CHAPTER FOURTEEN

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I woke up in my bed, not that such was uncommon. Nik had been carrying me to my bed long after I became too old for that, but now it wasn't because I fell asleep on the couch trying to watch static-lined late night talk shows on a TV that still had rabbit ears.

I felt like a truck hit me, shifted into reverse and did it again. Whatever Niko had given me wore off hours ago and sleep was no longer deep enough to stave off the ache. My chest was wrapped, but damp with sweat. My head was swollen and scabbed, but clean of brick dust and pieces of mortar. And my pride was shot to hell.

I remembered every sap-soaked, drug-idled word that escaped my mouth like sugary vomit yesterday. I practically got on one knee and asked Cassie to be mine forever and ever like a teenager than knocked up his high school sweetheart at prom.

I groaned and rolled over as slowly as possible. It didn't help for the pain so I sat up quickly, hoping the band-aid method would work better. A resounding no.

Holding in my screams and curses, I made it to the bathroom to relieve myself so Niko didn't have to change my sheets for my incontinent ass…this time. I had to lean a hand to the wall to keep the pain down to a level of ten, but at least there wasn't any blood in the stream. Even washing my hands was agonizing, so I wasn't even going to try for my face. I had the mirror covered with a towel, but I imagined my face looked like the grill of the metaphoric truck that hit me.

"Ah, crap," I grumbled when the door, which hadn't been locked, skirted open with a brief knock. I'd been hoping it was my brother. I would have even settled for Goodfellow or Promise, but neither of them smelled quiet like that fragrance that teased and taunted every nerve in my body. I leaned into the sink with both hands wrapped in a death grip around the ceramic edges. "Can you not be here right now?"

"I take it you remember everything then?"

"I'd rather not."

Cassie came into the bathroom, leaning against threshold. I closed my eyes, wishing if I counted to ten she'd be gone. "I'm not above screaming for help. I'll tell Niko you're trying to kill me."

"He went out for a run, so apparently he trusts me enough with you that he won't believe you even if you did."

No, he just wanted to get me cornered alone with her, so we could hash out my touchy feely breakdown. I kept my head bowed, my eyes closed.

"Cal still covers our mirror too sometimes," she murmured. "Very frustrating. It's impossible to get my hair right without it."

"I doubt he cares much about your hair when he's reliving nightmares."

She was silent for a moment. "Yes, which is why I always cover it back up. I know the potency of those nightmares…or similar ones at least."

"Listen, I know I said some crazy shit last night, but you don't have to worry. I'm not going to sabotage your way home or anything. Cal of your world is in love with you. I just think you're sexy and…relatable, I guess. I'm not trying to steal your from him."

"Noted," she said. Her warmth coasted up next to me. She pried one of my hands from the sink and hopped up to perch there facing me. "If you're not going to look, at least let me fix this up?"

She was talking about my split lip and the few abrasions I still had on my face. I knew this but I was slightly distracted by being between her knees. I watched her pull some ointment from the medicine cabinet twisted oddly with out even knocked the towel over the mirror out of place. Then I found myself staring at her features as she dabbed the ointment on my face. Her lips that were so pink and bowed they looked painted on. Her button nose with its round tip and slight upturn. Her doe eyes and thick dark lashes. She really was beautiful, as Grimm claimed.

"Do you still think of George?"

The question seemed to come out of nowhere, so I was left in shocked silence for a second or two. "I…no. Not until you mentioned her a few days ago. If you're thinking I should pursue her instead, that is a bad idea. She's human and…" I couldn't really say innocent considering all she had seen with her gift, but nothing else was coming to mind. "I'd get her killed. I don't want that so I will probably continue to not think about George until she's brought up again."

Cassie's eyes flickered to each of mine, mahogany looking more reddish cherry in this poor lighting. Her lips pressed together as she wiped the excess salve off on a tissue. "Okay, bad example."

"Bad example of what?"

Cassie took up the hem of my shirt and lifted to look at the bandages and bruises underneath. She made the face of sympathetic pain. "Arms up."

I narrowed my eyes and tried not to smile. "It hurts a bit to do that so no, but I assure you my ribs are all still there."

Castiella rolled her eyes, hooked her finger at my crew neck collar, and promptly sliced down the front with an inch long black talon. I could see it clearly piercing through her fingertip now, actually eliciting a bead of blood when it broke the skin. I followed the claw's progression with a bit of apprehension. I'd never been on anything but the business end of those things. She didn't cut me, pulled far enough away from my skin, and her sliding the shirt off like a jacket hurt far less than trying to get it up over my head. Unfortunately, it was also a bit erotic and I really didn't need to be thinking those things right now.

I took a deep breath through my nose. It blazed internal flames through my chest, but the pain distracted from the feverish feeling I was getting from her hands brushing over my sides and chest to remove the damp bandages. Maybe I did actually have a fever. I was sweating enough for one and had been before I woke up.

"What if the roles were reversed," Cassie said. Her voice cut into the silence, making me jolt. "What if you knew me in this world, what if you and the Castiella of this world loved each other and shared your lives and secrets? And then she was taken from you. Sent to another world…how would you feel if she…slept with your doppelganger?"

None of that was spoken like Niko's lectures. No 'if someone stole your puppy how would you feel' nagging or chiding tone. She was asking. She wanted to know how I would react, because she wanted to know how he would react if she slept with me. As hypothetical metaphors went it wasn't very subtle.

Her hands pulled away from my sides and fell to her own thighs. Cassie bowed her head. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't even be considering it. It's betrayal no matter what, right?" She ran her hands over her face. She looked close to tears.

I was left frozen in front of her, her knees tapping my hipbones at every uncomfortable shift on the sink. "I know I keep saying you're not him, but…you are. You are him and now you're starting to look at me like he does and it's killing me."

Cassie shook her head in shame, then shifted forward to get off the sink. "I just miss him, I'm sorry."

I caught her by pressing my hand over her thigh, before she could get the leverage to hop down. Castiella lifted her head to meet my eyes. "I don't know the answer to the riddle," I told her. I stepped forward so the elastic of my boxers touched the cold ceramic of the sink, the heat of her thighs either side of that was a stark contrast. "I don't know what he would think. He'd probably be mad, but if he's anything like me, if he thinks like me, he would do the same thing I would in this situation. And he wouldn't give a shit about the other guy."

I kissed her, something I hadn't known how desperately I wanted to do until that moment. Her mouth was softer than I expected. The pressure she returned with matched mine so well it almost felt as natural as crooking a trigger finger and just as explosive. Her arms wrapped around my shoulders, fingers with normal nails scraping at my scalp. I wanted to know what those talons felt like. I dragged my own blunt nails up her thighs, under the skirt of yet another dress Goodfellow bought her. I'd thank him for the easy access later.

Cassie retreated from me just long enough to pull in a gasp when my thumbs brushed high on her inner thighs. Her legs spread wider, one looped around my side to pull me against her. Nerves furious with the light touch of her knee to fractured ribs, sent a signal to my brain violent enough to simultaneously kill my pride and my hormones.

I bit down on my lip to keep from screaming, tasted blood and antibiotic ointment. I curled over her shoulder to try not to dig too deeply into her thigh as I gingerly coaxed her leg away from my side. Her fingers massaged over shoulders and neck in apology.

"Sorry…well, that is probably for the better," she whispered.

"For you maybe," I groaned. Cassie snickered, lifted my head, and gave me a short chaste kiss.

"You would have been mad," she reiterated.

I frowned, but conceded. "Furious actually, but I would have forgiven you. How many women like you will put up with a guy like? I doubt he has any more choices than I do and you…" I leaned in, giving in to the pull of her scent again and brushing my lips to that pink bow. "I don't think it gets much better than you."

"You're really trying to work me out of my panties, are you?" Cassie giggled.

From the hall, I could hear the click of the front door. Niko made his steps audible as he came in, but I'd expected him to go to his room to clean up, like always. Instead, he knocked the bathroom door open and took in our position with a frown. His gray eyes went to my hand still up Castiella's dress immediately.

"That is not why I left you here alone." He bent down to pick up my shirt off the tile. "And what the hell happened to your shirt?"

Cassie started laughing and I felt a smile twitch on my mouth. Part of me still wanted her; a strong eighty percent of me still wanted her, but there was that other percentage whispering that it wasn't right, I shouldn't wish for her never to go home, and I shouldn't want to use her to satisfy my own depravity just like the Brothers Grimm and how many others. It was cruel and wrong, but it was a small percent.

"You stay away from me when I get better," I warned her, stepping back from the sink so she could slip down from the pedestal.

"Why? You already said you'd forgive me," she teased with a well-placed hand dancing fingertips across my abdomen where it wasn't bruised. It was just teasing, a playful taunt that she didn't entirely mean, but my body – particularly the southern region that didn't like to listen to reason – knocked up a couple degrees and I knew I need to check myself around her in these coming days, weeks.

Niko stayed in the threshold of the bathroom as Cassie squeezed by him to leave. He was giving me the mother of all disappointed scowls. "What?"

"You should know better. How would you feel if someone, your carbon copy, took advantage of your lover while you were desperately trying to get her back?"

There was the lecturing kindergarten tone I expected before. I sifted around the medicine cabinet for a fresh bandage without pulling down the towel. "How do you know he's trying? Maybe he gave up and I can step up for the rebound."

He flicked my ear sharply.

"Ow. She started it," I complained.

Niko shook his head and moved behind me to pull back the shower curtain. He was as sweaty as I was but that wasn't from nightmares, jacked-up hormones, and fever healing. He came by his flushed exterior much more honestly. He turned on the shower, masking our conversation so Cassie couldn't hear as easily.

"You started it, Cal. You started it when you basically pleaded for her to stay with you with the earnest face of the man she loves. She's confused and lost and missing her lover terribly. They were separate even before she got here, you know that." I didn't, but it had probably been mentioned when I wasn't paying attention. Niko poked a finger at my sternum where it wasn't purple or yellow. "Castiella hasn't seen Cal in five months and now you're using that desperation to satisfy yourself. Keep it in your pants or I'll duct tape it there."

I clenched my jaw, shoving him off me when he tried to guide me out of the room. We were brothers for life, but the showering together stopped around the time I could turn on the faucet myself. And you'd think with that much bonding under our belts he'd know me better.

"She hasn't seen Cal. Cal. I am Cal," I snapped. "So I think I know how he feels, how he would react. He'd be pissed, but he wouldn't blame us because Cassie is confused and lost and missing her lover and I will never have her except for this moment. I think he'd forgive me knowing that. I know he would. I can never have a girl like Cassie in this world, because she doesn't exist. So fuck you and screw Cal if he can't suck it up and deal."

I chucked the towel over the mirror at Niko and turned to the image of myself reflected. "You here that, Alice? If you don't find a way to get to her soon, you're just going to have to deal with me falling in love with her. Step to it, Cal!"

I stomped out of the bathroom a lot less impressively than intended. The vibrations of my footfalls set my chest blaze with renewed agony. Holding my side, I still slammed the bathroom door shut for Niko and went into my room doing the same to my door. I was thankful Cassie hadn't been waiting for me there. She was giving me space and I needed it. I eased back down on my bed and slung an arm over my eyes. What the fuck had I just said? What the fuck did that even mean?

"Damn it, Cal. Get your ass out here."

The rest of the day I spent in bed, avoiding Niko and especially avoiding Cassie. My tantrum, no matter how childish, struck a chord in Niko and he didn't even try to drag me out of bed. He brought me lunch, some pita bread bullshit, but I knew not to complain. Nik called Robin too. Removing temptation. We all knew I didn't need anyone leading me to it; I found it very easily on my own and transporting that temptation back to the puck's Soho apartment was a fantastic idea. She left with a kiss to my cheek, forcing a promise that if either or both of the Grimms showed their ugly mugs I would call her so she could help.

The next day I managed to get to the couch. An accomplishment for me, but Niko didn't seem to think so. He scowled at me every time he passed the living room. Going for a run, coming back from a run, from checking on Cassie, from getting us lunch, then dinner. Yet the whole time he didn't yank me up out of my well formed ass-imprint and drag me off to do something. He wanted to talk about it. About Cassie or Grimm or maybe the weather, but he kept his mouth shut except for to tell me was going to go to Promise's place.

Amazing.

Granted, with both Grimms so injured this was probably the only time Nik felt he could safely leave me before the bridge started collapsing on us. I had taken a swig of beer and waved him off with a grin. Blessed was the day I could laze in front of the TV like every other American slob. Drink a beer and catch up on the latest Mafia show or some of the old classics, which ever struck my fancy. It was one night of non-chaos, one night where it was just me.

I was stretched out on the duct-taped couch reveling in the nuance of it all, eventually falling asleep, when Niko pulled me out of that revere. He flipped on the apartment lights –apparently I'd slept long enough that the sun went down– blinding me and jolting me out of a particularly nice dream that I would have no hopes of remember, because the nice ones never stuck. Then he had the nerve to smack my socked foot. I grunted as pain stabbed at my side.

"Why?" I growled. Why was he home and why did he wake me. Niko ignored both questions, agitated himself.

"Can you move?"

"Maybe. Depends on what for."

"Ishiah called us. Wants us at the Ninth."

"Now?"

"Do you think if he gave me the chance to propose a new time I would be here right now? Smelling your unwashed socks and looking at your grouchy mug when I could be having sex with my girlfriend?"

That explained the agitation. I sighed and grumbled and groaned, but I got up. Second time fracturing ribs had desensitized me a bit to the pain, plus Niko was letting me have the better quality drugs. Too bad they didn't improve my mood, because no one was happy when I walked into the Ninth Circle.

"You really know how to ruin a guy's night you know," I complained the moment I entered the bar. It was always eerie walking in this time of day. The Ninth Circle opened around three o'clock to keep up the pretenses that it was a somewhat legitimate business by human standards, but our happy hour was eight to midnight since most of our patrons didn't crawl out of their holes until sundown. It was after sundown, but I'd also seen the 'closed due to circumstance' sign posted out front. Seemed pointless to even put a reason when it was that vague, but I supposed former angels had a tough time being blunt and rude.

So, being closed due to circumstance, the Ninth was quiet enough to hear a pin drop. No Wolves barking their orders in almost-All-Wolf-but-not-quite garble. No feathers flying when a fight broke out, no mutterings, murmurings, or clinking glasses. It was silent save for a random tweet or coo from the actual avian that lived in the trees that crept along and through the rafters.

Samyel was hunkered over some accounting sheets at the bar, sitting in a stool instead of behind the counter. He barely acknowledged us before pointing to the back room to tell me where to take my complaints.

"Ishiah!" I shouted.

I was a little concerned by the feathered party-poopers call, no, his demand for us to come bar-side asap. Last time it had been Castiella in his apartment; I wasn't looking forward to what was waiting for us in his office. T-Rex and Alien races that fell through whatever wormhole Grimm Deux and Cassie came through? Whatever it was, I didn't want any subscriptions. "Ishiah!" and I wanted my boss to know this without a doubt.

He came around the hallway with a stern expression –no different from his usual. There was no basket of candy or a box with a bow in his hands, so surprise party was out and that was about the only option that would have made this night salvageable. No, he didn't have a present and he didn't have his calm. His wings were visible behind him, shuddering at the base and sending a feather or two to the floor. He resembled a tweaker waiting for his dealer, paranoid and not entirely certain the cops wouldn't be there any second…on a T-Rex.

"Ishiah, what did you find?" Niko asked. He'd been ignoring my grouchy comments and griping the whole way here, though he was probably just as irate that his booty call was canceled.

"We have another visitor," Ish replied with that same twitchy edge to his tone.

"It better not be aliens. I'm not dealing with aliens right after angels, demons, and parallel dimensions."

Ishiah dignified my comment with an exasperated sigh. He jerked his head toward his office. "No, it is much more harrowing than that."

I groaned and followed after the peri and my brother into the office tucked behind the bar. It wasn't much to look at by then again my eyes ignored the out-of-date computer and old school filing cabinets for the body on the couch. It was a leather loveseat that had seen better days. Hardly long enough for my long legs to stretch out. So they were hanging off the edge and over the arm rest. My head was cocked at an odd angle against the other armrest so I was almost kissing my shoulder. Straight black hair, always in need of a trim fell over my face loosely. I slept soundly, but that didn't soften the violent metaphoric punch to my gut.

I was standing in the threshold of Ish's counting house, but I was passed out on his couch. It was an exceptionally unpleasant sensation and it triggered my usual reaction in the face of unpleasant sensations.

I leveled my gun on my look-a-like. Niko promptly shoved the barrel toward the floor. "Cal, calm down. You've seen two Grimms standing abreast of one another, this is no different."

My brother went over to the other me. Brushed his damp hair back to get a better look, study the contours that matched the brother he grew up with identically. "Ishiah how was he found?"

"By Allaythia and her brood," Ishiah replied. Ally was one of the few regulars of the Ninth that could look me in the eye. A nymph who thought me amusing and non-threatening. Her and her incense-reeking friends were good tippers and never spat at me behind the bar, so she was alright in my book. Apparently, she was also looking out of my ass.

"Allaythia claimed he had gated into the pond in Central Park, gated out, stumbled and wavered in disorientation, the proceeded to gate two feet forward succinctly until he passed out."

Damn, gating through worlds sounded like a wild ride I never wanted to take.

"She and the others dried him off and brought him to me. Either they believe you a tenant or my indentured slave."

I glared. "As low as I've been in my life, I've never slept in a bar and I sure as hell haven't been anyone's slave." Except for the Auphe, but we didn't talk about that.

"He seems to be uninjured," Niko commented, shifting clothes and limbs aside to assess any damage that might be there.

"Castiella didn't wake for several days after first arriving," Ishiah explained. He leaned against his desk with arms crossed over his broad chest. "Partially because of her injuries, I'm sure, but traveling across metaphysical lines to a different world…I imagine Caliban's brains is more scattered than usual."

Something finally clicked at those bitter words and I relaxed, slipping the Eagle back into its holster. "More harrowing than aliens? This is more harrowing than aliens?"

"I can barely stand one of you and now I have to suffer through two."

"God must hate you," I countered with a wicked smirk. Ishiah's jaw clenched so the scar lining the side of his face rippled. Maybe he left Heaven to be a peri among the humans, maybe he was born here, who knew, but he still believed in God and obviously didn't like that I would imply the all-powerful shithead would smite him. Why not? The bastard smited me daily. His celestial alarm clock went off in the morning and that was the first thing on his to do list: piss off Caliban Leandros. Right after that was probably sit idly by with popcorn as the world falls apart.

"So what do we do?" I shoved my hands in my jacket pockets and edged a little closer to the other world me. I didn't want to chance touching him for fear that would throw off the space-time continuum, or yank or worlds together like the separation bubble snapped, or just plain kill us. I doubted the last one –Grimm might not be touchy-feely, but he had to have bumped into or, more likely, sucker-punched his own doppelganger by now and they were both still around.

Niko brushed his fingers over the other me's brow, concern lining every one of his features. "He came here for Castiella, I assume, but did he do so impetuously or with a plan?" He glanced up at me as if I could answer.

"I don't know, Nik." Granted, I was known for flying off the handle, so other Cal would be known for the same. And if Cassie was under his skin enough for him to confess he loved her aloud it was entirely possible he hopped to another plane of existence without a second thought. Hell, I was just as few months and several sexual encounters shy of that already. Maybe this Caliban sensed that and hauled ass.

"This isn't like with Cassie," Niko went on. "She doesn't have an identity here. If she can't get back to her world there is space for her here. Grimm can be killed to make his duality balanced, but if you are stuck here," he motioned to my unconscious half, then rested a hand to the other Cal's shoulder. "I don't know how that would work."

"Speculation gives you ulcers, big brother," I warned. "Wait until he opens his eyes before we lock him up. Maybe he's smarter than me and has a plan. Maybe you're there waiting on the other side holding the elevator door."

"How? Grimm is here, Castiella is here, and you are here. Who is left that has the ability to open a gate to allow them to return?"

It was a sobering though and one feasibly true. In our world there were me and Grimm as the only traveling bad assess, unless you counted the bae. In their world, Cassie was added to the list, but she was watching old movies, braiding hair, and painting toe nails with our Goodfellow. Who was left but the bae…and the Auphe.

"Cassie told us the Auphe survived in her world." I might not have remembered her mentioning being away from the other Cal for five months, but I did remember her saying that in our downtime. One didn't forget that. "And Grimm still created the succubae half-breeds, maybe we stuck a deal…" I almost laughed at the ridiculousness of my own thoughts and amended, "Maybe you're holding a bae hostage, forcing it to open a gate. If you're with the Vigil tech Cassie talked about maybe its on remote. We don't know until we ask and right now our answer is zonked on the gate-high of all gate-highs." I kicked the couch leg for emphasis. My other self groaned and shifted. Waking.

All be damned, I hadn't expected that to work. If I wished for a pony, a million dollars, and a Colt Anaconda would that come true too?