He'd never seen Ethan's eyes so angry and afraid, never seen his teeth clamped so tight that spit bubbles frothed and popped when he breathed. It was like someone had tapped into a beast within Ethan that never knew whether to choose fight or flight, instead standing motionless and powerless, but nevertheless enraged. Benny hadn't moved the position of his arms at all except to jerk back. Now, he wasn't sure which was more awkward—the endless silence, or his frozen position. At a loss for words, Benny just stood there, trying his best not to stare too deeply into that nightmarish gaze.

Eventually, Ethan's eyes seemed to relax, shortly followed by the rest of his face; he dropped his back onto the armrest of the couch and exhaled slowly. "Sorry," he muttered, looking askance. The mood hung in the air, strung together by his nerves. "I don't think I can.."

Autonomy came back to Benny, to his surprise. He put his arms next to his sides with a certain amount of confusion and stepped back. "No, that's okay, you don't ha—"

"It's not that I—"

"—ve to say if you—"

"—don't want to, it's just that—"

"Ethan!"

"—oh," he sputtered, surprised and embarrassed.

Benny sighed and grabbed his backpack from the floor. "Nothing's coming for us, right? In your visions?"

"Well, not exactly, but—"

"It's okay. I forgot that Gram needed me to clean out the basement today, and… well…" his voice trailed off, eyes trailing across the carpet. They floated to Ethan's face for a moment, but jerked away the instant they met his friend's eyes. "I'll see you tomorrow, I guess." A gray, polite smile twinged on Benny's lips as he walked away, and of all the miserable and disturbing sights Ethan had seen and "seen" that day, this was the worst.

The door closed; Ethan winced. Of course Benny wouldn't trust him after that. Who would? He realized Ruby Rasputina had been playing the whole time—Benny's favorite part, too. He jammed his teeth together and pushed his palms the sides of his head as hard as he could stand. Why this, and why Benny?


Of course Benny didn't need to clean out the basement "today." Or any day, for that matter, as long as Gram was alive, because she never let him downstairs if she could help it. Whatever was eating Ethan's head made him even forget that, which meant this was serious. Which meant it was time to take action.

Once he got back in his room, he pulled out two things. One was his spellbook; the other was his iPhone. A quick trip to the address book, and then: "Rory, you don't need to sleep anymore, right? Great. Mission tonight, my house, br—no, don't bring your toolkit. Just your feet, Batman. And don't tell Ethan."

That night, Rory arrived as promised, along with infrared goggles that he figured he'd bring "just in case." Awash with excitement, he bombarded Benny with questions which Benny ignored as they walked over to Ethan's side of his house. He pointed at Ethan's bedroom window. "Can you get me up there?" he asked.

"But maybe the demonspawn would—huh?" Rory sputtered, knocked out of his quest-trance prematurely. "Why do you need to get into Ethan's room? I thought you said this was a mission!"

"It is a mission!"

"What, to draw on Ethan's face? Vampire Ninja does not use his powers for no reason! Most of the time."

Benny gave an exasperated sigh. "Something's up with Ethan and I want to find out what's going on. He won't tell me and I don't want to push him, so I'm just going to ask."

"But… he's asleep."

"Exactly," Benny said with a grin, hefting his spellbook. "I found something that'll let me talk with the unconscious. Or maybe it's just the dead, but I adapted it, so it'll work for sleeping people. This way, he won't feel so awkward about it."

"I dunno, dude…"

"Come on! Maybe he'll say something stupid you can use on him later. Let's just go!"

And go they did, expertly prying open Ethan's bedroom window, climbing in over the windowsill, and tiptoeing across the room to his bed. Benny hadn't thought up a Plan B in case Ethan was awake, but luckily he didn't have to—Ethan was snoring slightly, his mouth open. "Alright," Benny said in a whisper, "a quick tap and a few words. Let's warm up this truthmonkey."

"…dude?"

"Nevermind." Benny placed two fingers of his right hand on Ethan's throat, and whispered "somnis solulocus." He felt a spark rush up his arm and twitch his fingertips inward, as if it was plucking Ethan's vocal cords.

Many strange things happened at once. Out from the initial spark branched veins of light moving indirectly from Ethan's neck to his jaw, making two grates over Ethan's lips and prying them further apart, showing a muted glow coming from the back of his throat. To Benny's shock, his eyes opened, but not because he was awake—one eye was clearly asleep, while the other had the white iris of a vision-in-progress.

"Okay, that's a new one," Rory stuttered.

"Yeah. Yeah, definitely," Benny agreed, looking worriedly at Ethan's vision-eye. "Let's give this a shot." He cleared his throat—you had to be authoritative with this spell. "What have you been seeing in your visions?"

A pause. "Us, in the future, attending college," responded a hollow echo of Ethan's voice. The tiny light-roots pushed and pulled his mouth and jaw into the correct shapes for words, and a sinew running down his tongue extended it unnaturally for l's and t's. He looked dead—he sounded dead. But his eyes were still a different story. His white eye never moved, but every once in awhile, the sleeping eye would jerk into action and start looking around feverishly, blinking like mad, before becoming motionless again.

"What danger lies in the future?" Benny asked, unnerved.

"More and less. The accident brings us closer and inspires strength, but the challenges are greater."

"The accident?"

"Yes." His eyes were changing—the white iris faded slightly, while his sleeping eye was starting to glow. The spellbook said nothing about any of this—Benny had no idea what was going on.

"What happens?" His voice was quiet.

"You made a mistake."

"Me?"

"Yes."

"What do I…?"

Suddenly, the root system holding Ethan's jaw together vibrated and twitched from side to side, as if another voice was taking over the structure. Both eyes glowed at the same intensity, and the shimmer from his throat disappeared. The words that came out were much deeper and more purposeful. For the first time, Ethan looked directly into Benny's eyes, looking more aware than the seer usually did, even when awake. "You've already done it, but I'm glad it happened. Benny, in the future, we're in l…"

Ethan's words trailed off and raised to his voice's normal pitch as his eyes lost their glow completely. The jaw-roots vanished, and he sat speechless for a moment. His gaze locked on Benny's, afraid of what he might or might not have said to his friend.

Benny glanced to his right—Rory was gone. He hadn't expected the spell to end so quickly, nor had he expected for his ride to fly off into the night. And he really hadn't expected the spell to backfire—Ethan was shivering under his sheets. "Ethan, are you…?"

"Why are you here?" he strained. "You were sitting here in my vision. Why are you in my house?" He stretched out his hand with great effort and clamped it hard on Benny's shoulder, where it quivered noticeably. "What did you do to me?" he sobbed. White veins from the supposedly-finished spell twined around his arms, and vibrated at his fingertips. They flashed across his body, glowed under his clothes, and congregated so closely on his eyes that Benny couldn't even tell when Ethan started having a vision again.

But Ethan knew it was no ordinary vision—he was here in the room, but he was there in the future. He couldn't know, didn't know, never knew, had always known, would always know, there was no future, no present, no past. His hands were his own and no one's, he touched Benny's face and he felt heat and no heat, he saw Benny in his room and Benny in his apartment. He saw both Benny clothed and Benny naked—Benny that liked girls and Benny that liked boys. They were the same Benny but they were different Bennys, which he always knew, had never known, could never know. He was one Ethan, he was two Ethans, there were no Ethans. They were both every possibility of themselves that they could ever be, and he felt love and terror. He was both shaking and still.

It was his lips that kissed, and there were lips that received. Time immaterial graphed the arcs of his arms as they reached around another body and felt every nerve ignite as skin met itself. He gave up everything he was for total ignorance of everything but touch and taste. He was the protector and the protected, eternally cycling silent words spoken from tongues touching tongues. It lasted forever—and when it ended, so did he.

Ethan had a warm, calm look on his face as Benny drew back, but an instant later his features twitched and the lights across his body shut off like a blown fuse. They flickered intermittently, as did his eyes, and he didn't seem to recognize Benny was in the room anymore. He started talking to himself, pausing intermittently to listen to no one respond.

Benny stood there for a moment, surprised and concerned. That didn't just happen—it couldn't have. He was mad—wasn't he? Is he mad now? There was that vision, the things he said, and then… what? 'Benny, in the future, we're in l…' We're in… oh no.

"Love," he breathed.

"Yes? Ethan responded, looking lucid for a moment.

A pang of guilt made Benny's mouth taste like metal. "We need to get you to Gram," he asserted, more for himself than his friend. "She'll fix this."

Ethan started shaking again at the word "fix," a face full of fear that jerked away from Benny, curling and uncurling himself on the floor.

Benny started helping Ethan up from the carpet, trying to hold the shaking seer steady and lead him down the stairs.

She can, right? Please say yes.