"What do you think they're talking about in there?" Ezekiel asked, leaning back against the wall of Annex, hands shoved in his pockets.
Baird had an idea but held her tongue. "Family things, I imagine," she answered, looking across the Willamette River at the city lights on the other side.
They'd been asked, very kindly, to wait outside while Jake caught up with his brother, whom he hadn't seen or heard from in nearly twenty years: Eliot Spencer.
Baird had never known that the historian was a twin, much less an identical twin, until earlier that very day, when they had somehow stumbled across a crew of Robin Hood-esque con artists that were oh-so-coincidentally out to steal the same artifact that the Clippings Book had alerted them to, albeit for very different reasons. The tension between the two had been so thick it was almost visible, and only now, with the artifact safely archived away in the Library, were they actually talking to each other. She had a feeling that they'd been asked to wait outside so they wouldn't even accidentally overhear or intervene in the knockdown-dragout that was likely going to occur. She'd heard rumours about the infamous Eliot Spencer before he became part of the crew he was with now, and if even a fraction of what she'd heard was true, then he wasn't a man she'd ever want to be on the bad side of.
The door slammed loudly, and all three heads came up as Jake strode past them, hands clenched in tight fists at his sides, face set in stone. "Something tells me that that did not go well," Baird sighed knowingly. "Divide and conquer?" she offered.
Cassandra nodded once, and to Baird's surprise, the redhead turned and walked into the Annex, towards Spencer. The Guardian stared after her for a long moment, then shook her head. "Guess that leaves Stone to us."
"What's this 'us' stuff that I keep hearing?" Ezekiel asked. "I wanted to go get pizza."
Baird caught him by the scruff of the neck before he could get away. "C'mon, let's go," she said, hauling him along in the direction Jake had gone, all the while wondering what in the hell Cassandra thought that she could say to a man like Eliot Spencer.
As the sound of the door slamming faded, Eliot forced himself to take deep breaths through his mouth, both arms folded across the railing of the balcony and head resting against his forearms. That hadn't gone well. He knew that there was no possible scenario in which it did go well, but that had been worse than even he expected it to be, and Christ, it hurt a lot more than he'd expected, too.
He immediately straightened up as the little redhead, Cassandra, came up the steps to stand beside him, not so close as to encroach on his personal space, but still close enough to not be ignored, mimicking his posture with arms folded on the railing. She didn't say anything, which was almost surprising. She'd talked constantly the rest of the job, sometimes about the most inane things, but looking at her now, he wondered if maybe part of that was just an act of some kind.
"He doesn't want me around," Eliot said at last because, fuck it, he wanted to talk to somebody. His crew was too close to him, he'd probably strangle that kid Ezekiel, Baird reminded him painfully of the soldier he used to be, and Flynn was just...exhausting.
Her eyebrows twitched upwards, the only outward sign of that she'd heard him at all.
"He asked me why I never came back, never...contacted him or anything like that. And I...I told him the truth. Not all of it, just...enough of it. Enough that he knows that the brother he remembers isn't around anymore."
She tilted her head, staring at him hard for several long moments. "Why are you telling me this?" she asked, sounding genuinely curious. "I mean, of everyone else you could talk to."
He shrugged. Why was he telling her? Parker would've listened to him just as easily, though she might've stolen Jake blind if she realised how much this bothered Eliot; Parker didn't always understand normal human interaction, but she did vengeance pretty damn good. "I dunno," he answered honestly. He tilted his head to give her the once over: white skirt and raspberry tights, pale blue-green leopard-print sweater and heavy black boots, red hair in a windswept tangle of curls around her shoulders and blue eyes completely, solemnly serious. Yeah, he was definitely starting to see the act and was surprised the others hadn't noticed it yet. "I trust you, I suppose," he said at last; people with their own secrets were good at keeping others'.
"Jake says that I can't be trusted," Cassandra reminded him.
Eliot nodded once. He hadn't gotten all the details of that particular story just yet, but he knew most of it. Enough to know that Jake didn't trust her and was being his usual bullheaded self about it. Dumbass was a piñata full of trust issues and got his back up at every damn thing. "Most people say that I can't be trusted, either," he replied.
"So...what, you want to me to be your conscience?" Cassandra tilted her head back. "Hm. Never been a conscience before. You'll tell me if I'm doing a good job, won't you?"
Eliot nearly rolled his eyes but found himself smiling instead. He'd been around Parker too long to not be amused. But the smile spilled out of his face. "D'you think Jake is ever gonna forgive me? I've done...terrible things. Things I can't ever make up for. It changed me, and I can't change myself back, and that's what Jake wants. He wants the brother he remembers when I left, not me."
"Do you know what a phoenix is, Eliot?" Cassandra seemed to ignore his question entirely, something that would've once driven him right up the damn wall, but he was starting to understand that Cassandra was like Parker or maybe like Nate in certain ways, particularly the way that she tended to talk about something that didn't seem at all relevant but really was, if you knew how to listen.
"Mythical bird that burns when it dies and is reborn from its own ashes, right?" he supplied.
"Mm-hm. Except for the mythical part. They're real. We have one, in the Flying Animals room. Absolutely incredible birds, phoenixes. Tiny little bird born from fire and ash, only to grow up and die in fire and ash and then be born again from fire and ash. They change constantly."
"But they don't die."
Cassandra tilted her head like a puzzled bird, her red hair sliding around her shoulders. Maybe it was just the lighting in here, but he'd swear that the ends of her hair sparked. "Don't they?" Her blue eyes turned to him, wide and guileless, completing the picture. The very image of innocence. "I don't know if I could burst into flames and survive, come back from it...maybe, I've never tried. Have you?" she asked thoughtfully. "But phoenixes do it all the time. Amazing, isn't it?"
"They suffer when they burn, though, don't they?" Eliot demanded. "What if...what if it didn't have to burn when it died?"
Her answer was immediate. "Then it wouldn't be reborn. It would stay dead."
"Everything dies," he snarled, knowing that fact all too well, as he'd been the direct cause of some of it. A lot of it.
"And everything changes, too. Death doesn't mean the end, Eliot."
He frowned, looking down at his hands, wondering if he stared long enough and hard enough that he could see some of the blood there. "Not everybody can be a phoenix, sugar."
"No," Cassandra agreed. "But there is always rebirth, either way."
"Is the suffering necessary, though?" he asked softly. "I mean...can't there be rebirth without the death? Without burning? Without fire?"
The redhead turned towards him, a smile on her lips, and she inched her way down the railing, reaching out to place her hand on his hair. It took all his willpower not to flinch. "Fire isn't something to be afraid of, Eliot Spencer," she informed him, stroking his hair gently, like he was a frightened animal needing to be pet. "It cleanses even better than water does. And ashes...ashes are very beneficial. Ash is the remainder of the old, and it is what the new begins to grow from. Ash is what gives life to the phoenix. And look how strong they are. A phoenix can carry great weight without strain, they can heal the most fatal of wounds, and their song gives courage to the righteous and strikes fear in the wicked."
"I wish that I could heal the things that I've done, sugar," he sighed. Eliot would forever deny it if anybody asked, but he bowed his head and arched his shoulders and neck up into Cassandra's gentle hand, allowing her soft, warm fingers to caress the nape of his neck. He was exceedingly sensitive there, and it felt good. "Jake wants me to change back into what I was before. But...I can't do that, can I?" he asked softly.
"Do you want to?" she asked in return. "Jake wants you to be the boy that you were when you left home. But that boy, he was naïve and foolish. You've killed people." She didn't make it a question, just a statement, but he still nodded beneath her palm. "Each death killed you, too. It broke you. But it made you what you are now. You are stronger and wiser than that boy you were. The suffering made you strong, and you put those broken pieces back together the right way and were wiser for it. You can protect your crew now, but that boy you were, he couldn't protect them, could he?"
"No," Eliot whispered. "He'd get them killed. And he would suffer for it."
"The phoenix will always burn, Eliot. It can't stop itself from burning. If it doesn't burn on a Sunday, then it'll burn on a Tuesday. Maybe even a Friday if it's so inclined. It will burn and it will suffer, but it will always rise, it will be reborn from its ashes, and no matter how painful that fire is, it will sing for those who need it."
He closed his eyes tightly, and Cassandra moved to wrap her arms around his neck, drawing him over into a close hug. After a moment of tense hesitation, he curled both arms around her slender waist and pressed his face into the crook of her neck, her thick hair falling in his face until all he could see was red. She smelled like strawberries.
"Don't you see?" she murmured, stroking his hair. "You're not the tears of the phoenix, Eliot. You are the song." He held her a little tighter, and she turned her head slightly into his and spoke quietly in his ear, "'I feel the burn, watch the smoke as I turn/Rising, a phoenix from the flames/I have learned, from fighting fights, that weren't mine/Not with fists, but with wings that I will fly.'"
He sighed a little, resting his chin on her shoulder. "Sounds like something Jake would say. Is that something by one of those annoyingly esoteric poets of his?" he asked, remembering how his twin could always pull a quote for every-damn-thing it felt like, sometimes from the most obscure works and writers that Eliot didn't even know existed. Oh, even that hurt, to think about Jake. Damn.
"Mm-mm." Cassandra shook her head. "Eminem."
Eliot leaned back in shock to look at her completely solemn face, then burst out laughing, laughing until his ribs hurt, the way a person could only laugh if they hadn't truly laughed for a very, very long time. She held the blank expression for all of three seconds before she was laughing with him, and they had to sit down on the floor to keep from falling over. When the last little giggles died off, he leaned back against the railing and curled one arm around her shoulders, holding her against his side, and she leant into him, head on his shoulder.
Cassandra Cillian was undoubtedly the most wonderful thing that Eliot had ever come across in his entire life, and Jake was a damn fool for not seeing it.
It wasn't until that he was back at the brewpub, dodging queries about how it went with his brother, that Eliot noticed there was something different in his kitchen. He had a very precise way of organizing things, and nobody that worked there ever questioned it when he came back and rearranged it all appropriately after they'd closed up for the night.
Ignoring Parker's insistent badgering, he walked into the kitchen, systematically looking around for what was off, because something was. A gleam of red caught his eye, and he almost felt stupid for not seeing it right off. There was a bird feather lying on the countertop between the flattop and sink, next to a small glass vial stoppered with rubber. Eliot picked up the vial, holding it up to the light. It was only about an inch tall, and filled with a fine grey powder that had a faint silvery glimmer to it whenever the light caught on it. Ashes.
Palming the vial, he picked up the feather. It was well over a foot long and deep crimson in colour, though the silken pummels along the edges were a fine, glittering gold, and it felt warm in his hand, as if it was still attached to a living animal. Eliot grinned and spun the feather in his fingers, wondering how in the hell Cassandra had been able to get here before he did, not to mention sneak past a crew of con artists and arguably the best thief in the world. Then he noticed that the back door of the kitchen leading out into the alley was sparking faintly around the edges, the warm golden light from another building fading from beneath the door...but that might've just been the lighting in here.