Fantasy Two Strays

[SquigglyWiggly]

An aerial getaway? Another mrrp? is answered by Cherry's hand cryptically floating in the air. There isn't a giant list of things that fly, and Gavin severely doubts Cherry knows a dragon willing to help. Skeptically, he glares out the corner of his eye.
Is Cherry close to another djinn? He sniffs, scrounging for whiffs of magic that aren't Jessie's.

"Its not a great insult if I don't know what a 'fonchock' is! As far as I'm concerned, fonchock means 'greatest, most amazing colleague and respected friend'. So great, let's make it the code word."

Where are they going to get blood bags? People don't have blood convenience stores.
Well. Humans don't anyways...

The turbulent grooming has smoothed out into a softer turn of pace, comparatively. He can't feel the wetness of whatever's being sprayed on him, but he can sense the heaviness. And the way it makes his tight knots give a little easier. The tension release of a thousand little hairs pulling skin is an itchy relief. How had he not noticed how uncomfortable it was? He pushes his head into Cherry's hands again, looking for a proper scratch.

Kneading the metal in his grasp, he measures the length using his own wrist. Such an odd look, fur fluffed up against metal. Jessie's might be about...two sizes up. Cuffing a djinn isn't done, usually. Typically you want a snare, something that can be snapped tight fast but still thick and strong enough to hold runes. Lasso a djinn, get it to shift, and you've got a mole or an otter instead of an eight foot monster.
But in Jessie's case? A hyena isn't really an improvement. If he could get her mouth shut without losing a hand he could hold her down, but so? In this scenario he can't live on top of her forever.
"To save them, obviously. Or doom them to finding new, abusive masters. Which... was a waste of time."

If Sterling gave him back a petal to hurt him rather than to show there's no sore feelings, then bravo, he hurt him.

"Maybe it was around the same time you hunted them. Don't think I didn't notice your little...thing with Jessie. Not a lotta good guys she knows, is all I'm saying. My family-! Well, they don't sell djinn! They had some decency. In fact, my sister would probably have hunted you."

 

[dreaming enthusiast]

"Yes, that is exactly what fonchock means," voice dripping with the appropriate amount of sarcasm, Cherry delights in Gavin's oblivious acceptance of the term. He even gives the big fonchock a proper scratch when he obviously leans in for that.

Though it's less to oblige the djinn and more to just admire his handiwork. It takes him back to his brief stint as a salon apprentice, though he'd never write down the experience on his resume or anything. Does it count if you only work at a place for 3 weeks? It was before joining SOS - the weird in-between times - when he was doing odd jobs to make ends meet. Jen and a younger him have that in common; the struggle of not being able to hold down a job, if for radically different reasons.

Magi can walk the mundane world, but they aren't meant to live in it.

The darker fur on the back of Gavin's head, glossy with product, now smells faintly of lavender, "Shockingly, if you took better care of yourself you might not look half bad."

But of course Gray has to ruin whatever this semi-peaceful lull is by bringing up Jessie. Specifically the one part of that exchange Cherry absolutely did not want to talk about, despite how naive it would be to assume the djinn didn't infer anything suspicious from it. He frowns, as much from the unpleasant change in conversation as from the realization there's an even worse rat's nest behind Gavin's other ear. Taking care of this guy's fur is like Sisyphus rolling that boulder.

"... I meant it when I said I've done no djinn deals with Sterling. He was still an arm's dealer back then," comes the attempted defense. Then, the need to protect his ego, "Your sister wouldn't have been able to catch me."

He doesn't say it with pride. Maybe. He doesn't know what exactly he says it with.

It's not on purpose when he yanks Gavin's hair. Not entirely on purpose. Just to move his head into position, and hopefully move the conversation in a different direction, "So, the family that loved you enough to give you not one but three pretentious names are hunters. That explains the homemade cuffs, I guess."

Cherry's seen some shit back home, made by senile lone hunters on bayou boats or swamp witches. Gavin's cuffs - the runes specifically - are more sophisticated than any of that, but the crafty nature draws a comparison. Thoughts of the country.

The magus mulls over his next questions for several quiet moments, "How did you end up at SOS?"

 

[SquigglyWiggly]

"Yeah," Gavin agrees, carving a long shed of metal out of the cuff. They are hunters, still.

And maybe Cherry was too? But why guns? What would a talented magus like Cherry need with a regular old boring gun?
The magus pretty obviously avoids expanding on his dark and mysterious past, even when he's hands deep in lavender scented fur (he said Gavin looked good. If he did his hair, sure, but he said he looked good).
If it was something serious, he'd brag about it. Odds are he got humbled.

"SOS said they knew best and my family believed them. This was back when they were taking everybody. To protect them and stuff. My sister hid me outside in a tree hollow. Man, she cried and cried. I'd come back for holidays and stuff like that so it's really not as dramatic as I'm making it sound. Long winters of school interrupted with short hot summers of being white trash. But you already know all this. Graduated top of my class."

And received several disciplinaries ever since.
One cuff down. The human one would be harder to eyeball.
"It happens sometimes, ya'know. It's not that weird for djinn to come from a family of djinn hunters. And if you really were fooling around with them when you were younger, then who knows. We coulda gone to school together."

 

[dreaming enthusiast]

"Maybe. I would have bullied you for being a nerd."

There is a reality in which the two did go to school together. It's not one the magus wants to entertain, but the sliver of truth to Gavin's comment is undeniable. The more he speaks, the more Cherry finds himself drawing unfortunate parallels, outside of the arcane capacity that got them matched together. It's not exactly a comforting thought comparing himself to the guy - one fellow white trash to another.

If Gavin thinks he's being subtle poking at his djinn "hunting" days again, he really ain't.

"My family don't know about magic. They're entirely mundane. But I used to get sick a lot when I was a kid. Stayed inside days on end running a fever, which for someone with five siblings in southern Louisiana is basically torture. Folks just assumed I'd grow out of it," he shrugs, "Until I got violently sick. Like, girl from The Exorcist kind of violently sick."

Projectile vomiting is one thing. Levitating, setting things on fire with your mind, growing an extra eye? It sure as hell looks like possession. And it might as well be - when you don't know what magic is, it feels like some horrible demonic creature clawing at your insides to get out but you can't let it. You don't know how.

"No one in our parish could help, for obvious reasons. Honestly, it was by pure luck a magus caught wind of what was going on."

Cherry doesn't mention how this magus wasn't the only one to catch wind. How a group of helpful "hunters" ran pest control on the several djinn that had taken up residence on his family property after being drawn to the arcane potential of a kid. Some kind of existential dread when the family cat is not really a cat.

Second rat nest more or less down, he hopes this is enough to satiate Gavin's curiosity, "So, you've kept in touch with your family?"

 

[SquigglyWiggly]

"French and yee-haw." The curiosity makes him turn his head, side eyeing the red haired degenerate. A cut like that wouldn't have flown very easy in backwater Idaho so Louisiana couldn't have been much different.
And in a litter of five baby yee-haws, too. Strangely, Gavin never caught the RDR in his accent.

"Cases like that are exactly why my family does what they do," he states, with a mix of pride and shame almost, which shouldn't be possible. Fortunately a group leech like that doesn't happen as often as it did, mostly due to SOS' efforts. And monster hunters.

"Not as much as I used to, but yeah. They're family, right."

He lifts an open paw, gesturing with, "Can I have the prisoner's wrist? Jessie won't care if hers are too small, but Sterling will crack like a robin's egg. Not to be a monster, but our plan goes out the window if he can't cast."

Gavin squints to focus on the pale twig Cherry calls a wrist, shiny in spots from the conditioner and speckled in fur.
"My sister's flying over. Will you drive me to the airport later?"

 

[dreaming enthusiast]

Acadian, Cherry thinks about correcting but lets it slide. At least Gavin didn't say cajun - he's always disliked the term, for no other reason than the way it sounds. A truly hick word. He's fine being a redhead, not so much a redneck.

Something else he isn't fine with is family visits being announced out of nowhere, or having to deal with them in any capacity when it doesn't concern him personally. Like, not at all. As if there isn't enough on his plate already. Gavin's sister picked one hell of a time to come to town.

"Since when am I your personal chauffeur? No, you know what, don't answer that," doubtlessly Gavin, smartass that he is, will say something like "since you've been my prisoner" or "already told you I don't know how to drive... yet". Unfortunately, even outside of the "prisoner" nonsense, chauffeuring falls under an SOS' magus job description. Cherry's frustrated exhale comes out in a groan.

Still frowning, he watches as Gavin measures the wrist passed over his furry shoulder, forearm laid out on top of it. The difference between the cuffs made for a djinn and those for a magus is huge, isn't it...

"She can't stay here."

 

[SquigglyWiggly]

Gavin inhales to reason not only is Cherry a prisoner, the djinn can't drive.
He could run there, but now that Cherry knows he regularly escapes to deal out vigilante justice, it feels awkward to make him complicit. And his feet hurt.

The magus makes a dramatically loud sigh so Gavin knows he is somehow asking a lot from him.

"Yeah okay," Gray agrees. He's grateful Cherry suggested it instead of him. It's probably for the best, for a lotta reasons. "Thanks. You're a real fonchock, dude."

The cuffs are finished. Gavin sets them down so he can run his fingers through his mane. Except a few wayward bits, it's a smooth ride.
Like an old music box that's been bounced into releasing a few cheery notes, Gavin intermittently purrs.
"Does it look good?" He asks, doing a half spin back and forth to feel his loose fur bounce.

"Aside from some groomers, I've never had anyone comb me without using me." Gavin smiles.
"Pervert."

 

[dreaming enthusiast]

It's a pleasant surprise when Gavin doesn't push back on his sister staying out of the apartment. This does open up the annoying possibility of Cherry getting dragged into setting up accommodations later anyway, but he'll think about that when they actually go to the airport. For now, the magus can't help but wonder what accommodations Crow has planned for Samuel in case they can't go back to Louisiana immediately...

"I wouldn't say good, but certainly not half bad. For a djinn," he teases. Mostly because Gray called him a fonchock. Now that it's been established as some weird term of approval, is the guy just going to keep throwing it out whenever?

Fingers pass unobstructed through longer fur as Cherry arranges Gavin's mane after he's properly messed it up with his claws, not styling it or anything, but... well, maybe kind of - the texture is off, yet like this it almost looks like human hair. It is worth admitting that, yeah, he does look semi-good like this. It's an improvement the magus is more than happy to take full credit for.

Though not without getting what he wants in return, whatever sudden sentiment Gavin might be experiencing or not.

Standing up, he can't help but frown down at the state this little endeavor has left him in - not only are his hands covered in loose fur and conditioner, but so are his shirt and jeans, their darker color a perfect background to truly make the cat hair pop. To say his clothes (and himself) need a wash would be an understatement. Huffing, Cherry moves around the done-up catman to pick up the djinn cuffs. Leaving Gray with the magi ones.

"If anyone's the pervert here it's you. I'll remind you you wanted this. And also to sleep in the same bed."

There are subtle notes of accusation in his tone. It's a weird, uncomfortable arrangement to vocalize, though after the day they had today - the uninvited visitor they had today - Cherry's primary concern is showering and passing the fuck out. Oh, and also barricading both front door and bedroom door somehow. In which keeping close does at least make tactical sense, begrudgingly...

A beat passes as he stares at Gavin.

"You probably want to look at yourself in a mirror," the magus turns, heading for the bathroom, "Also because the rest is gonna have to get shaved off."

 

[SquigglyWiggly]

"I didn't say anything about wanting the bed, but if you wanna share that's cool." Gavin fluffs his hand through his hair again. It feels so smooth and happy. He requested for his fur the be brushed and Cherry delivered, more or less. Not gently, but that was always going to be a little impossible. Surprisingly (suspiciously), the magus is being kind.

Gavin stops halfway to the bathroom.
"You can't save the rest?"

He grabs for the parts of his back he can reach, rubbing at the oversensitive skin that isn't sure if it's itchy or sore or both. The nice act couldn't last forever. Gavin knew it wouldn't.
With a certain dark smugness, the djinn follows his vessel into the bathroom.


-------

Moms and babies shared beds. Dads shared them with their wives. Sisters shared a room, and so did brothers. The unwritten rules on who went where while seemingly trivial, made the difference between social acceptance and exiled weirdo.
You could never have explained to Gavin sleeping with his sister was potentially odd. In fact to this day the subtle twist of an expression on admitting this truth confuses him, even if now he understands what they implied. Being in the boonies didn't improve his old sleeping habits either. But the disturbing implication didn't change the fact sleeping alone was boring.

While making cuffs, Gavin wouldn't have concerned himself with categorizing this sleepover. But somewhere between having his back shaved and entering a room he was barred from ever seeing again, the curiosity got the better of him.
There's an intimacy to sharing a bed, like sharing a meal. Like SOS, but on a far grander scale Mother nature brainwashes it's creatures with food and sleep. Whether you are mom, dad, baby, sister, brother, or stranger, living things are wired to bloom closer in these conditions.
And as a djinn he's supposedly more at risk.

How many djinn and magi share a bed? Gavin is positive it will be boring and shallow, and yet he's programmed to enjoy this inborne nature that demands you must trust the person you fall asleep with, or how did you fall asleep?

"This is like a bonding exercise," he notices, waiting to see if he's the one who gets the lights or if it's Cherry before climbing into the bed.
"Another weird, pervert bonding exercise."

He regards the bed like something new, something exciting to be explored. The mattress dimples under his poking finger.
The magus will exhale used breath into Gavin's face. He might even snore. When Gray opens his eyes to the dark, the raised hill next to him will be Cherry.

Technically they've been knocked out together, but there is a difference between falling asleep near one another and being unconscious. Gavin helps himself to the bed, and purrs once, long and hard, like a lawnmower.

In his contentment a new, tantalizingly question makes it's way to his brain. It's not inherently exciting in any way, but the novelty makes it worth asking.
"Which side do you want? Closest to the door or the window?"

One has the precious table and room for charging cord. The other is cozier, nestled in between a wall and the other person.
Gray smears his head along the covers, just as before, in his long stretch. It goes without saying he feels much better.
"Do you mind if I scroll on my phone for a while, too? Maybe some white noise?"

 

[dreaming enthusiast]

Freshly washed, nightly routine mostly completed, and having barricaded the front door as much as its current state will allow, Cherry is ready to get some needed (and, frankly, deserved) shut-eye.

Except, he's getting it with Gavin.

Lingering in the doorway as the djinn waltzes right into the bedroom to flop down on the soft mattress, Cherry can't help the way his lips twist in mild discontent. You could at least pretend you're not enjoying this, his eyes say. He knows next to nothing about cat behavior, but he's pretty sure the way the Gavin is rubbing on his pillows is some kind of claiming thing, not to mention cleaning out cat hair after this is going to be torture...

Calling it a "bonding exercise" only makes it look more and more like a damn sleepover.

The magus doesn't have much experience with sleepovers. Even when he was little and all his siblings slept together on a big-ass pullout sofa - due to a lack of space and a lack of money - Cherry had a twin bed all to himself because their parents didn't want the rest of the kids to catch whatever it was that made him "sick". After, his "career path" when it forced him to be on the move (which it often did) involved lots of motels and sleeping bags; close proximity to someone or multiple someones in that kind of situation doesn't count as a sleepover. Neither does having one-night stands.

Needless to say, all of this has contributed towards created someone that values his personal space. Highly.

"The window," Cherry decides after a bout of silent contemplation, finally stepping in as well. Usually he prefers the side closer to the door, but with Crow out there somewhere this feels like a safer bet. Plus, if Jessie goes crazy and decides to come back in the middle of the night, first she'll have to get through Gray before reaching him. That's the sole positive to the "sleepover" - safety in numbers. Kind of.

Sitting on the bed, Cherry opens the bedside table's drawer only to retrieve an unassuming tin box, decorative decal severely faded with age. It's one of those tin boxes you expect to find biscuits in only for it to have your meemaw's sewing kit. Except in this case it's not even that. The lid popping open makes the jewelry collection inside clink and rattle, pairs of earrings kept together hooked through the holes of plastic buttons. It's a fairly sizeable collection, the kind accrued over years.

The magus is in the process of taking out his studs when Gavin asks if he can engage in the favorite nighttime ritual of any millennial or zoomer, but instead of telling the djinn to at the very least use earbuds, Cherry throws him a questioning glance over one shoulder.

"Wait, are you going to be like-" he gestures up and down at Gavin, "Like this?"

Okay, sure he said he prefers that the djinn doesn't pretend to be a cat around the apartment, but that was before this new "arrangement" became a thing.

 

[SquigglyWiggly]

The cookie-knitting box makes a tantalizing chiming sound. For a tender moment it reminds him of his sister's keepsake box, and all the treasures he lost.
Whiskers twitching, Gavin peers up the box and watches as the magus pulls the stones out of his ear. With such sad ears it makes sense Cherry would want jewelry to make them stand out.

"Am I taking up too much space?" He asks, sitting up not only to peruse the collection of pretty stones but to consider the space of the bed. Its not an impossible squeeze.
"My other form is comfortable enough to sleep in now."

He finds himself considering the sleep mates Cherry probably has the most experience in. His ears do most of the talking for him but he still says, "But I'm still, ya'know, going to be me either way."

 

[dreaming enthusiast]

Gavin peers inside the tin box with the same energy as an overly curious kid wanting to touch - or to steal - so of course Cherry closes it right back up.

The djinn's pointed tone earns him a peeved huff, though it's worth giving his words at least some consideration - Gavin is Gavin, so which is worse? Sleeping in bed with a big-ass cat monster, or sleeping in bed with a cat monster pretending to be what it's not? Blame their earlier conversation for dredging up old memories, but all of a sudden Cherry is back in middle-of-nowhere swampland running a fever, little minou curled at his feet and comfortably purring...

"Whatever, I don't care," It's gonna be weird either way.

The magus gets up, picks out pajamas he hasn't worn in years (because who in this day and age wears pajamas?), and, after a split second of hesitation, changes out of his outfit. Being mindful to face Gray with an almost guarded look.

"Before you call me a "pervert", shut up," Cherry throws out preemptively, "And, like, if you find something not intended to be perverted to be perverted, then who's the real pervert in the situation?"

With a truly philosophical question hanging heavy in the air, the lights finally get turned off plunging the bedroom into darkness. Save for the ambient light of the city and Belden Place right below streaming in through the windows, dulled yellow and blue. Cherry navigates by it, idly pondering whether Gavin can see just fine like this. Probably, right? Instead of asking, he dimples the mattress again to draw a line down starting right in-between the two pillows, like an army general designating a frontline on a war map, "That side is your side, you don't cross over to mine."

 

[SquigglyWiggly]

"Hey, I get it. It'd be a giant bed from my perspective. Who wouldn't want that?"

His ears go lopsided at Cherry's wary reaction to changing into pajamas. What first looks like the fashionista's indecision on what exact douchebag outfit he should pick shifts into something Gavin has no experience in. "Pervert? Would you relax, I said we were both perverts!"

It does bring a different atmosphere to the sleepover. How is Cherry defining this? The same look Cherry gave him the night at the hangar is floating over his face of unease, like a ghost. This unexplored feeling deepens when the magus fiercely divides their territories. Gavin peers past the drawn line, whiskers twitching. Oh, he's seen this before. A bed split into halves.
Its starting to become shockingly clear how this sleepover should be categorized.
"And you don't cross over to mine," he demands, like he's supposed to.

The realization puffs out the fur along his back, almost enough to make up for the hack job its been shorn down to. He stomps down a delighted prrt, making a soft smiling wheeze into his pillow instead. Its scandalous, what Cherry may be insinuating. And now Gavin's thinking about it, because Cherry thought of it first.
Giving a lazy blink, he takes in the soft light from Belden turning Cherry's red hair especially shiny. Its comfy under the blankets and in the dark he can pretend some of these things are his. The dark form beside him as someone he cares about, the way djinn aren't allowed to. And when he closes his eyes its very easy to imagine a breakfast in bed of pancakes and fruit. Sometimes he'd make it, sometimes he'd get to have it. The morning kiss would be clumsy and not especially romantic, but that's part of what would make it special. Such a magical thing becoming so routine...
Under the safety of the blankets he holds his own hand, rubbing over the knuckles with his thumb.

"Goodnight, Cherry."

 

[SquigglyWiggly]

---

She's not familiar with San Francisco. At their core every big city is the same; a hub of society that is lonelier than being lost at sea. A civilization with no civility.
Poetic nonsense from the old man.
She likes sharks, so the ocean comparison can stay. But she's the shark, and everyone else are those little suction fish that attach themselves to leviathans.

The one thing she knew about San Francisco is the old train carts. She went to those first, watching them toot toot and toddle down the road. Covered up like she is, hitching a ride wouldn't be out of the question, but all she takes is a scenic picture.
And of course this job that's taken her to nothing but more of the same wouldn't be complete without a snapshot of the suicide bridge. Apparently they're supposed to be building nets to catch the idiots, but they've been left unfinished for years.

After that she googled if San Fran had any proper trains - and went straight to the Muni railings.
For a while she laid on the tracks, encapsulated from all sensation through a layer of fur and leather. She could pretty much lie anywhere and never feel anything.

It was for fun. Granted, not her usual venue, but that was the appeal. A quick dirty little high.

Wow. I'm PB and jelly over here, her phone buzzes. You know it's bad when the very specific vibration of your phone makes your brain light up. Jessie has a history of substance abuse in her family, so maybe she can blame it on that. She's hardwired for hard and fast, especially when it feels good.

You're just being nice. You hate traveling, Jessie plucks out. Besides I'm working.

Not for 24 hrs straight. Don't you wanna do anything fun?

Feeling cheeky Jessie replies with, only one fun thing worth doing and you ain't here

And the best part is it isn't just notoriously bad flirting. They talk about everything. Stupid, trivial things this djinn hadn't considered past an initial thought are brought into new light.

Sometimes that's a bad thing.

On her back, phone out, she taps away at the screen and writes about the letters she'd made. It doesn't fit the current mood of the conversation (they're talking about tea now. Who gives a shit about tea? Does she?)
Which of her friends would get one, how they could let work know, how she wanted her funeral. And how it wasn't anyone's fault.
She writes in detail how she boxed up her belongings after a week, and how shakey that first cup of hot caramel lemonade had been when she had to unpack her mug after.

Back then her aim was never to be an inconvenience. Even after everything, it was forbidden to cause anyone trouble when she went. She was just tired. And empty, she thought.
Finally after years and years of being siphoned and carved out, she was finally wholly empty, like a butchered animal finally bled out. Of course she wasn't, not really. A djinn will never stop giving, not this young, but the quality can taper. That felt like permission.

Not enough, though. Oh, she'd fantasized about asking Sterling if it was okay. Of course she never did, which was for the best.

It makes the confession folding out between her hands feel hot and sappy, an oozing slice dissected from days long past, a person long buried. It's hot under all this fur and clothing. Lifting the visor let's in fresh air. It feels like a cold shower. She selects it all, and taps cut, but the fact this all bobbed to the surface means something.

Yeah, it was supposed to be for fun, making a fake Tinder profile.

The text bubbles float up, a message to come from this woman that's coaxed so much from Jessie with millennial phrases like PB and J. The hyena lets her phone drop to her chest, let's the screen go dark.
This amalgamation of texts and pictures and memes and nothing has become something. And beyond the quick brutality and satisfaction of lust, into something far deeper than any cock could hope to reach (even hers). It couldn't be more pathetic.
Everything she says is clever, or funny, or considerate. Or stupid. Just, so fucking stupid. But damn if it doesn't make Jessie love her more.
Her theory that djinn and people only want to be babied still stands, but it's the first time she's wanted to do it. Not out of guilt, loyalty, fear or work pressure.
Everything Jessie had hated in herself she loves in this girl, this girl she couldn't possibly know. Not really, with nothing but some chats and a voice call between them but oh how she yearns to know more.

The problem?

She thinks Jessie is a handsome human man. A personal trainer (she was going for douche bag at the time), with four siblings, divorced parents and a cute dog called Fido.
Almost everywhere she went online she cat fished. Always a man, a big mean one with red hair and piercings, but a softy deep down who loved his mom.

She hates men.

Okay, she hates humans, but men specifically (magi the most).

But a man is what captured the gal who's captured her. Of course Jessie understands the ephemeral quality of a man, the inherent presence and power. They don't ask permission to exist, they just do, and don't even comprehend the privilege of doing so. It's what makes them so delicious to torment, doubly so if they have potential with magic.
It's also what initially drew her into catfishing in the first place, before she became comfortable taking her real estate as she pleases.
But she'll never be human or a man or a magus. Pretending still has its charm.

And that's part of why she dresses as she does. When her breaks ends and she leaves the railing for work the women watch, and men nod their approval. Or they just get the hell out of her way, which is good too.

It helps put away the flaccid softness of the texts, stoking up the coals she needs to work. Usually that sure isn't a problem, but San Fran has put her on edge for one reason or another.
Maybe it's SOS, or maybe it's letting Gavin hum and haw for two pointless days. Whatever it is she's twitchy, and prefers the comfort of the lifeline her phone has become when she can afford it.

In the club the magi sit in a circle, most with djinn sitting in their laps or draped across shoulders. Most are exhausted, shaking with the strain to stay awake. Back home they offer djinn chaining, which allows a client reserved access to one djinn after they've fueled up on a bunch of nobodies. While no less degrading, at least its more personal than this.
Here they don't, not knowing if they plan to stay for long or not. The magi here have whittled away the evening sampling, but never able to keep.

"Watch it," Jessie warns, leaving her perch at the edge of the room. The magi hush because they don't know she's a djinn, or maybe because they know she is. Sterling's mad-djinn. The crazy bitch. She likes that.

She walks into the center of their gathering, holding out a gloved hand. "You can't tap them empty."

For a moment she sees an argument building on his irritated face. They're close enough for her to sense how little potential they have. A naked touch could send them all to the floor. Dark satisfaction curls low in her stomach at the thought.

The rodent- a lemming, she thinks, is slapped into her palm like a wad of cash. Jessie curls her hand up around the djinn, and huffs down at the magus, annoyed. "I'll get you a new one."

Walking away she strokes the little head with a thumb. The mouse's bulging black eyes shrink into squinty dark lines, furry body relaxing into the attention.
"You did good," Jessie tells her.

"Did he like me?" The rodent asks.

Jessie looks back, where the magus is ordering another round of drinks. "Sure."

In the recovery room she sets the rodent down. It's quiet and warm, the music just a soft humming. The djinn eats a few grapes, and is even persuaded into lapping from a water bottle cap. Jessie leaves when she's sure the djinn's fallen asleep, stepping silently as to not wake the other half dozen djinn sleeping off their shifts.
They don't have the same facilities here as they do at home. There should be more staff watching the djinn, making sure they're maintained. Instead Jessie's pinned with mean bouncer duty and wet nurse. How the hell does that make any sense? Either that'll be rectified if they choose to expand, or they'll go home soon.
The next djinn in rotation leaves the comfy entertainment center at Jessie's whistle, trotting to a stop at her feet. A bright eyed fox, her tail flawlessly groomed to be as smooth and soft as possible. She's fresh and it's most obvious around the soft roundness of her head and muscle. The fox can't be a year past her taking cycle. Like a fruit grown for wine, she's ready to be squeezed.
The perfectly maintained pelt isn't noticed or appreciated when the magus gets his hands on her. He grabs a bunch of her nape fur, pressing sugar cubes into her mouth like coins into a slot machine. She smiles sheepishly, her hello interrupted by another cube she chokes on. Eager to warm the djinn up, he scrunges the fur in his hand. Within moments her pelt is ruined and she's slumped into his lap, forgotten while he impresses his friends by telekinetically floating items around the room.

As soon as she can, Jessie returns to her post and her phone.

 

[SquigglyWiggly]

---

How are there this many people in the world? Aggie's first flight had a bit more than she was used to seeing, but by the time she hit her connecting flight she was packed into her seat like a sardine.
It didn't help that she had to leave most of her gear home. Maybe she should've driven the way here, but she wanted to get to Gavin ASAP.

The person an aisle over has a carrier with a cat in it. Aggie watches, when the agitation of having her row filled up doesn't max out. She doesn't want to be boxed in.
The cat blinks languidly at her, far more comfortable than the hunter would expect from a feline.

Aggie forces her stare out the window. Paranoid. That's what she is.

Once again the captain goes through his ritual, visualized with the aid of the flight crew. The hunter pays close attention, stripping every sentence for new intel that wasn't in the first safety debrief. Unsurprisingly, there's none. In the case of emergency, there is shockingly little a passenger can do. A delightful way to begin a flight, that is.
And after hurdling down the massive drive way going lickity split, the flight attendants bring out snacks and food. As if anyone can or would even want to eat with their stomach doing summersaults and their ears popping.
But because it's free Aggie takes a bag of pretzels and an orange pop.

The cat's back to staring.

Aggie glares back.

The cat flattens it's ears, huddling away into it's owners side.

Restless, the hunter reaches for her phone. It's a poor substitute to a gun, particularly when there's no WiFi. Apparently you can pay for it, but even if Aggie was that type of schmooze she wouldn't know the first thing on how to buy it. So there ain't no fuckin' way, is all.
Ain't. A funny word, that is, and a completely valid synonym to aren't.

She'd used it once. Now in the chat logs it was mercilessly teased over and over again. Swiping up, she shakes her head. Cliche though it be, romance is something she doesn't have time for. Sure, she's taken her shots at it. Gotten the first peck outta the way, for sure, further than that even. It helped that there was practically no one in McCall. Proximity brewed familiarity and all that. To her credit she really did try with Todd, even though he isn't human. It was hard not to feel something for someone who had your back... particularly when you rode on theirs.
But it's always been too much, like she was being stolen.

Or changed.

And there was the little fact he wasn't a person. She used to think of him as half human, half dog, but he was always a werewolf even when he looked like a guy. A good friend, sure. Life long partner that liked raw meat and sniffing butts? It just wasn't ever gonna pan out. She wasn't having wolf babies, it was out of the question. Even now her insides squirm at the thought.

So as it turns out, eye dropping love through the Internet was just enough for her. If she was overwhelmed all she had to do was put the thing down. Nowadays the rate of picking it up is far outweighing the latter. Probably not good.

The jolt her heart got thinking of telling him she was in the Big City too was the same she got when hunting. That exhilaration, the feeling she was right where she was supposed to be, doing exactly what she was made to do. He's in the city visiting his dad, miserable. She's here visiting her brother.

Aggie slips a thumb into her mouth to chew. Side of the mouth, nail to bottom row. If she has to have a finger in her mouth, she wasn't giving herself an overbite.

She isn't going to tell him, of course. Eye dropped love, remember?
And she isn't exactly as advertised in real life either. She'd put quite a bit more effort into her profile picture than she normally did in real life. Aggie didn't even have long hair anymore, not after she nearly scalped herself on some barbed wire.

That thing in the picture is a wig.

Boy, she's a silly goose, that's for sure. One that rolls her eyes at the filthy flirting. Men and the way they talk. It's a wonder anyone gets married in the world.

Dummy.

Crying a river in your honor right now, she texts, plucking each tiny button one at a time with her index. It won't deliver until she lands. She sends it anyways.

But at the end of the day it's a distraction. Her thoughts should be on what comes next, or at the very least catching some sleep on this redeye. She's gotta be at her best. In less than twelve hours she's seeing Gavin again. Whether she's ready to or not.