he had. Uncurling her fists, she wiped her shaking palms on her hips and spoke through clenched teeth.


"Look, pal, I'm not gonna get into a supernatural pissing contest with you," she shook her head, and her voice was oddly calm and flat, suddenly devoid of the firestorm before as she pulled her walls up around her, "but respect is the reason I'm here. Not money. Not kicks. Not to stare up your nose while you do your badass posturing an inch from my face, which, by the way, I don't particularly enjoy. But it's obvious that everything I've said to you has gone in one ear and out the other, especially if you think I don't respect him," she said with a jerk of her chin toward Ayden. "I've already told you what he said he wants. You want to ignore that, okay. Believe it or not, I get why. But maybe you should bother asking him about that directly before you go making his decisions for him. Just because he's dead doesn't mean he hasn't got a voice."


"For now, though," she grunted and burrowed deeper into her coat, "I'm out. Can't sail a boat with two captains." She turned on her heel to leave, wearing the cold like a cloak on her back. "Leave a note with Marnie when you're ready."

 

[MysteriousStranger]

Maverick noticed Kara's shaking hands, which served as evidence that he was making her uncomfortable at the least, and he suspected that fear was starting to take root. Even still, she didn't back down. She threw words straight into his face, and at the end, turned her fucking back to him. That took guts, letting him out of her sight and exposing herself. The tactical part of his mind thought it was stupid. The other part appreciated the power move, even if it sent a new flame throughout his body to have this dangled over his head.

She didn't give in. He could respect that. Now, if only he didn't feel blindsided in such a way that was making it hard to breath.

His hand start to reach out for her shoulder of its own accord, but he stopped himself, figuring that touching would only make things worse at this point. Yet he spoke loud enough to be heard, trying to strip all anger from his voice, but failing to do so, "Wait. Just wait for a second, all right?"

He moved to her side, shoved his hands in his pockets, directed his gaze to his feet so he wouldn't have to look at her, and slouched in an attempt to make himself seem smaller, less threatening. He focused on his breathing for a second, making sure it was even, before continuing with a tone that still had an edge, yet was especially duller than before, "I shouldn't have-. That was stupid, okay? And I know this your choice, and you don't have to do this, but-" His throat felt dry, and it was hard to make his tongue move, because it was hard to admit it. He swallowed. "-I need this, which means I need you."

He exhaled a 'fuck' under his breath, pulling at the front of his hair, before letting his fingers slide down his face, to his neck, and jerk at the chain that held the bullet. "Please. I'll keep my mouth shut, and we'll do it your way. Call the cops, don't touch the body, whatever. I'll follow your orders like I'm back in fucking boot camp. Want me to beg? I'll get on my damn knees."

Exhaling and then inhaling deeply, his gaze finally lifted, hesitantly searching for her own. "You have my word, Kara..." There was a slight pause, as if he were reluctant to say the next word, "...Ma'am." Unlike before, there was a level of respect, as she so requested, tied with the term, like he was deferring to a superior officer.

 

[CastoffCaptain]

Whether it was a flicker of logic on Maverick's part that kept him from making physical contact with Kara, or if it was an instinctive nudge that told him to avoid that mistake, he kept himself on both feet with his decision. The second his hand moved, the chill following her stopped. It sucked ions from the air and collected the love and the hate and the fear from the city and rolled it into itself. Had Mav's motion not died as quickly as it had been birthed, the chill would have solidified into one furious point of energy aimed right at his core. But the moment passed, and the atmosphere relaxed as though nothing had ever happened. A trick of the wind, perhaps, or simple tension brought about by the argument still hanging between the two living folk beneath the Ell.


Kara stopped, just as oblivious to what had nearly happened as Mav might have been. Her companion stood blithely beside her, his pale face a map of innocence. Or... at least a congenial passiveness covering for something much less civilized.


She, however, had to turn her head away from Maverick to keep her thoughts from being read.


No, you won't.


He didn't have to get down on his knees to beg. He was already doing it, and it was because of that that she knew he'd break his word sooner than she could spit. He was doing it out of desperation rather than sincerity, but he made a good show of it. At least to himself.


Her shoulders dropped. A breeze pulled a sigh from her lungs.


"All right--"


No, you won't.


"--Jaxon. I'll hold you to that promise." When she swiveled to look at him, her walls were thoroughly in place, rendering her expression somewhere just east of faintly irritated. She then focused on Ayden. "You heard him, A. He said he's gonna behave--"


No, you won't.


"--It's your show now. Lead on if you want. But remember what you came back for."

 

[MysteriousStranger]

For a few moments, Maverick's attention was diverted away from Kara to something else that he couldn't name. It was there: a silent alarm in his head, a paranormal chill that made his muscles tighten, because it meant danger. His eyes darted around their surroundings, going over every nook, hiding spot, and rooftop that could be concealing the threat, but he saw nothing. It made his jaw set firmly, and he still felt a lingering uneasiness in his stomach.

Yet his sharp gaze snapped back to her at the use of his true name. His eyes narrowed, and he folded his arms across his chest. That was something he hadn't let slip; he was careful to deal out as little concrete information about himself as possible. This whole ghost thing was getting harder to deny with each step forward, and that didn't sit easy with him. A man with his record shouldn't see, hear, feel, or in any way sense ghosts. Blood was easier to wipe from his hands than his conscience. He didn't like it, and had he not just sworn to muzzle himself, he probably would've barked out some sarcastic comment about how she sounded like his mother.

Ayden took his sweet time to respond. The man actually thought before speaking. When he finally did, he mimicked his brother's reserved stance in such a way that displayed how much they resembled each other, even in movement, "Pardon his hardhead, miss. He was dropped a few times as a child, and his skull adapted by toughening up...And, if it's not a bother, since he spent most of his time avoiding listening to me even when I was alive, make sure he knows this is for closure, not an opening for him to sling on a cape and try out vigilantism."

The phantasmal image of the once marine paused to let that sink in, and judging by Maverick's grunt, he had indeed heard the older brother. Sliding his feet apart and folding his hands behind his back in a military-like fashion, Ayden continued, "The harbor in this part of town. I assume you know it, Kara. I'll be taking you two down the southmost canal: the one that leads inland, out of the city...I hope those boots are actually made well."

As Ayden turned to begin to lead the way, Maverick tilted his head down curiously, peering at Kara's shoes. Raising his boot, he reached it out to nudge her own just enough so that he could judge the snuff of the material that composed it. "Worse comes to worse, you can ride on my shoulders."

 

[CastoffCaptain]

There; a smile wriggled its way under Kara's defenses when Ayden spoke. She couldn't completely stop the reaction, although she bit down hard on the inside of her cheek to keep it from expanding. She might have been able to giggle at a funeral, but that was from years of being able to see both sides of the coffin. Right now snickering would have been... inappropriate. Her brows furrowed fiercely as she had to redouble her efforts upon imagining Mav with a beach towel tied around his neck in lieu of a proper cape at the next statement. She would have snorted, had it not been for the seriousness of the situation-- Ayden was right. Whatever he wanted for his brother, it was going to prove to be one hell of a bullride to wrangle Mav into closure without blood being shed.


No, you won't, whispered that little voice still answering Maverick's promises.


The next admission by the dead man set Kara's teeth on edge. Her lids met, squeezed tight, and she swiveled away from the brothers.


"Fuck," she hissed. The harbor. For just a sliver of a second, it seemed the universe had conspired against her to get Ayden murdered in the worst place possible-- for certainly, even he couldn't have been so ornery as to have died there on purpose, no matter how thick stubbornness ran in the family DNA.


She didn't like the water deaths. They were always ugly.


Maverick's unforseen contact jarred her out of her dread, at least temporarily. That he stood close enough to tap her boot with his own was discomforting enough, but the offer he posed wasn't received as he'd intended it. The words made sense. So did the reasoning behind them. The situation definitely didn't lend itself to what followed.


And yet the idea of clambering up Maverick and wrapping her legs around him slapped a deeper red across her cheeks that the wind couldn't match. She turned and hurried after Ayden in blind alarm.


"You can hear him," she nearly snapped back at Maverick, then curbed her tone. "I know you can, I can see you listening to him. Did that start after he died, or have you always been..." she flicked a hand in the air as though swiping through terms that wouldn't work for her question, "sensitive? Heard bumps in the night, seen shadow people, shit like that?"


Had she asked this already? What the hell? Oh, for God's sake, it hadn't been that long since--


Focus, Kazinsky.


Back to the question. She didn't expect him to admit to it, even if he'd been knee-deep in the supernatural since babyhood. But it was better than asking him if he'd eaten-- presumably he'd have known better, if he was gambling on seeing a corpse this morning and he'd encountered as much death as he claimed to have. Ayden hadn't corrected him on that point, and she couldn't help but steal one more glance at the metal pacifier hanging around Mav's neck.


Well. There were some blessings to be had from the morning, at least. If she had to have someone along with her on this corpse-hunt, better a military man than someone's ninety-year-old granny.


Now she'd just have to make sure she kept her boots dry.

 

[MysteriousStranger]

Maverick cocked a brow and lifted his hands to fold behind his head, watching Kara curiously as she scurried off to keep pace with the marine. As he fell in line beside her (and subconsciously in step with Ayden), he wondered if-no, he was just short of certain-that had been a blush burning across her cheeks. Surprising, since usually it was his mind taking the trip to the gutter; granted, thinking about his brother’s corpse had a way of keeping his thoughts pure, at least when it came to those sorts of things. Still, a sly smirk accented with a bit of smugness crept across his lips, growing with each word added in Kara’s flustered line of questioning.


His trademarked, conceited expression faded, however, as what she had asked began to register. In its stead was left a firmly set jaw and narrowed gaze, which purposely set on the specter in front. His first thought was to deflect, and he had just been given the perfect ammunition for a snarky comment. His second reminded him that he was currently walking on thin ice here, and he didn’t want to give the clairvoyant woman at his side reason to leave him in the metaphorical dark. Not while Ayden was trapped in literal dark.


In Maverick’s silence, Ayden peered over his shoulder to give Mav one of those concerned, big-brother-bear looks. “So the answer’s not no.”


Surprise, surprise, Ayden didn’t know everything.


Maverick reached a hand down to scratch his jaw in agitation. With a grunt, he finally decided to answer in as little detail as possible, “Little less than a year ago. That’s when it started.”


The dead man was, however, smart enough to connect the dots. “Right after-”


“I came home,” Maverick asserted, before his dirty laundry was carelessly tossed out before Kara’s feet, no matter how much she might have liked it. “Makes you wonder why I never opened my damn mouth about it, hm?” The last bit was intended merely to sting, and it caused Ayden to direct his focus back to the path he was leading them down; for now, at least, that put a sock in it.


The further they walked, the more densely populated warehouses became, some of which were clearly abandoned; from their condition, one could mistake broken windows and graffiti as a new trend. Before them, the water of the bay became visible, and out within the dark blue sailed a cargo ship loaded to the brim with freight containers.


Maverick dropped his hands and slid them within his pockets, straightening his shoulders as he went on high alert; his eyes subtly scanned their surroundings, particularly the people they passed upon the street.


“So, has this always been a thing for you?” Maverick asked. Part of it was genuine curiosity, the other was a desire to get other things off his mind.

 

[CastoffCaptain]

Patterns. There were patterns to be found in everything. Pieces of the brothers' patterns were shifting toward a semblance of clarity, even if her understanding of their story was far from whole. Thankfully for the both of them, she'd missed Maverick's grin, and that meant she'd missed him noticing she'd noticed him... which left her free to pick at the puzzle their conversation laid out before her. Maverick had come home. From where? Overseas? Combat? She snuck a glance at the bullet hanging from his neck, wondering at its true significance, and couldn't quite keep the disgust from her face while imagining that his pacifier might have once been lodged somewhere in his body. Kara scraped her tongue with her teeth and kept walking.


She didn't force the subject the brothers had dropped. If they wanted to be quiet about it for now, that was fine. There would be time enough for answers later, or rather, time enough later to not feel the need to pursue them, since she doubted Maverick would be in the mood to talk about much once they found Ayden. Distance was preferable, anyway. The less she knew the better. Safer, on so many different levels she didn't care to explore. Settling into the silence that sifted into their mix, Kara contented herself with staring at the pavement, only occasionally peering up at the concrete and steel landscape surrounding them.


This was only one of the ugly underbellies of the city, but it was the oldest. Trade had started along the banks of the river centuries ago with the Dutch and the English, and then had grown with a ferocity that expanded its streets and neighborhoods to bursting within two generations. But as the city marched inland, this section of the harbor had fallen into neglect, not so much forgotten by its citizens as it had been passed into the hands of con men, prostitues, and the harder criminal element.


This was where the spirits lay thick among the crumbling bricks, slinking from doorway to doorway. Murders had happened here. Rapes. Theft. Betrayal. Darkness clung to walls like cobwebs, bleak silken strands that were the last twisted vestiges of former living beings. Here, where if Kara wasn't careful, even a glance at a specter could invite trouble. Acknowledging the dead had consequences, and she bore the scars to prove it. Maverick might be security against the living, but there wasn't a hell of a lot she could do about the dead, not if they were molded by pain and intent on sharing it.


Her fist circled the reliquary hanging from her necklace. It brought her some comfort, although B's pale mass brought more. Ayden was too new to know the uncanny tricks of the trade unless he happened to be a remarkably fast study, but at least B was good for something. He'd had centuries to learn how to harness nearby energy in order to bend it to his will. And he was, if nothing else, willful. Especially given his life. Her smile at that thought didn't have time to form. Maverick was talking again-- asking her a question she'd already answered.


"Since day one," she repeated, although this time without the venom she'd injected into it before. "I uh, I've always been able to, apparently. At least for as long as I could remember. So, like, three years old, give or take. Probably younger." It was here that anyone other than she would have opened up to bridge the emotional gap, would have spoken about the people who'd adopted her, would have talked about being ostracized in school for being the creepy kid. Would have admitted to having to learn to fight-- and fight dirty-- just to survive her teenage years, and about her current feelings regarding her broken place in the world. Instead, she rolled her shoulders and tugged at an earlobe with her free hand.


Distance was preferable, but not always avoidable. In any case, it was easier to listen than to reveal.


"You get shot?" Again, she looked at Maverick's bullet, ricocheting the conversation right back at him. "A year ago, I mean? Is that what changed?" PT from a wound would explain the overgrowth of muscles (although he'd probably pumped iron since he was in diapers). Near-death would explain the new ability.


She clung to the reliquary, and watched a crow bounce along a rooftop to the east.

 

[MysteriousStranger]

He heard a portion of this before, Maverick realized, as Kara answered his question. Listening wasn’t something he did well, and while they were under the Ell, she managed to raise his hackles, which didn’t help to keep his focus, no matter if he had deserved her ire or not.

Maverick liked to think he was forged of iron, and the markings he hid underneath his shirt were a testament to his fiery, invincible will. If nothing else, he was resilient, and possessed a fierce defiance aimed at the world and its unseen forces. Yet while living with this thing for, in comparison, as little time he had, his sanity slipped, breaking away piece by piece. There were other factors, but still, seeing Kara walk so calmly beside him down a street littered with society’s most unproductive members, heading to see a dead, decaying body, he couldn’t help but be a bit impressed. She indeed did live with this. She was tough, he’d give her that.

His eyes darted down to her as she shot her question at him, and reflexively, he guarded his expression. Well, she didn’t like to beat around the bush. He inhaled sharply and looked away. He tugged at his necklace, and bit upon the actual chain, trying to avoid sticking the bullet part inside his mouth. “At least you didn’t ask if I’ve ever killed anyone. That’s usually what people want to know.”

Unfortunately, talking was another skill he lacked.

The circumstances around Maverick’s discharge were not pleasant, and he did his best not to think about them, no matter how much Ayden or Leo insisted that he seek help. Like that’d correct things. People told him he was lucky to be alive; he thought he was unlucky to be the only one left alive.

It was a simple answer, but he didn’t want to give it, because that meant opening room for the conversation to go further. No matter what fucking shrink eggheads said, repression was working for him; it’s what kept him adjusted. At least he didn’t delude himself into thinking that he was well-adjusted.

Still, she gave him an answer, even if it was as deep as his first.

Sighing, his fingers grasped the bottom of the bullet on his chain. “Yeah, I got shot. Shortly after, that’s when I started to notice shit.”

His gaze shifted as they neared a group of men huddled around the mouth of an alley across the street from the two. One was watching, and Maverick stared him down, letting him know that he knew. The tattooed giant stepped behind Kara, and walked around her back so that they switched places, and he was conveniently placed between her and the group, just in case. He doubted anything would happen; he was frightening to even idiots with something to prove.

“You could’ve told me,” Ayden commented without breaking his stride.

Maverick stole a glance over his shoulder to make sure they weren’t being followed, before scoffing. “Sure.”

Before Ayden could refute his obviously sarcastic statement, Maverick turned his attention back to Kara. “So, how do you deal with it?”

 

[CastoffCaptain]

Kara kicked an airplane bottle out of her path and watched it skitter into a puddle of piss in the gutter. She let go a breath, an unspoken expression of relief when Maverick switched to her other side on seeing the little parliament of rooks crouched in the alleyway. Far be it from her to cry gender inequities in a situation like this. She knew enough about him by now to know he wasn't just playing at soldiers, and the fact that the men stayed put told her they knew it, too. B shifted his position so that Maverick wouldn't be walking inside him, and took up position on the opposite side.


She ignored the little whisper of... what was it? That little thrill of... superiority... that being flanked by two guard dogs gave her.


Or she tried to, at least.

A nod was all Mav got for confirming her suspicions about his newfound abilities. It explained a lot, even if it didn't give details. And of course she wasn't going to ask him if he'd killed anyone. Even if he hadn't just bellowed that much at her near the diner, anyone who would have been so callous as to ask something like that was either three years old or an outright fucking moron. Kind of like one didn't shove a finger into someone's stab wound and ask them if it hurt. She couldn't blame him for his cynicism; if she had a dollar for every unthinking question she'd gotten, she could buy Croatia.


And so it was a surprise when he asked his. It was refreshingly... thoughtful.


Eleven paces later and she was still mulling over the answer. "So... it's like... I don't consider it a disability, just so you know, but..." Once again, she stirred the air with her ring-laden hand, trying to bring her words to the surface. Biting down on her lip, she then tilted her head and watched Maverick sidelong, "The difference between us? It's like comparing someone who was born blind to someone who could see up until a year ago. Only, I guess you and I are the ones who can see and the rest of the world's blind. Both of us have the same... talent... but you've got a steeper learning curve. Either way, dealing with the people who don't understand us can be really... difficult, and you have to have faith in the fact you're not crazy, no matter what they say." She shrugged a shoulder. "For the most part, you just keep your trap shut, hold on to the people you trust, and take it one day at a time."


She could have cocked an eyebrow at Ayden then for his assumption that he'd not have called Maverick nuts for such a confession. She could have brooded over the memory of Miguel on the last night she'd seen him so many weeks ago, fear and disgust and disbelief marring his beautiful face.


Instead, Kara's mind wheeled left and she stared fully at Maverick now, slowing her stride and expecting him to follow suit. "Unless you're asking me how I keep myself safe from them." A hardness had settled into the look she gave him. "How much do you see, J?"

 

[MysteriousStranger]

Keep his trap shut. That earned Kara a small, grumbled chuckle from Maverick. He hadn’t ever been good at that, but he supposed on this subject, he could make an exception. Having faith in his sanity? That would take more work. Again, he was reminded how resilient Kara must be; he could only assume that people had called her crazy in a million different ways. Hadn’t he?

Maverick quickly adjusted to the new tempo of their walk; his feet falling out of sync with his brother’s, and instead aligning with Kara’s step. At this pace, his normal military march died down into something more casual, though his shoulders were still rigidly set. He held Kara’s gaze for a heartbeat, before he had to look away; his eyes fell on Ayden, who had continued onward with the same speed as before.

“Look, I-” The words caught in his throat, and he choked on them. Her look demanded an honest answer, and his was complete and utter bullshit. Sure, it might be the truth, but it still smelled like shit either way. He sawed his jaw back and forth, focusing on scouting out the hidden shadows tucked behind the buildings around them, anything to keep from having to look her in the eye. “I try not to, all right?”

It warranted an explanation, or perhaps it didn’t. He didn’t want to give it, but for some reason, he felt obligated to, like he had to defend himself. “Call it unhealthy, dangerous, what the fuck ever. But that’s how I deal. That’s how I make it through the day. I can’t afford to-” He closed his jaw with a growl, tugging at his hair with his fingers.

He gave himself a few moments to think about what to say, taking the time to just breath. With an exhalation, he continued, “It’d open a lot of closed doors. You know, the kind better left shut.”

One instance in particular came to mind. Ayden hadn’t been his first. He remembered lying in the dirt, metal on his tongue, hand over the bleeding hole in his torso, dying, and hearing laughing, sick laughing, but no one was near enough to be heard over the sound of gunfire. No one alive, at least.

“I’ve heard things, seen shadows that religious men would probably call demons,” He admitted, voice quieter than before. “Didn’t-couldn’t-think they were real. Other shit went down the day I got shot; I had other demons to fight.”

He needed a drink.

Somewhere down the line, Ayden had noticed that they had fallen behind, and had stopped in his tracks to give them a chance to catch up.

Maverick felt the need to try and change the conversation, and perhaps he felt a little guilty after his thoughts about his own sanity. Almost hesitantly, his eyes sought out her face. “I’m sorry I called you crazy. And…you know, threatening you. I wouldn't have actually done anything. I only hurt people that deserve it.” Or, at least, that’s what he liked to tell himself.

 

[CastoffCaptain]

Kara stopped completely. She moved out of the flow of traffic, her back to a brick wall where a set of spray-painted teeth bared their hate at the street. Somehow it was colder here, although years of experience told her it was the air whipping in from the harbor that dropped the temperature, not the dead.


Giving Maverick her full attention was the least she could do for him; for him an admission like this was probably akin to being forced to stand naked on stage in front of a thousand people. He'd see it as a weakness, having to own up to a stranger and himself that there was something wrong about how he functioned now. Add to that, if she knew his type at all, he probably considered giving an apology was the death of his manhood. And yet here he was, apologizing not because he'd been bludgeoned, coerced, or cowed into it, but of his own volition.


Kara let it slip off her like oil on water, hoping to lessen the impact of the moment for his benefit. She remembered to nod, acknowledging the fact that she'd accepted it, but her eyes narrowed briefly at the last sentence. Still. There were more important things to worry about than hurt pride, whether his or hers.


"Look," she spoke quietly, glancing over his shoulder at the sky, "I don't know how long it's going to stick around for you. Maybe it'll disappear once you put your brother to rest, maybe it'll never go away. The things I see, what are still people and what's left of them, they're... I see most of them as clearly as I see you right now. I don't know if it compares to what you're experiencing, but let me tell you something." She swung her gaze back to him like a cudgel on the backhand, driving her next words home. "You look at them, you let them know you see them, they know you see them. You don't want that with the bad ones. I don't know dick about demons, but I do know that the dead who come back come back for a reason, and a lot of times it's really, really bad. The worst ones? They want nothing more than to hurt you, whether it's because of the shits they were in life or the things that were done to them. You catch their attention and they'll latch onto you, ride you like a racehorse out of Hell until there's nothing left of you but a husk."


Just in case he wasn't listening, she jabbed a finger at his forearm, weak sunlight glinting off a hinged ring running the length of her knuckle to her nail. "You get a hinky feeling about a corner, a shadow, a voice you can't put to anyone alive, and you look the other way, get away from it, fast. Trust your gut." She took a breath and slowed the rush of her words, her focus never having left Maverick's face. It searched each feature now, traversing the rugged landscape in hopes that he understood. "You'll know the good ones from the bad. That's the best help I can give you."

 

[MysteriousStranger]

Not wanting to leave his back exposed, as Kara came to a halt, Maverick took up a position next to her, also leaning against the cool brick wall. Standing still, the cold had a more noticeable effect on him. His frozen hands were shoved into the warm, fur-lined pockets of his jacket, and his nose nestled into his collar. Even with his layers, he could feel the chill on the wall seep through the clothes on his back.

He needed coffee. Burning, scorch the tongue coffee.

She didn't change subjects, something he should've seen coming. Nevertheless, he was grateful she didn't rub his nose into his apology. And this was important, even if it was unpleasant. He was reluctantly finding that most important things were; Ayden would have a comment about adulthood for that. With his shoulders huddled, Maverick's eyes vigilantly traced the passers-by before them, though Kara certainly had his full attention. Well, the part what wasn't always reserved for being on guard in sketchy places.

There was a certain bite to her words, the way she spoke in detail, that reminded him of the way he spoke about combat, or being behind the scope. He figured she knew everything she was saying, and not the kind of know that came from reading shit out of a book. One could only know what it felt like to take a punch once it happened, or understand being on death's edge once they've knocked on the Reaper's door. Or only realize how fucked up it was to be latched onto by a dead thing after taking the wounds.

The thought of facing what she had described also shook his core. He couldn't admit it out loud, but his mind was trained to realize which battles he could fight, and which ones he couldn't. The living he could handle just fine; it was rare to come across anyone with the amount of experience that he had under his belt. The dead were another game, one he obviously didn't even know the fucking rules to. Powerless. He held a burning hatred for the feeling.

With Kara's last bit, his expression remained like unmoving stone, which suggested he was putting in effort to keep it that way; ergo, he was listening. Her poke did earn her a gaze that cracked through his hardened features, and faint, short-lived amusement filled in the crevices; it couldn't remain with the seriousness of the subject.

He grunted in acknowledgement, turning his eyes back to their watchful duty. "I get you. Good thing I have a strong gut." It was an understatement. His 'gut', or whatever that feeling he got when danger was nearby, had saved his skin more times than he liked to think about.

There was something else on the tip of his tongue, but he wasn't sure he should say it. Tapping the sole of one of his boots against the wall, he hesitantly looked back at her, and after a moment, his stare dropped to the reliquary around her neck.

"You speak from experience." It was an observation, not a question. It was also an invitation, one he knew better than to force, even if he already never would.

 

[CastoffCaptain]

It started then, just a little smile at the corner of her lips. It unveiled a dimple in her right cheek and caused her brow to lift. Now that he was bothering to listen to her, Maverick was making connections, but that didn't mean they were correct. The fact that he was uncomfortable asking any sort of question was blatantly obvious, and Kara understood the motive behind it.


Questions led to conversation. Conversation led to revelations, and revelations stripped down walls that both of them had worked hard to keep carefully mortared. She took a measure of amusement from his discomfort; what he'd said had allowed him to temporarily put aside his grief and make this about her and her ability. Her ability was just about as personal as he could get, and yet because it was something they shared (in as much of a lopsided manner as it was) that made it fair game. Not so much as if he'd he inquired about her dating status or if her parents were still married or what it was she did for work.


So she grinned just a bit, without malice, but with a teasing edge. He'd guessed wrong. No bonding moment here.


"Everything I've said is from experience," she said, pulling a half-eaten roll of Life Savers from her pocket. Picking out a red one, she inspected it for lint. "Or do you still not believe me?" Shrugging to disarm the comment, she popped the candy into her mouth. "I've seen it happen to other people, but nobody close to me. Still scary enough to want to stay away from it, you know? You keep your head down if there are bullets flying, right?" Again, that glint in her eyes. This time it smacked of a challenge, a verbal dare: I see you believing. Let's see how far down the road you can follow me.


She wouldn't talk about the near-misses she'd had, the nights of running like hell from things no one else could see, the bruises and cuts and bites she'd endured until she learned to avoid the situations as best as possible.


She held the roll of candy out, pointing a green one at him, and returned to the subject Maverick had so badly danced around. "You wanna ask about him, don't you?"


B stood unmoving against the wall only a few feet from Kara, watching Ayden without moving. His was a posture of patience; arms folded into his long sleeves, feet planted a comfortable length apart like a man well familiar to waiting, to stillness, to peace. Unlike Maverick's older brother, he had no pressing business at hand save any which concerned Kara. No... B had all the time in the world.