"But the only thing he found in the house… was a single… glove."
Law smirked, and spread his hands. He looked around the darkened room, expectantly meeting a candlelit ring of impassive faces. His face froze, waiting for a reaction that didn't come.
Shionne shifted, leaning back into Alphen's arm on the couch. "I'm not sure I get it. What does a glove have to do with the story?"
"It was the glove!" Law said defensively. ""The killer had a glove! It was his glove!'
"You didn't mention the glove earlier," Rinwell said, smirking over the rim of a mug of cocoa.
"Yes I did!" Law waved his hands through the air, as if trying to reel the story back in. "That was how he kept his hand disguised! That's why it was scary! He kept it hidden, and because he was normal except for his hand he could be anyone and anywhere! He could even be in your house! It was scary!"
"Wait, there was something wrong with his hand?"
Kisara smiled, and picked up some empty dishes off the coffee table as Law's attempt to prove his story was scary reached the stage of opening statements and presentation of evidence. He had tried to tell three stories this evening, and this one was by far the most successful. His first attempt had just sounded like a story about him going for a jog until it ended with him getting jumped by an undead zeugle ("But Law, if it killed you how are you still here?"). There was obvious improvement on display.
Kisara stacked the dishes in the sink, and grabbed herself another one of Shionne's caramel apples. She couldn't remember who had started telling scary stories first when they sat down after dinner, but obviously nobody was eager to stop soon. Several hours in and the party was still going strong.
It was entertaining, obviously, but Kisara could tell it had a particular unstated appeal to two thirds of the group. Shionne had reacted to most non-Law stories in more or less the same way. She would listen to whoever was telling closely and intently, asking questions and gasping at the appropriate times. Then, at the big reveal at the end, she would shriek and wrap her arms around Alphen in a perfect image of terror, sometimes so scared that she would even stop smiling. Then the two of them would laugh, hug for a bit, and return to their rest positions for the next story.
Rinwell did more or less the same thing, but contrived to make it seem like it was just a coincidence that she always leapt towards Law.
Kisara paused, and picked up another caramel apple in her other hand. She walked back into Alphen and Shionne's living room just in time to hear Law indignantly summarizing his story again. She carefully stepped around the furniture, holding both her prizes aloft, and sat back down in her chair. She offered one of the apples to Dohalim, who took it with the air of someone accepting a fine glass of wine. He gave her a small smile as a thank you, which she returned graciously. Without a word, they both turned their attention back toward the group.
She settled back in her seat. Not for the first time, she couldn't help noticing that the seating arrangements seemed to have naturally settled in an obvious pattern. There was the love seat, facing the fireplace, where Alphen and Shionne hadn't gone more than five minutes without touching each other for the entire night. Then there was the couch, where Law and Rinwell's distance from each other followed a complex formula that seemed to change with every sentence they said to each other. And then there was her and Dohalim, sitting apart on a pair of armchairs that Dohalim had donated to the house so he could always have someplace to sit that was decorated according to his tastes.
Kisara didn't think there was any problem with her and Dohalim's relationship. They were both adults, they both clearly recognized that there was some sort of connection between them, but clearly they both needed some time before they came to terms with it. Kisara was fine with that. They had both led complicated lives, so it was better to step into an even more complicated relationship as carefully as possible. Part of maturity was accepting that things like these took time.
Still. She couldn't help feeling a tiny bit jealous when Alphen stroked Shionne's hair, or Rinwell tossed Hootle into Law's lap so she could lean over and pick him back up. That was only natural, she reminded herself emphatically.
"I liked your story, Law," Alphen said encouragingly, after it seemed to have ended again.
"Yeah, yeah," said Law, slumped over and defeated. "So whose turn is it next?"
"I believe Shionne is our next presenter of the macabre," Dohalim said through a mouthful of caramel.
"Me? Oh," Shionne said. "I really don't have anything left." Shionne, after Law, was probably the worst storyteller of the evening. Alphen had apparently picked up a fair number of stories in his mercenary days, Dohalim and Rinwell both had gotten plenty from books, and Kisara had her own stock inherited from her brother. Meanwhile Shionne was apparently new to the entire concept of scary stories. One of her attempts this evening had been, roughly, "One time I woke up and Alphen wasn't there. It turned out he had gotten up early to go for a jog."
"Don't be down on yourself, I'm sure you've got something worth telling," Kisara said.
"I don't know any of these stories, really," Shionne said.
"Then make something up right now!" said Law, the worst possible advocate of the idea. "C'mon! It's fun!"
Shionne leaned forward, templed her fingers, and pursed her lips thoughtfully. "Hmm. Okay, then. Give me a second," she said. She stared out into space for a few moments. "How about this. There was a laboratory, deep in the frozen wastes of Cyslodia…"
There was no question of anybody actually going home after such a late night. It was a bit surprising that Law and Rinwell accepted their spots on the couches downstairs so readily, but Kisara wasn't going to question it when it meant she and Dohalim got the spare bedroom to themselves. It was a comfortable room, with a nice warm bed with flannel sheets and soft pillows and some weird lace thing she didn't understand. On most nights she didn't have any trouble sleeping here, even with Dohalim.
On most nights.
Kisara lay on her side and stared at the door. It was dark, which was to say that the shadows in the room could have held anything. It was quiet, which was to say that she could hear every creak of the house and every gust of wind outside. The blankets were big and loose, which was to say that she was very decidedly not pulling them over her head and curling into a ball. She still had to make the trip back to Viscint tomorrow. It was probably going to be a much slower trip if all of this darkness and quietness didn't stop keeping her awake.
She tried not to think about the windows.
"Kisara."
Dohalim's voice came from his side of the bed, casual and conversational.
"Yes?" Kisara replied without turning her head from the door. This was only because she was very comfortable, and not because she was afraid of a monster that could move silently in the darkness.
"Are you in the grip of mortal terror right now?" Dohalim said. After a pause, he added. "It's okay if you're not."
The rational part of Kisara's brain, suspiciously active this late at night, reminded her that she was a grown woman with responsibilities and real problems, and therefore not the sort of person who was afraid of the dark. So Kisara was lying facing the door just by coincidence, not because she was afraid of anything coming silently through the door. And she wasn't going down to the kitchen for a glass of water because she wasn't very thirsty. Not because she was afraid of coming back to find that Dohalim had secretly been replaced by something carnivorous and tentacled.
"No," she said, very firmly.
"I see," Dohalim said casually. "Neither am I, I suppose."
After a moment, Dohalim's voice came again. "Kisara."
"Yes?"
"Would you describe it instead as a more low-grade, constant sort of paranoid horror?"
With significant effort of will, Kisara turned over in bed and away from the door, facing Dohalim. She reminded herself, not that it was an important thing to worry about, that Dohalim could still watch the door over her shoulder.
He met her eyes in the darkness, her imagination filling in the color of his dark irises. He nodded. "A lingering dread, perhaps?"
She looked at his blank face for a moment. She considered keeping up the front, but gave up. There was no point trying to play coy with Dohalim. He just saw straight through her and walked straight through the facade with blunt determined efficiency.
"Shionne's story got you too, huh?"
"Perhaps. Perhaps," Dohalim said, deadpan. "Perhaps it was the general atmosphere of the evening, its onset delayed until just now. Or perhaps it was Shionne's story in particular, its horrifying detail and paranoid atmosphere standing above the more levitous tales of the evening." He shut his eyes, and quickly opened them again as if reconsidering. "It provided much to digest, at the very least. Not an ideal environment for rest."
Kisara smiled. It was kind of nice knowing that she wasn't the only one unnecessarily freaked out. "Was it the part about how it could have taken over the body of anyone in the laboratory?"
"More the mechanism by which it took such form, vividly as it was described."
Kisara shuddered. Shionne might not have been familiar with scary stories, but she had picked up some rather descriptive turns of phrase from somewhere. "Well, it was just a story."
"Perhaps," said Dohalim, dwelling on the word. "I am intrigued by the storytelling device she used, though. Where she pretended that she was merely recalling a document she read, and therefore the laboratory in the story was real, and the monster alive and in the wild."
"It was a nice touch," Kisara said.
"Indeed."
"Yes."
"Inventive, too."
They stared at each with mutual reassurance for a moment. The house creaked slightly against a gust of wind.
"I'll ask her about it in the morning."
"I shall check if any records of such a laboratory exist in Viscint's library."
Dohalim was always a bit hard to read. Expressions crossed his face subtly and ponderously, like small animals wary of predators. Strangers sometimes stared at him when he talked, convinced that it was an act, some sort of inverse-mime. But Kisara had known him a long time, and recognized the little quirk to his mouth that meant relief.
She chuckled to herself. "Listen to us. We're being ridiculous."
"How do you think?"
"Oh come on." She raised an arm dramatically. "You and I have fought for our lives countless times. We're in one of the safest parts of Menancia, in the house of two of our best friends, currently housing them plus two other people we'd trust our lives with. We fought a planet and won. And we're afraid of a story."
Dohalim nodded. "It does seem absurd, when you put it like that."
"Right?"
He stared through her, back towards the door. "I believe the difference is a psychological phenomenon. In events of actual danger the mind is supplied with chemicals such as adrenaline, which stabilize thinking to provide the best chance of survival. Whereas fear such as this, lingering paranoia focused on the hypothetical, is in turn the brain's way of preparing for imminent threats…"
Kisara turned back over and stared back at the door. The way Dohalim had bit into the phrase "imminent threats" was burrowing its way deep into her mind to party with the other thoughts of the evening. The plain bedroom door suddenly looked hideously fragile. Alphen and Shionne had completely overlooked the world of steel reinforcements when decorating this place.
Determined, she stood up out of bed and grabbed something out of her bag. Closing her eyes against the flash of light, she summoned her shield and wedged it against the door. She nudged it, making sure that nothing could get into the room without dislodging the giant hunk of metal.
"There," she said, climbing back into bed. "Now, even in our paranoid fantasies, we have nothing to worry about."
"Quite the solution, Kisara," Dohalim said approvingly.
"Thank you."
"Let's hope that the weight of the shield doesn't warp the floorboards."
"It'll be fine."
"And of course it would accomplish nothing if Shionne's monster were already hiding somewhere in this room."
"Dohalim?"
"Yes?"
"Stop talking."
Kisara closed her eyes, and tried to actually get some sleep. She did feel better, actually. Something about talking it over with Dohalim had dampened the paranoia running through her. Still, the house did sound a bit creepy when you started paying attention. There was a windchime in the front garden that you could hear just faintly when the wind blew strong enough. It was like the part in Shionne's story, where the scientists didn't notice the monster had escaped until-.
Kisara grimaced. If she knew of a way to directly punch her own brain, she would be happy to try.
She looked back over at Dohalim, now just a huddled mass of blankets on the other side of the bed, and wished she hadn't told him to shut up. Not just because she was scared, and for once tonight she was pretty sure she meant that. It just felt nice to talk to him. Taking their relationship slow might have been the wise and mature thing to do, but the tradeoff was long moments of dissatisfaction like this. She reached out a hand and let it lie beneath the covers, just close enough to Dohalim's back to feel his body heat.
"It's fear, isn't it?"
Kisara blinked. "What?" she said. Dohalim rolled back over to face her, burying Kisara's fingertips beneath him.
"Fear," Dohalim said. "It's like you said. There's a difference between the terror one feels in combat and the paranoia caused by a horrific story. But there are other kinds of fear, too. Anxiety, the fear of consequence. Guilt, the fear of judgement."
Kisara felt her fingers falling asleep under Dohalim's torso, but didn't try to move them. "I think you and I both have had a lot of those in our lives."
"And perhaps that's why we're so sensitive to those other kinds of fear. Perhaps we're overly aware of the stress caused by being afraid, and that's why we're slow to confront it. We tell ourselves that we're being mature, that approaching things slowly and carefully is just common sense. But we're just afraid."
Kisara's heart started to beat faster, for reasons that had nothing to do with theoretical monsters. Was Dohalim saying what she thought he was saying?
"I'm not afraid of you," she said. "I don't think I could ever be."
"Nor I. But I think we are, and have been, afraid of the unknown," Dohalim said. He lied perfectly still, staring deep into her eyes. "Afraid of rejection, afraid of heartache. So afraid of losing something already dear that we're afraid of gaining something more in exchange."
Kisara was no longer aware of anything happening outside the bed. Something could be battering down the door right now and she wouldn't have turned her eyes away from Dohalim. She just burrowed closer to him, wrapped her arms around his chest, and felt his delicately close around her.
"There are other things we should be worried about," she said, hearing her words muffled against Dohalim's chest.
"Self-reflection," Dohalim said despondently. "I have much I will have to reflect on. This will… reframe the way I think about myself. It will be a struggle."
"Same here," Kisara said. "But it's better than doing nothing because we're afraid. And it's nice just being able to hold you like this."
They stayed there quietly for a while. Dohalim returned her embrace, stroking her hair as she rested her head under his chin. "It is another chemical effect in the brain," he said. "When in extended physical contact with another person, the brain releases dopamine, which alleviates stress."
Kisara thought of Law and Rinwell, moving back and forth across the couch the whole night because they didn't want each other to notice how close they wanted to be. She just held onto Dohalim tighter in case he tried to escape. "No. We're hugging because we love each other, Doh."
Kisara felt his heart beat faster. From this close, even Dohalim's face couldn't hide how he really felt. "We will have much to discuss in the morning," he said. "In private, after we have left our friends. But I look forward to it."
"I'm already enjoying it a lot."
They slept the rest of the night away, stories and monsters not crossing their minds even once again. There were better things to worry about.
Alphen held Shionne gently, as she in turn clutched his midsection like a vice. He rested one hand against her back, trying to ignore the feeling of his circulation being cut off as Shionne's grip pinned the other one to her side. He usually slept on his other side, but for tonight Shionne had insisted that one of them stay facing the door.
"I don't really get this. It was your story," he said.
"I know,"
"You made it up, you just said."
"I did," Shionne said. "But still, you know. It could be true."
A thump came from outside the door, and the floorboards groaned heavily. Shionne jumped, and started shivering in Alphen's grip. "What was that?!"
"It sounded like it came from the spare bedroom," Alphen said, lifting his head slightly. "Maybe Kisara was moving her shield?"
"Why would she be doing that this late at night?!"
Alphen caressed her back tenderly. "You're right. It was probably your monster."
Shionne just squeezed him tighter. "Don't do that." Alphen kissed the top of her head as a way of apology.
"And don't tell anybody about this, okay?" Shionne said. "Imagine if Kisara found out that I missed half a night's worth of sleep because I was afraid of a monster."