Although I am technically not allowed to "reply" to reviews in comments on here, I would like to tell my lovely un-signed-in/anonymous reviewers- "Mich", "spawn-of-bhaal", and the ever-enigmatic "Guest", you are the sweetest and I greatly enjoy your feedback. I wish I could reply to you personally! And we are getting close to the end of the story!

All of your feedback is greatly, greatly appreciated, so if anyone has any to give I thank you! If not, thank you for taking the time to read this and I hope you enjoy it!


It was burning around her.

Tendrils of green flame gripped at her icy woods like angry hands trying to steal the color from the red flowers scattered among the trees and replace it with their own verdant shade. They were greedy and malicious and cared not for strategies and carefully tested theories; they were sheer chaos born unto the universe by the one power that time and space themselves feared and they and the one who started them was coming to get her just like they had come for her knitting Seer and her wind-up windy boy.

Although from her understanding, he was already there.

John had come to her planet after he had given Rose the tumor and scratched the disk in the time player's realm and, after she had died and ascended and let the trolls enter the fenestrated wall she'd left for them along with detailed instructions on how to get to it, closing the path behind them and wishing them all the best, had stupidly thrown himself in front of Echidna as she furiously sprang forth from her sanctuary to curse Jade for breaking the deal she had made with her.

Her dependable John Egbert had died a hero and she avenged him by imprisoning her denizen in a tiny little bubble bent by her own space abilities- the very ones she was supposed to use to send Echidna to a reset and hopeful session now kept the beast trapped in the one she had wished to escape.

It would be foolish to kill Echidna when she still might know something useful about the game. Jade needed to keep all the leads she could, especially now that her Seer was gone, too.

Rose had been slain by the Draconian Dignitary. There was nobody in the nearby dreambubbles for her to call out to help her. The green sun was still created, though, as the Dersite moon had travelled on autopilot towards its destination and ultimately exploded.

She was alone here now and her pieces were gone. She was a lonely queen on the playing field and she wasn't even sure if she should even try to play anymore- her king had been a chance at winning the game, and she felt in her heart of hearts that this was no longer a possibility. This was checkmate.

She could feel Lord English coming closer and closer- not so much a physical entity, but a surreal one that percolated through her scope of existence like the ghost of water through a field or the phantom pulsations from Noir's red miles throughout the universe. This was new, and she tried to distract herself by uncovering why it was that she could feel his wake now, when she couldn't before. Perhaps it was because she was now one with Becquerel, the first guardian and Lord English's most direct tie to her Earth. Or perhaps it was simply because he was that potent in presence. Whatever the reason, it did not matter. Jade could feel him closing in and no matter how much she tried to run her mind in circles to distract herself (like a dog chasing its tail, she thought with bitter amusement), the reminder of her failure could not be ignored.

She thought that, with Noir out of the way, this session would still be functional because there was not an agent of destruction with the Universal Lord's guardian powers and she would have all the time she needed to create and keep a universe of her choosing for she and her friends to live in together, free from the interference of the trolls. She hadn't broken them, and therefore they could not be trusted to follow her plans.

But now she was stuck here without a reset and Lord English was still on his way and she knew not which direction he'd come at her.

(Subtle and insubstantial, the expert leaves no trace; divinely mysterious, he is inaudible. Thus he is master of his enemy's fate.

Lord English left no trace, trapping them all in an unseen web, while she and her army had traipsed about like a circus parade, practically announcing their idiocy by trumpet and kazoo.)

Although she wasn't a destruction-worshipping Dersite, she was the first guardian now, technically, and that was all the game needed. Wherever she went, Lord English would follow.

She didn't have the time to stop him, and she knew it.

What a fool she had been, thinking that she could tamper with such power- power beyond even a god- and win. No matter what she had learned or how well she had tailored her strategies, there were some things that she simply could not win.

She was a failure, and now she was alone. She brought John's body to where Dave's bullet-riddled one (that was another thing she had not predicted. Becquerel was so well-trained that even when distorted, he would still fetch. Perhaps there was such a thing as training something too well…) lay on the snow and sat between them both.

It was only fitting that she sit defeated and emotionally broken with the other things she had torn apart in an effort to make better. If nothing else, she could find false company in her misery.

As she wept, she bitterly thought of all the ways that she could stall or spite the destructive Lord English, or if she could find a way to salvage something, perhaps strike some kind of proverbial deal with the devil (how redundant- she was her own devil, now truly part-devilbeast, and she had made a hellish deal for everyone) instead of just roll over and die.

She may have been part dog, but she refused to roll over or call anyone "master".

But her brainstorming fell short of her hopes and she just sat, covered in blood and snow, until a tiny voice cut through the harsh wind and icy silence of her land.

The tiniest angel, smaller than even a snowflake, landed on the bridge of her nose in an orange-yellow glow and flurry of tiny feathers and lifted her glasses off of her face.

How he did that with his small size and lacking strength, Jade wasn't sure, but she returned her sprite friend to his normal size and he glided around her as he grew, his languid tail draping around her so the frigid air adopted a warm, sunny glow and blocked out the view of the dead around her.

He opened his mouth and his sunglasses did nothing to hide the defined lines on his face or the frown that would have delivered his words had Jade not thrown her arms around him and pulled him in.

He was a broken piece, too, but interestingly enough Jade was learning that he was the most useful to her in this moment, even though he could do absolutely nothing besides hold her in return.


He felt her and moaned at how much he liked the contact before he realized that he was awake now and she was within earshot. It took him a few more seconds to remember where he was and how he'd gotten there (he couldn't even remember what he had been dreaming about when he had been asleep, to be honest, and dredging up his waking self's itinerary was almost as impossible for his tired brain), and in the interim between his waking and his recall he had let out a garbled, "What are you doing?" and been rewarded with a barrage of kisses and soft petting.

"Noooo, go back to sleep. It's just me," Jade's sweetly hushed voice cut through his mental fog. "C'mon, it was fun when you were my sleepy doll!" She kept up her soft handiwork and Dave was almost lulled back into sleep before his latent thought process registered what she'd said and what had happened.

"I'm a doll?" he questioned. "What th' hell does that mean? Seriously, what were you doing?"

"Just playing with you, geez! Nothing prankstery."

His eyebrows quirked up and his irises down to where Jade's hand was absentmindedly strumming his lower stomach like it was a guitar. He did not know if he was upset because he apparently hadn't been enough when he was awake and she was compensating or if he was just plain embarrassed that she had been doing that without his knowing. Either way, blood rose to his head in tandem with his temper and his mind reeled- it tried to make itself up and decide if it should make its master shout defensively at her or turn away in shame.

She derailed it with a roll of her eyes. "Not like that, Dave!"

Most of him needed no more convincing. Most of him. "Then like what."

She shrugged, her pretty eyes widening and her full lips pulling themselves to the side in a goofy, carefree expression of uncertainty. "I dunno. Just touching you. Loving on you. 'Cause I like you."

His doubt had now completely changed to curiosity. "Your phrasing is still entirely incriminating," he quipped. "I know you have this huge hankering for me, but you gotta realize that even someone as godly as me needs to sleep, and I sleep at the rightful, God-given time, unlike you, nocturnal devil woman," he joked. "And it's not polite to keep me from that just because you want me so badly."

"Oh no, I've been found out." She inclined her face closer and began to kiss up his neck to his ear, whispering all the way. "Yup, I'm a succubus and I have to seduce you a whole lot so I can drain you of your life energy, that's me!" She felt his face grow warmer and she bit his ear for good measure, which made him shiver.

He tried not to sound as bashful and excited as he felt. "I guess you've got a bunch more times to go, then, if you're going to drain me dry. Like a dog's water bowl. I am refilled by the all-powerful and mysterious hand of the guy who brought you home from the pet store."

She pulled back and looked into his eyes. "I think I'll be sticking around for awhile and I'll let you live, too. I don't want you dead. 'Cause if I did eat you, then I'd be lonely! And only female spiders are mean enough to kill and eat the people they love!"

"…You are the single suckiest succubus I've ever come across."

"A Suck-ubus?" Jade tried.

"Fuck, I set myself up for that." He lowered his eyelids, but she knew he thought it was funny. "You are so sucky that the vacuum cleaners just sit there in envy and think, "damn, if only I had the suction power of that devilbeast right there. Then I'd be home free for another six years before the family decides to junk me. June Cleaver taught my owners how to clean house good and it shot me to shit. And we're not even gonna get in to the carpet's issues.""

"That's a really sad story! I feel bad for the vacuum cleaners."

"It's the saddest. You might be a suck-ubus, but I'm the raconteur of the saddest stories. It's me." He gave a cheeky grin. "But seriously, what were you doing?"

Pleasantly agitated, Jade thrust her hand into the air and then brought it back down on Dave's stomach with a light, painless smacking sound. "I told you! Basically the same thing I'm doing right now, except without the emotional strain of listening to sad stories about vacuum cleaners."

He knew that she knew (that he knew that she knew) that he was still too shy to start with the oral sex jokes even though he was dancing right at the cusp of making one, what with all the suction and vacuum cleaner references. He appreciated her not saying anything about it.

(Had he not actually been in this stage of their relationship, though, or if they were a little further along, he would have had no hesitation because he liked to watch her laugh in embarrassment. It made her blush and then she became even prettier.)

"Okay, look. Why don't you just show me while you explain and then we can stop going in circles upon circles upon circles here. I feel like that one poor normal guy who has walked into a classroom full of savants that excel at the one thing he flunked out of in college and has to sit there and just not understand a damn word being said in there, spinning 'round in the rolling chair and wondering if he's the true retard and the others aren't."

"Okay," Jade said, sitting up. "But you're about to feel even stupider when you realize that I was doing exactly what I said I was doing!"

He watched her face in the faded light as she let her fingers roam over him again and retraced her steps. Her eyes weren't covered by her glasses anymore and they seemed to shine in the darkness like they were their own light sources, twin globes of comforting light set into her face. And even he had to smile a little as he watched her lips part as she got lost in the simple act of what she was doing, her teeth sitting on the inside edge of her bottom lip like she still had as bad of an overbite as she had in the pictures her family had shown him from her youth. While she looked the most distracted, he began to reach out to touch her hair- he loved her hair even though he always made fun of it- and see if she would say anything. He only needed to raise his hand a few inches to play with the tips of it and he brushed his fingers through the ends that had fallen from behind her shoulder and ended at her waist, winding some of it around his hands and using it to tickle her stomach.

Her lips closed and she smiled at the gesture. "I'm exploring you like you're a mysterious, unexplored wilderness of a cool guy, like unknown tundra," she said.

"I know you're gonna say that that's how cool I am, but naw, Jade, I'm more like a-"

"Taiga?" She offered, grinning widely. "No, you're more like Arctic tundra with your coloring! And because," she kept smiling and skipped ahead to where she reached his groin and hips, "A taiga is south of that tundra. And it's like a big wintery forest." She made sure to tickle him a little more than she had before, "so below this is more like taiga and I didn't really go down there."

He stiffened, anticipating. She laughed at him lightly. "I said I didn't really go down there, you silly. I stopped here. But I guess your legs count as taiga, too." Sneakily, her hands drifted over to the crook of his leg and hip and then down the inside. "And I went here."

Anything he might have said had died in his throat and he realized that his heart had been beating much faster than it had been a few moments ago and wondered if Jade could feel it through her other hand as it travelled over his chest.

When she stopped moving over him he knew that she could at least sense his nerves, if not feel them. She gave him a moment to calm down, letting one palm sit on his shoulder and the other safely on his kneecap. "Do you get what I meant now?"

"Yeah." He frowned a little as she pulled her hands away. "It felt good," he said simply. "And I really…" the way he let his head slightly roll from side to side on his pillow was a good representation of how he was going back and forth about the best way to say what he felt. "I'm not mad you touched me, um, anywhere while I was asleep. I'd rather be awake if you," he let the hand he had been using to rub Jade let go of her hair and trace down to her leg, "decided to do other things, but I wouldn't be mad. Not that mad, probably. I kind of trust your judgment. I kind of trust you."

"Just kind of?"

Even though his meaning had been clear, he was perturbed with himself for not just outright saying what he meant. (The coolkid way, while cool, was the coward's way out.)

She felt bad when his eyes wilted a little even though it was obvious that she had been kidding. Her remedy for the situation was to straddle and kiss him anyway. "I trust you, too. And the touching thing applies to me, just the same as you said it!"

He propped himself up against the headboard, moving her with him, and ran a hand through her hair and rested it on her face. She kissed him again, longer this time, and smiled at him when she drew away.

"I don't deserve it," he blurted.

"Huh? What are you talking about?"

His big, tired eyes searched her face. "You. This." He pressed his lips to hers and let their tongues touch. "That."

"How do you figure?"

Hesitantly, he looked down and pursed his lips in thought. "You're… beautiful and talented. And clever. And kind. You can go somewhere and just… belong there and I'll just hold you back."

She rolled her eyes. "Dave, you are being really stupid right now! How the hell have you held me back at all?" She pressed her forehead into his and kissed him again to make him be quiet.

Indulging himself as much as her, he returned it and they stayed like that for a few minutes, stopping only to take short breaths as they needed them.

"And that's me being more selfish than I really should be. Like a fucking pariah to you," he said, moving her away from him by her shoulders but gingerly rubbing them with his thumbs, like he didn't actually want to push her away.

She quelched the urge to slap him and scold him for being unpleasantly self-depreciating and ruining what was supposed to be a really wonderful night- there was something he wanted to say but she needed to give him a little time before he could close the space between them and let his thoughts out.

Slowly, she removed herself from her place on top of him and sat next to him instead, smiling a little despite herself as he reached behind her and retrieved the blanket. He wrapped it back around her before he leaned back against the bed, keeping a soft grip on her hair with one hand and sliding his digits through it as his arm returned to his side.

She intercepted and caught his palm with her own and pulled it into her lap, rubbing the back of it in the same manner that he had been doing to her upper arms a moment ago.

"My mom was a party girl. She still kind of is- you've met her and you know that she likes booze so much that she could drink a whole bar full of heavyweights twice her size beneath the table," he began.

Jade nodded.

"She's always kind of been like that, but it was actually worse when she was younger. And she wants others to drink with her- she hates being alone and that's most of the reason why she drinks. Loneliness. She had me be her drinking buddy starting at age seven with apple juice as my poison, and then at about twelve good ol' AJ just became my chaser, on occasion. But that's not the point."

He shook his head and Jade scooted a little closer, sending her other hand back over his chest and body like earlier. He didn't stop her.

"Mom went to a lot of parties as a kid and got completely shitfaced. Like, diarrhea-grade shitfaced. It was a wonder she never got raped or had a willing drunk hook up and got pregnant like that. Or even if she wasn't so fucking plastered- she's a charming lady all on her own, with a charming mask to put on during days when she isn't feeling all that chipper."

Again, Jade remained silent, but attentive.

"But I guess that's where my father comes in."

He says the word "father" like it isn't the right word to convey what he feels for the man, but it's the only one he has to use. Jade has never failed to notice this.

"Dirk was- and is- her best friend. And he was always the one that made sure she made it home safely. Which was sweet, I guess, and kept her from being knocked up any earlier than she was. But." He grips Jade's hand a little more tightly. One day, my mother was so lonely that her usually charismatic alcoholic-mask fits turned moody- or maybe for once she was actually sober and acting like it, I don't know all the particulars and I don't really fuckin' want to- and, since she was around Dirk, one of the few people she could actually be herself around, openly suicidal. Apparently."

Jade gripped his hand back and massaged his side.

"I don't actually think she really would have offed herself, personally, 'cause she's better than that and had lots of close friends and hobbies and worked at charities and shit, but I think it freaked Dirk the hell out and made him feel extremely guilty because feeling emotionally isolated was the key to pretty much everything negative Mom feels. He and his protectiveness as her… as her best friend perpetuated her loneliness, see. And she liked him, but he didn't… have feelings like that for her. But he loved her enough in a different way- enough that he would do anything for her if she needed him to." Dave looked away. "Do you see what I'm getting at here? I was conceived as a pity baby between an emotionally vulnerable eighteen-year-old girl and her gay best friend."

Comfortingly, Jade rubbed his hip, letting the pads of her fingers slide over the bones protruding there.

"And it's true that she and Dirk, my father, the man she married, are still best friends and still love each other. But not like a husband and wife. They were both so goddamned lonely in their own ways- Mom expressed hers by drinking and talking it out- but since Dirk stayed in the closet, she couldn't really tell anybody else what the real problem was, until she let it slip to me. And then, bam! I suddenly was put on the junior track to ruining my liver before I was even of legal drinking age, like I told you. And when she and Dirk were fighting- which was often, and usually over sexual frustration even though the thing they were talking about was something stupid, like, I dunno, the brand of spaghetti sauce Dirk had picked up for her for the store wasn't the right one or something completely unrelated- I got to take his place as her confidante. In a lot of ways I was more her husband than Dirk was, and although I know- I know- he meant well and most of it really wasn't his fault, I hold a lot of resentment towards him on behalf of my Mom, and then a little bit on account of just me. But that's a whole 'nother story."

He took a deep breath and looked back at Jade, smiling a little and rubbing her hand as she steered her touch over his abdomen and then hiding the smile away. "But then things started to get better for them. Suddenly. It all started when Dirk met someone. Mom was actually really happy for him- and at the time, he was only seeing this dude as a friend, but Dirk had this inexplicable conviction that he had a chance. And you've seen the guy- when Dirk thinks he's right, he fuckin' thinks he's right. Hell, he'll change history around to make himself right. And that's great. But then Mom started to feel a little jealous and she told Dirk that. And then he decided that it would be a good idea for her to meet this other guy? I dunno. It turned out to be the right answer in the long run? Who fucking knows what was going on in his head- sometimes I swear he can just pop it off his body and send it into some fuckin' impossible dimension as if it's a long lost Russian satellite complete with some foreign-grade weird-ass AI submerged in his eyeballs so it can gather all the insane ideas it does. Secrets of Sputnik revealed, right there."

Jade allowed a chuckle to show that she was listening.

"Anyways. Mom met this guy and she fell for him too and became even more jealous of Dirk than she originally was, and then life was real shitty at the Strider household. But then," he widened his eyes, "It maaaaagically got better. The at-the-time full collection of Harry Potter paraphernalia appeared at our house and cast some kind of happiness-spell on our proverbial cupboard under the stairs and we started acting like an actual family. Dirk got a brand-new toolbox that replaced the one I'd given him for Father's Day and also worked to make our house a home in non-magical bullfuckery ways- he fixed up the cars, the plumbing, the lighting- he's a real handyman, I'll give him that- Mom was even pregnant again. And it was all thanks to them both meeting that one guy."

Another little smile graced his face, but it was genuine and Jade suspected it had nothing to do with her hand on the crease of his leg. "My little sister was born. And Dirk and Mom both adored her. So did I. So do I, actually. The three of us towheads all fawning over this little baby girl with hair like dark chocolate." His fond expression faded. "That man has dark hair."

"That man. He is Jane's father, not Dirk. But he is also seeing Dirk. So Dirk views Jane as a lovechild between himself and his boyfriend, even though Mom was the one who carried and had her- and I think he's a little happy that his wife was in on it, but also not entirely? I'm not sure. He's a man of many sides with many little splintered bits of himself fighting to all exist at once."

With a deep exhalation, the admission of, "a lot like me," floats through the room without ever being delved into. He doesn't want to stay on that topic, so he doesn't. Jade won't make him.

"And Mom- she definitely sees her as a link between all three of them, like they all had her. It's fucked up. It's so fucked up. It works, I guess, but it's still…"

His eyebrows furrow together and he loosens his grip on Jade's hand, deep in thought, before he comes back to her like a submarine returning from the waters of his thoughts.

"Jane knows nothing. Yet. She's met this guy- Mister English is what she and I call him, and he's un-fucking hateable. You look at him and you think he isn't real because he's so genuine and interesting and kind even when he pulls total shit moves like bang your father and then turn right around and bang your Mom and be her baby daddy. And Jane- she's turning twelve soon- I see the way she watches Mister English, and I know it's just her precocious crush, just like I know that Dirk isn't a terrible person, but it still makes me sick- that she's enamored with the fucker, too. All of 'em- they have a thing for this one dude and he's serviced us all in some way- even me, 'cause his mere existence fucks with my mind. But I don't really hate him- I just can't fully wrap my head around the situation. This is that kind of thing you see on reality TV where you say to yourself, "this is absolutely too fucked up to be anything less than real", but it's just so unreal that you have to just wonder about reality and how it works because an abomination like that situation actually happened in your living room, except in my case it isn't filtered through glass screen. It actually happened and is happening in my actual fucking living room. God, I don't like thinking about that."

Jade didn't know what to say, and it was just as well because Dave wasn't finished.

"And like I said, Jane doesn't know yet. But she isn't stupid and she knows that she is completely unrelated to someone in our family and to some unknown dark-haired guy- a guy who she happens to have a thing for. You know part of the reason she was so excited to meet you?"

He looked at Jade and his adoring eyes are tempered by bitterness and they look a little redder than usual.

"Dark hair. She has been raised around all of us blondes and has some kind of mental block in her head that her dark hair is ugly because it makes her so different. You're this amazing role model- sorry, she saw you, now you're stuck with the label- and you look nothing like the rest of us. She used to want to be "pretty like Mommy" or "have straight, stylish light hair like Dad" and now she's finally thinking that she can be beautiful just the way she is. Some kinda big new discovery, like the elusive Holy-damned-Grail, or some secret kept from her all these years. What a fucking joke- I'm the one who has always told her how much I love her dark hair and I tried to encourage her to not cut it short- but now that she's older I may try to get her to keep it short because it'll attract boys otherwise- not that I'm in love with my sister," he shakes his head, "I just don't want some asshole to be mean to her and try to take advantage of her. I'm the only guy allowed to be a douche to my little sis, and even then I shouldn't be. But I'm not in this clusterfuck of a love triangle gone quasi-incestual- I'm not redefining the limits of love geometry. Fuck math and fuck that."

"But I was the child that doesn't belong. Mom loves me because I think she saw me as the silver lining to the initial situation- that I was someone who loved her and could talk to her and remind her that someone else had loved and wanted her enough to have a kid with her, but I was and am still a mistake. And I am pretty sure Dirk also views me as a mistake he's simultaneously ashamed to have had made and also a wonderful experiment or something, like in a fuckin' Dr. Frankenstein-finds-his-imperfect-attempt-at-re-animation-cool-but-a-disappointment way, and he doesn't know how to treat me. So. Now pretend we're doing those shitty guided reading questions out of a lit workbook and compare and contrast both of those attitudes with the ones they've got for Jane- Jane is, like, circumstantially perfect and addresses all the things that I just plain can't and never will be able to for both Mom and Dirk."

His chest heaves a few times- he's worked up about this and letting it out creates anger as a byproduct- and Jade splays her fingers over his rapidly warming skin until his wrathful fever breaks and he cools down enough to keep going.

"And I don't know what to do when the day comes when she starts asking about who her real parents are. You remember that cake we had at my birthday? I told you Jane made that and most of the food there- and I don't mean she helped my Mom. Jane actually fucking did all that herself and she didn't let me help her that day because she wanted it to be another present to me. I swear, she works as the female head of the house more than Mom now. Basically always has. And while Dirk dotes on her, he's never really around to do things like pick her up from school or help with homework or take her to get clothes or a haircut or see a movie or whatever. And Mom absolutely loves doing those things with her, but she sometimes doesn't always get to, either, because of her work- she and I mostly split the peanut-butter-Janey time between the two of us. And I feel sure when she starts wondering about parents, she's going to eventually confront me 'cause she knows the topic might hurt Mom and Dirk."

He moves the hand that isn't attached to hers and casts it over half of his face, like the blackness in his palm holds the answer to all his problems.

"I'm trouble," he finally says. "I'm trouble because I don't fucking belong anywhere. And it's not right of me to displace you. Just not fair."

So many thoughts are rushing through her head but she knows better than to voice any of them quite yet and they quiet down as she watches the muscles in his chest and neck clench and unclench, betraying the storm he's trying to hide in his eyes. She gives him a few minutes, noticing how his hand hasn't left hers even though he's stopped gripping it as if to let her go. She stays.

"Life isn't fair," she says, leaning over him and moving his hands, and puts him in place with her body.


On New Years' Eve, he stopped into the apartment between his visits to his friends' various parties. Piper had asked that he bring his camera to take pictures of the festivities with and he had forgotten it but remembered it right after he had left Tulip Pyron's house with Erivan in tow.

The two boys stepped in the doorway and Jade looked up from the couch. "Hey," she said, turning down the volume on the New Year's coverage that was playing on the television. "I thought you weren't gonna be home until reeeeeaaaally late tonight- or early in the morning, I guess," she said.

"And I thought you were going to Teresa's, young lady. What do you think you are doing staying in like a good girl and not partying? You should be ashamed of yourself!" Dave mocked, ducking into his room and rifling around for his camera.

Erivan nodded at her and smiled. "We're about to go to a different party," he said. "Just stoppin' in for a moment."

"Oh, okay," she said. The way her smile faded around the edges also applied to her voice and Dave noticed while Erivan kept his own expression pleasant and cheerful, like some kind of gleeful poker face. "Teresa couldn't come tonight. So it's just me, livin' it up with all of NYC vicariously in my living room!"

Dave found his camera and ambled into the room as he kept up an air of nonchalance whilst checking that it had batteries and then some extras stuffed in the case. "Wow. That's so amazing. Like, you've just outranked me in terms of cool. I'll bet my friends would be so psyched if you and your totally rad ways came and partied with us instead."

Amused, she leaned on the back of the couch with her arms draped over it so they broke up the dated pattern of flowers and greenery like twin patches of unseasonable snow. "As much as I am flattered by the invitation, I don't think I'm going to go. But tell Piper and Roxi I said "hi" if you see them. And if you stop by to see Zacharias, tell him and Kitty I said "hi", too!"

"Why don't you come and tell them yourself?"

She rolled her eyes. "Dave, I'm considerably older than you and even though I like all of your friends, I don't think that they'd be too thrilled to have an "adult" enter their New Year's party space. Also," she gestured to the table in front of her, which neither Dave nor Erivan could clearly see, "I'm kind of set right here." She held up a bottle of alcohol for clarification and took a sip. "See? I couldn't drive if I wanted to."

"You don't have to. I'll be the DD," Dave said. "Dave the DD."

"Triple D's," Erivan nodded.

Jade snickered. "Like AAA, except for alcohol?"

"Precisely."

"That's very nice of both of you, but I'm fine. You guys get going- you've only got two hours to party before the New Year starts!" She turned her attention back to the television and turned the volume back up.

Expectantly, Erivan turned to Dave, who had pulled his mouth into a distinct line of displeasure along with his eyebrows as he kept his eyes on the back of the couch as if he could see through it to Jade's supine form. He handed Erivan the keys to the car and the camera and shooed him out the door.

It was too bad- he had dressed up to go to Piper's party ("ironically", since the party was casual dress) and visiting the dry cleaner's was not exactly something he enjoyed doing; now he was voluntarily staying at home and had blown his cash to look nice in a suit for no good reason.

He wordlessly sat down on the couch next to Jade's curled-up body on the couch. She looked over at him. "I thought you were going with Erivan to Piper's."

"Changed my mind."

"Dave, you don't have to stay with me. I'll be fine! I'm a big girl and I can stay at home by myself."

"I know."

"Get out of here and go to your party."

"Don't want to."

"What could possibly be here that would entice you to stay and not hang out with your friends? And don't give me any bullshit about "I don't want you to be alone on New Year's" because I told you, I WILL BE FINE!"

Furtively, he glanced at her and muttered "It's not bullshit" before he snatched the package of Twizzlers (intended for Teresa, he was sure) from the couch pillow propped in front of and under Jade's chest and started to munch on them. "I stayed for the food. Piper doesn't have gourmet cuisine like this, no siree."

"Dave," she growled, staring at him.

"What?"

"Dave."

"What?"

She narrowed her eyes.

"No, see, you're supposed to say my name again. So then I can say "what" like a call-and-reply. That's how this game works."

"Dave, I-"

"There we go! You're gettin' it! Now it's my turn," He noshed on the red licorice. "What?"

"I don't need you to feel sorry for me!" She shouted, sitting up.

"And I don't need you shouting over this class-A entertainment comin' at us live from the Big Apple. I stayed here because I wanted to, okay? And Erivan already left to go to Piper's and he took the car, so you are stuck with me."

"…You let Erivan take my car?"

"He'll bring it back. I promise. He always does, and he usually fills it with gas, too."

"YOU'VE DONE THIS BEFORE?"

"Tons."

"YOU—MY CAR-!" her hair visibly bristled and Dave eyed her menacingly cupped hands with a smug face until she found that she really couldn't be all that mad at him. "Irresponsible dipshit," she said.

"But I'm cleaning up my act," he told her, gesturing at her with the carmine candy. "I'm being a good boy and staying in rather than partying with scary things like alcohol and loud music and that horror of horrors, that ultimate vice, people my own age."

"You're not funny."

"Oh, I think you are mistaken, miss," he replied.

She sighed and leaned back on the couch as she took another sip of her beer. "Ugh, you're right," she said with a giggle. "I hate it when you do that."

"Really? Guess I'll have to do it more often."

"Ass."

He laughed quietly and alternated his attention in frequent intervals from the television to her as she downed more and more liquor as the night went on.

She offered him some, but he had a feeling that at least one of them needed to be able to get up in the morning and make coffee for the other, so he didn't have very much.

"Hey Dave?" she suddenly said during a particularly scantily-clad pop singer's act.

"Yeah?" he said, squelching any jokes he had been cooking up regarding elongated nipples and icicles and the silicon from artificial breasts.

"Thank you for staying with me," she said. "You really didn't have to."

"I wanted to," he said, propping his feet on the table. "It was no problem."


As a girl from England, Jade hadn't really ever experienced anything like the humid, all-consuming and constant summer heat of the American South, especially since it carried over through most of the fall. Her cousin Jake was much more acclimatized and he liked to laugh at her whenever she marveled at the warm sunshine and long days when he took her on rides using his bicycle, with her on the handlebars like the land-bound and enchanting siren on the prow of a Viking's ship.

She and Jake had twin smiles as they rode beneath the fall leaves and the specks of sunlight sparkled down at them like the sky was a great canopy of red and yellow and fading green dusted in thick patches with whitish-golden glitter.

One day, Jake decided to take her to his work and show her the birds he took care of. Jade loved animals- she had a dog back home and often volunteered to work with animals there, so he saw no reason to keep her from his feathered friends.

She gasped in awe at the hawks and the one eagle they'd acquired, and she fell in love with Gamzy, their resident pet "clownfish" (actually just a goldfish- it was a present from Jake to Dave that spouted from an inside joke). The astounded face she made at the ostrich was infectious and Jake even let her feed him because they were both so calm around one another.

Still grinning, Jake had to coax her back into the office so they could get home before dinner.

"What's in the back?" she said, pointing at the little room where the crow was kept.

"Ah. Yes. I suppose I should show you them, too." Jake took his keys and shimmied around his cousin and the cramped desk before he turned the lock and opened the door. "One of them's a tad bit, erm, cagey, so he may not be so jolly jippered to see you."

"You come up with the funniest words, Jake!"

"I take that as a compliment. One has to have a cracking mind to be able to coin words and phrases, you know."

She chuckled and he held the door open for her.

First she waved at Dirk the seagull and laughed as he tilted his head to and fro at her before she moved on to the second occupied cage.

Quietly, she knelt down in front of the cage and peered in. "Hello," she said, and it glowered back at her.

"He's the last survivor from his murder- his flock, y'see, a group of crows is called a murder- and we actually just got him the day you flew in."

"So you don't trust anyone here yet, huh?" she said to it.

"Not a dad-gum bit." His thoughts turned to Dirk and his earlier mood wavered. "And since he's quite wild, I'm not sure he ever will, to be honest."

"That might be a good thing, actually," she said. "But you are the bird expert, so I'm sure you will do whatever is right."

"Actually, Dave is normally the one to deal with him. Take him for bird-walkies and what have you, so he'd probably be the better one to ask about this bloke's personality and needs."

"Dave?"

"Oh, yes, my boss. I suppose he is technically my boss, although I don't think of him as such."

"Oh, him! Right, you told me about Mister Zachary."

"You make right sure you don't call him by that, though."

"Is he trying to make himself out to be younger?"

"Oh, no, not really. He's not much older than us, to be quite honest. It's the "Zachary" part that'll make him want to tell you to sod off." Jake grinned. "I call him that because I like to watch him get his knickers all a-tangle. Perhaps you should call him "Zachary", on second thought. He shan't be as rude to you, being my cousin and all, and I will get to watch him bristle and bitch on the inside for sport!"

"Jake! I don't want to make him miffed."

"Oh, but it's great fun, Jade. Not that it matters, as I doubt you'll see him."

"Ah." She watched the crow some more before she stood up and turned to go.

Suddenly, she stopped and inclined her head towards the window that looked out upon the enclosure where the raptors flew. "Jake, is that him?"

Jake turned to look. "Hm?"

The shock of blonde hair stuck out from the rest of the green-yellow scenery and the fallen carpet of dead, brown leaves at his feet and stuck to his jeans.

"Why, yes, it is. I wonder why he is here now?"

But as soon as Jake got a better look at him, he knew exactly why. Dave stood parallel to the window and with his eyes firmly planted on the trees and sky above him, examining the patterns in the giant patchwork quilt of multicolored leaves that hung there. Jake knew from his expression that his thoughts were actually far beyond the atmosphere in his line of sight- slightly parted lips, melancholic air, unguarded sadness in his eyes- he could get like this sometimes, stuck in a waking dream that he either wasn't ready to wake up from or wasn't able to wake up from. Jake wasn't sure which it was and Dave never liked to talk all that much when he was in one of his moods, despite the fact that he loved to talk at any other time. But the sanctuary was the place he went when he wanted to escape, so Jake had frequently seen him hanging around when he wasn't necessarily needed.

Jake had always found it ironic that when Dave felt most trapped by the world around him, he retreated into a cage as an escape.

Beside him, Jade was watching Dave with her own face a mirror of his pensive one. "I didn't expect him to be so gloomy," she finally uttered.

Gloomy- he'd never thought of it like that, but it was true. Dave could smile and laugh and joke and be angry- he was a giant burning ball of emotion sometimes- but when it came right down to it, Dave could simply be gloomy.

Jake shrugged. "He doesn't act such a downer, usually. But really, when it happens, I never expect it, either.

"So I think," she began, "that he is well-suited to care for this bird."

"Huh? Why?"

"Because they already seem so similar, from what I can tell."

Jake considered it with some surprise. "Indeed," he finally said, astounded.

Then he turned back to watch her watch him through the window, like it were an unbreakable wall between them all when in truth it was only his own oppressive air that was keeping them all separated.


Dave had a pattern, Jade had noticed. But he had many patterns- distinct ones- for just about everything he did, like his circadian rhythm controlled more than just his sleep cycle and instead kept his internal clocks going to command his whole existence.

She frequently joked about it and called it his "man-period", to which he would act suitably offended, but they both knew that their lighthearted treatment of his moods made them all the more manageable and not something he needed to make a big secret of. It was better that way.

When he was happy, he would walk in like he owned the place and give affection freely, sometimes playfully persistently, frequently without any kind of warning. His personal public display of affection rules became a little more flexible and he would hold her hand or sneak kisses as they were out and Jade could plan on not getting much work done on those days because he would either be bothering her while she tried to or convincing her to stay home that day through various forms of persuasion- breakfast, a fun daytrip, movies, and somewhere in there would always be his advances. Those were his biggest tells. When he felt like he was on top of the world, he liked to make her stop what she was doing and rain down kisses and caresses on her. On those days she felt like a spoiled princess.

Next, anger usually came because something had come up despite his mood's scheduled swings and disturbed his cheerful scope of existence- this almost always happened every second Tuesday, when Mister English came to visit, or when his sister was upset over something, if a teacher had pissed him off, or when his father was around him for more than four hours at a time and the two of them were both awake. That happened every Saturday and Sunday that Dave did not spend the weekend at Jade's or out with his friends, Teresa, his sister, or his Mom. He would come in, ornery air about him, and sulk on the couch or some other unoccupied space and rudely reply to anything anyone said or did. Eventually, he would reach his boiling point and spill his thoughts as well as an apology, at which point Jade would either sympathize with him or initiate contact- this was very important, that she let him know everything was forgiven- and usually be on the receiving end of a very aggressive kiss and a shove against a wall or table or couch- which was fun, sometimes, and she humored him- until she turned it around on him and dispelled his tension.

From there, he would settle down into sadness. That was his reset. It didn't always last very long and it wasn't always very much, but when he was truly upset he drowned in it quietly- he didn't know how to actively call for help so she always had to watch and make sure he didn't let his head go under.

Affection, she knew, made him feel like he was worth someone else's time, so she poured it on him then and gave him all that she could- fresh water to wash away the stinging salt.

Affection and attention were the things he really wanted, after all, so she always tried to give him all she could when he most needed it. He was at his weakest then and that was her opportunity to either make or break him.

And when she was also feeling blue, she would hear her ex-aunt Verissa laughing quietly in the back of her mind, her past reaching her from the cobwebs of her mind, asking her, "It isn't easy, being so strong, is it?"

Jade would hold him tighter then and he would return the favor, keeping her even closer and whispering into her ear and being a shoulder to lean on when she didn't have it in her to give him everything she wanted to.

Although just the fact that she was there at all was more than enough, and so he didn't mind that much.

He liked the feeling of simply being wanted and needed, so it all worked out in the end, she figured.


"My other self will find you. He has a dreamself alive, still. He can fix this if you help him."

"What about you?"

She can feel his heart breaking as she buries her face into his chest. "If I can help you guys un-fuck up, it'll be fine," he says.

She cannot tell if he is completely lying, but she does know that he will be martyred somehow and win nothing in their final campaign. It's almost stupid how much she took from him- no, that isn't right- how much he has allowed her to take from him.

Suddenly, she sees them looking out at her from a paper card, Davesprite upside-down like the Tarot's hanged man and Dave above him and oriented upright like a king's bust. The sword in her fallen angel's midsection relocated to his head and his human counterpart's mirrored it like a macabre salute.

Hearts, a class ruled by emotion. This was the weakness that she had exploited, and this was the action she regretted most. Likewise, he would bleed the most.

It was admittedly pitiful to watch.

Still.

She had to admire him, how he feared and cried and was sent to his knees but never surrendered even when his precious masks were stripped from him and he was left cowering and defenseless at the hands of his worst nightmares and his most beloved friends alike.

When she sees him next, the sight breaks her heart.


Dave had long since taken off his suit jacket and loosened his tie so that it was easier for him to lounge about on the couch with Jade, but as the night wore on he was finding it harder and harder to get comfortable. It was simple- he just wanted to tell her that he loved her and then have them both go to bed and act like it had never happened.

Well, he wanted something a little different from that, but he was taking that to be the worst case scenario and he still considered it to be a pretty good scenario, overall.

And although her intoxication would make the probability of her remembering Dave nonchalantly telling her something potentially appalling decrease dramatically, he was still a little concerned as to why she was being so reckless. Jade was not a heavy drinker- she simply wasn't.

She liked being able to just endlessly and quickly think and analyze everything, and the feeling of being in a consumable depressant's haze wasn't something she particularly enjoyed.

"So what's with all the booze here, anyway?"

"Oh…" she said, taking another sip, "It was for me n' Teresa to play a drinking game with every time th' announcers announced th' year, but Teresa isn't here, so it's all for you n' me now, I guess!"

"Wow. That's, like, a completely guaranteed way to get one-hundred-and-Fitty per-Cent wasted."

"Mmmyep. But I figure it's New Years and I can do that in my own house if I damned well please! 'Mnot hurtin' anything."

"Yeah, except your fuckin' organs or mental capacities. There's like a horror film goin' down in your insides, Night of the Pickled Liver, and it's gonna be a total fake-out at the end where you think the black guy's gonna live but –hup! No, damn, everything suddenly became a comment on racism and he gets shot by the white guy."

"I didn't follow any of that 'cept the part about livers and maybe zombies? Is that what this is?"

"Impressively close for a chick who's about to live up to the reputation of that one song by Ke$ha."

She laughed. "No'm not."

"Okay whatever."

They sat and watched the time tick down before the ball dropped in silence for a while.

After a moment, she turned down the television volume so that the roar of the crowd was background noise. "I'm drinkin' b'cause th' other day Doctor Valonde and I discussed how you'd prob'ly be movin' out."

The mention of the doctor's name drudged up an image of her in Dave's mind and her warning looks bore into him through the little bubble with his memory and she reminded him that his aim was to tell Jade and then work past it, not work with it.

Let her know, then let go. That became a mantra.

"I'm not exactly helpless without'cha, but it's just a sad thing to think about," she said. "I got used to you, 'n I don't really have a big support group of people who're always around anymore, you know? College happened and then my parents' issues happened and then it was me n' Kankarri, n' the shop. An' when you showed up, I was real nervous but real happy, too, because I like you an' you're you- the special you that gave me his favorite book." She leaned on his shoulder. "I know you going is a loooooong way off, but I just felt really sad and figured that just this once, I could try 'ta forget all that so I don't bring it into the New Year! It's kinda fun, actually, but I know I'll prob'ly regret it in the morning. Heh heh!"

The crowd began to grow louder through the television.

Ten!

Jade sat up to face him and ran a hand through his hair. "I love you, 'n I'll be sad when you're gone."

Nine!

Eight!

He saw her sad smile and the world around him began to cover over Doctor Valonde's words.

Seven!

"Are you okay?"

Six!

Doctor Valonde's stern look and wise words were getting hazier and hazier, like the memory of a memory that could just glide away with a slight breeze.

FIVE!

Time felt like it was getting slower and he could feel her breath blowing softly onto his face.

FOUR!

It dragged on like an exhausted runner trying to sprint underwater, like they were drowning in an unseen sea.

E!

T W O !

O N E !


Erivan hadn't even waited when he had gotten to the car. He had been expecting this, actually, because he had planned on it.

Kitty was painfully shy and now she was having her own little party with Zacharias and her mother and Erivan, ever clever, had gotten tickets from his older sister Porram to a special New Year's Eve performance by a group Teresa really liked.

And then he had his sometimes-friend Miss Veronica Serket, who was attending the same concert, call someone to tow Teresa's car.

She wouldn't have to pay for the car, of course. Erivan had given Veronica not only her own tickets to the shindig, but an incentive on top of the money to be used for towing.

He'd paid her for her favor. She'd do it.

From his perspective, he'd gotten Kitty and Zacharias a fun New Year's, let Teresa go to a concert she really wanted to go to for free, and ensured that Dave had some time with the person he'd fallen in love with.

And having them both off of his case so he could talk with Piper was an added bonus.


He kissed her twice before reality came back and time finally felt like it was ticking away again.

EAR!

The roaring crowd, although soft, came back to his ears along with the fanfare that rang in the culmination of the celebration. He realized what was happening and left her on the couch and went into his room before anything else happened.

He had kissed her twice, and it took him a few minutes to fully register what he had just done. He closed the door.

He had kissed her twice and told her he loved her. Shakily, he walked over to his bed and sank down onto it.

The first one had been the real folly. She had smiled and opened her mouth to wish him a Happy New Year and moved in to kiss him on the cheek, but he had put his hands around her waist and moved in before she could, using those blasted words as his opening and gently invading- she had been too surprised for there to be a need for anything else.

Then he had pulled away, taken a breath, and kissed her again on just her lips- no tongue, no teeth, just a press of the lips, said, "I love you," and then been spooked by the sounds of reality.

He decided that the best thing for him to do was to just go to sleep and not think about it right now.

Outside, Jade heard the thud of his shoes as he threw them against his closed door.


Watch me break all the rules here- Sorry, "Guest". And the truth is that I was hopin' the same thing you were, and I'M THE WRITER! :P