When Scarlett told him she didn't think Caleb suspected her wings, Gunnar couldn't exactly pretend to be surprised. Caleb was a doctor, after all. His way of thinking made the world black and white, all solid shapes and straight lines and perfect circles; everything neat and orderly. If it could be dissected or held under a microscope, then it was an acceptable part of this world. Whatever non-magical stick he had shoved up his ass wasn't going to lead him to wonder if the reason Scarlett hadn't spent the night with him yet was because maybe, just maybe, she was hiding the marks on her shoulder blades where her wings would sprout and she didn't want to freak him out with the full feather show. At least, not yet.
No, he probably just thought she was being modest. A southern thing he didn't understand.
Caleb, in Gunnar's very humble opinion, wouldn't know something magical if it can-canned right over and gave him a lap dance.
But what the hell does he know. It's not like he's a doctor, or anything.
Which is what Scarlett said to him when he made the magical lap dance comment. That, and a slam of the front door was the last he heard of her until their meeting with Bucky two nights later.
Will, who had been doing an unsuccessful job of attempting to blend into the couch and become invisible – thinking to himself damn it, why was Zoey the one to get the invisibility powers, it's not like she's here to listen to these two go twelve rounds every other day – sat up and gave Gunnar a weak smile.
"At least she didn't actually bring them out this time," he offered.
Gunnar scowled. The lightning at his fingertips hissed as sparks flew from his hand and fell to the floor. Another scorch mark appeared in the already-darkened wood, which Gunnar had installed in place of the original carpet when he realized that carpet was really fucking flammable. Several small house fires (and quite a few of the firefighters appearing in some of Will's more vivid dreams) later, they ripped up the carpet and had the entire house redone in a darker wood flooring. Now, at least, Gunnar wasn't setting their living room floor on fire every couple of days.
(It also helped that Gunnar had frantically purged the house of anything else he could potentially incinerate, which nearly included Will's favorite armchair. The force field he'd generated that day was so powerful Will could still smell ozone in the air weeks later, lounging in his beloved, rescued armchair.)
Gunnar scowled at the newest mark on his floor, and Will reminded himself that it could be so much worse. Avery already had to replace their living room couch three times, as well as have a new sink installed in the master bathroom, replace all window curtains with shutters, and buy Cadence a new toy every few days to replace the ones Juliette accidentally burned.
Whatever magical-powers-giving god that decided to give Juliette Barnes the power to set things on fire with her mind had to be regretting several life decisions by now.
"I'm serious, man," Will told Gunnar. "At least she didn't pull out the wings. Last time you pissed her off, I was picking feathers out of the couch for a whole damn month."
"Absolutely not," Deacon told them.
Three crestfallen faces started talking all at once.
"Don't worry! After last year, everyone knows to use mirror to check around the corners!"
"But Rayna issued a ban on confetti!"
"She wants to bring the girls, so there won't be any catapult. Probably."
Deacon shook his head to their pleas.
"My roof still leaks!" he argued. "And there's that weird cheese smell that no one can explain!"
They could all see that dangerous vein starting to pulse in his forehead, and self-preservation kicked in. They shuffled off Deacon's porch as he slammed the door on their retreating backs, no doubt to go yell into a pillow and calm himself down.
Hopefully he wouldn't use his telekinesis to throw the TV across the living room. Rayna just replaced the old flatscreen, and the HD quality on the new one made watching football a spectacular experience.
"Well," Will said, "there goes the party."
Gunnar frowned. "What do you mean, man? We can't just give up like that!"
Will shrugged. "I don't want to, but we have no place to hold it. Deacon was our last chance."
"Yeah, well," Gunnar grumbled, "you should've known that he wouldn't say yes, after what happened two years ago."
"I replaced that lamp!" Will said defensively. "And Kevin learned his lesson about tequila shots and Yahtzee!"
He considered that last part, then added, "Mostly."
He pointed at Gunnar. "And hey, at least I'm not the one wrapped myself in Christmas lights I lit with my magical electric powers and told bad Christmas jokes all night."
"Who is Santa's most impolite reindeer?" Avery intoned. "RUDE-olf."
"That," Gunnar said with clenched teeth, "was a bet."
Avery signed. "Man, you gotta stop listening to Daphne."
"She double-dared me!" Gunnar exclaimed, like the grown-ass man he was. "And I couldn't turn down a double-dare! Not from a seventh-grader! Do you know how much of an idiot I would look like?"
"Oh, but I do," Will said, pulling out his phone to bring up the picture from last year's Highway 65 holiday party. It had been his cell phone wallpaper, laptop background image, and Gunnar's contact ID for months. Really, the only reason he'd changed the former two was because Kevin got onto Will about not having enough pictures of them together, and Kevin's phone screen was a picture of Will, so he felt obligated to change his as well. He still kept the contact ID, though, because come on.
They drove back to Avery and Juliette's to find Cadence playing with a partially melted plastic kitchen set and Juliette sitting cross-legged in the living room with her eyes closed.
"Babe?" Avery called.
Juliette didn't open her eyes. "Shhh. I'm trying to meditate."
They had all turned to go to the small studio downstairs when Juliette asked, "Was Deacon okay holding the party at his place?"
"No," Avery replied. "And after two years ago, I can't say I totally blame him."
"I. Replaced. That. Lamp," Will hissed.
"Well," Avery said, sinking into an armchair, "hate to say it, but it looks like the holiday party is officially cancelled."
"What?" Juliette leaped off the floor, eyes wide. "You can't do that!"
Avery threw up his hands. "Believe me, I wish it wasn't the case. But we have no place to hold it! Deacon was our last chance."
"So hold it at Rayna's," Juliette said.
Avery shook his head "Rayna already said no. She said she can't have the National Guard at her place again. Bad press for the label and everything."
Juliette scoffed. "Oh, come on. That was just the one time! And nothing actually happened!"
Three pairs of incredulous eyes turned to stare at her.
"What?" Juliette demanded. "It's not like anybody died! She's just being over-dramatic."
"Emily is still apologizing to Bucky for the whole piñata thing," Will said.
Gunnar's face drained of color.
"We swore an oath," Avery said forcefully. "There was a ritual ceremony and everything. We are never speaking of that ever again."
Will nodded solemnly. Juliette scoffed.
"Scarlett went out and bought a new phone after that night," Gunnar said. He shuddered. "She wouldn't even touch the old one. Not even to delete the pictures from..."
"The oath," Avery hissed.
"Well, then," Juliette said, "what about Luke?"
"His security team will toss us out if we get within five hundred feet of his house, remember?"
Juliette scoffed. "He's probably still pissed I melted his stove." She shook her head, muttering, "Not sure what his problem is. I paid for the replacement."
"Was that before or after you and Kevin decided to play literal freeze tag and you flooded his backyard un-melting people at the end of the night?"
Juliette opened her mouth to reply, but then Will cut her off.
"The cabin!"
Everyone turned to look at him.
"Kevin's parents have a place in Monteagle," Will explained. "It's pretty remote and nobody in his family ever uses it except him. There aren't any neighbors or main roads. It'll be a tight fit for all of us, but it might work."
"You think he'd go for it?" Gunnar asked.
Will shrugged. "I can ask him."
Juliette folded her arms over her chest.
"You do that, then," she said. "Because there is no way in Hell I'm going to spend one more cent replacing our hardwood floors. Again."
If Gunnar is really being honest, he's jealous.
Sure – so he can create electricity in the palm of his hand. At his command, lightning bolts can circle up and around his arms like sleeve tattoos, and not leave a single mark. He can manifest sparks that weave between his fingertips like ribbons and feel the current hum in his hand like a beating heart. He can create a storm in his clenched fist and release it to the wind, where it sometimes leaves a scorch mark that looks an awful lot like the shape of Scarlett's wings in the hardwood floor.
But Scarlett can fly.
Kevin said yes, mostly because he didn't want to be the reason the party didn't happen, and also because he figured it would give him a good excuse to renovate the old place. He'd been saying it for years without ever actually doing anything about it, and given the requisite property damage that came with each and every Highway 65 holiday party without exception…
How many houses even had shag carpet and popcorn ceilings anymore?
With an actual place to hold the party, plans were swiftly put into motion. Liability waivers were passed around for signatures, everyone's tetanus boosters were updated, and after much deliberation, this year's rules were drafted and taped to the door of the break room (Rule #1: Absolutely NO Elemental Use can be used in any enclosure that has four walls – NONE WHATSOEVER. However, any enclosure with less than four walls is perfectly acceptable. Rule #2: Absolutely NO Elemental Use to remove one of the four walls from four-wall structure. Rule #3: Do not get drunk and ask Juliette if she can use your booze breath to light a fire. Rule #4: The term "Freeze Tag" is not literal. Do not actually use the elements in any sort of way against the participants in the game. This includes but is not limited to: the actual freezing of a human being in ice, the melting of said ice with human firepower, the use of force fields to direct the movement of game participants, or striking lightning at participants. Rule #5: If you're going to place bets on who will be the first to require medical attention, please place all bets with Bucky Dawes. ADDENDUM: Partygoers are not allowed to bet on themselves.).
The days passed in a blur of neon and Mariah Carey's "All I Want For Christmas Is You" playing on every radio station, which gave everyone the urge to murder the shit out of people earlier with each passing holiday season. They almost had an incident with Juliette two Christmases ago concerning avocados and the check-out line at Whole Foods, which had been narrowly prevented by Emily. Both her Christmas bonus and her enjoyment of the holiday party were a record high that year.
Meanwhile, the final details were being sorted out:
"Think I could get away with not inviting my sister?" Rayna mused to Deacon one night as they stood at their sinks, getting ready for bed. "Considering what happened last time…"
Their reflected gazes caught each other's eyes, and both of them winced at the memory, giving themselves a moment of silence for the all innocence lost the night Tandy partied like a rock star.
"Promise me you will not re-enact any scenes from Lord of the Rings," Scarlett made Gunnar promise. Then she made him write it down, sign it, and get it notarized. It was currently framed and hanging right above their bed. "You might think it's fun to pretend you're Legolas using the shield to skateboard down the stairs of Helm's Deep, but I really, really, really do not need another trip to the ER at 4 AM. I don't think you understand the awkward position you put me in when I have to explain what happened."
Gunnar nodded, solemnly vowing to himself that this year would be the year he kept his word to Scarlett and didn't listen to that nagging, persistent little voice in his head that leapt to the front of his mind whenever Will or Kevin or Daphne or literally anyone looked him in the eye and told him to do something. That voice in his head that screamed DO THE THING whenever that happened.
(It was amazing how much louder that voice got at the holiday party.)
He would not do the thing, Gunnar told himself. Whatever that 'thing' might be, he did not yet know, but he would most certainly NOT do it when it inevitably revealed itself.
Maddie tried to get her mother to lift the ban on confetti. To the relief of everyone else, Rayna did not.
Avery, Will, Kevin, Layla, and Emily did their customary blood pact to never repeat the infamous incident of the feather boa. One person getting concussed at the holiday party was acceptable, but five was bordering on ridiculous.
And Juliette arranged the catering. It was tough to round up staff still willing to work for them, because most of the catering employees went pale and suddenly came down with the flu when asked to handle the holiday party, but one thing Juliette had learned over the years is that both enough money and a strategically choreographed show of melting shit with her mind could convince anybody of almost anything.
The days ticked by. They waited.
He'd seen them once. Right before her mother died, when he found her in that musty hospital chapel, sitting at the piano and pouring her soul into the mournful trill of the keys.
He lingered in the doorway, listening. Watching. Her wings, spread wide and white from the curve of her shoulder blades. They hovered in the air, feathers waving back and forth as Scarlett's last, longing note shivered through them.
He'd never seen them when they were together. Back then, the only time she ever revealed herself to him was the night Jason died. The night she climbed into his lap, held his face in her hands, and kissed him. He fell into that kiss because it was the only thing that made the buzzing in his brain stop, the dull white noise he'd been hearing ever since they pulled back the sheet that covered the body that was supposed to be his brother, his face battered and almost unrecognizable, that was his brother, that was Jason, Jason, JASON –
He'd closed his eyes and kissed her harder, gripping her waist, pressing her closer to him. When they were chest-to-chest and he could feel her heartbeat pounding against his skin, he felt the delicate touch of something soft against his damp, salty cheeks. While he kept his mouth locked on hers, Scarlett tilted one of her wings down to brush the side of his face, using her feathers to slowly wipe away his tears.
Then he entered the hospital chapel, and the startled gust of Scarlett's wings folding quickly back into place hit him like a sudden draft in the cramped, windowless room.
He thinks he might have felt them another time, lying in bed beside her with her warm body pressed against his bare back, and maybe he felt the brush of her wing as it folded over him, tucking him safely underneath the downy feathers.
But maybe he only dreamed that part.