A/N: I have family in South Carolina. I spend time there semi-frequently. Some of my family lives on Lake Wateree and I've loosely based Victoria's house and location on that. I've been to that lake my whole life.
I do want to stipulate though that there is no 'mall' in the real life area surrounding Lake Wateree, as it's part of Lugoff. A really killer wing joint (Leo's) but no mall. So that's fictitious. There will be some fact smudging and the location in the story will be made up.
Also, the tea house I describe is based on Dobra Tea in South Portland, Maine, one of my favorite places to visit even though I don't get to go very often. I'm very tired. This chapter isn't very long, but managing three stories is time consuming. And it's been a stressful week.
Love y'all.
It was three in the morning and Victoria sat up abruptly, casting off sleep like it was a cloak. One moment she was dreaming about making out with her Logic 101 professor from six years before on the roof of a hotel overlooking a field full of Pokémon and the next she was staring at the darkness of her room wondering what that sound was. Hank hadn't moved, which was unusual if there was a disturbance in the house. Staring at her dog for a moment she reached out and stroked him, happy to feel his warm chest rise and fall under her palm.
The soles of her feet hit the floor and she found herself padding through the darkened house to the sliding glass doors leading to her back porch. The air outside felt cool and heavy against her cheeks. The sound had stopped, whatever it was, and she was left staring out over the lake.
Two balls of light floated at the end of her dock, beside her tethered pontoon. Tilting her head, she watched the lights flicker and swoop, sliding around each other.
It wasn't until the wood of the pier felt cold under her feet that she even realized she'd been walking again. She stopped cold, eyes widening as she understood what was happening. The lights grew brighter. Victoria pulled back, stepping off the dock and back onto the grass. The lights seemed to waver then, before they grew to such a level of luminescence she had to shield her eyes.
Then it was just dark.
She lowered her hand and stared at where the balls of light had been, hesitant to call them what they were. But it could be denied, not really.
"That's not a good sign." Victoria blinked, rubbing at her eyes, then she shook her head and made her way back to the house, hoping to get some semblance of decent sleep, all the while unaware of the pair of crimson eyes watching her.
"Honey, I just really don't have the energy for this right now." Victoria tried, for the third time, to end the ongoing one-sided conversation occurring at her kitchen counter.
"But you the energy for two weird foreign guys?" Came the sharp response, only further agitating her. "Let me guess, your new friends are why you're so tired, right? Did they keep you up all night?"
"I was up for reasons pertaining to them, yes. But I didn't fuck them, if that's where this is going." She leveled Frankie with a dull look. "They had nowhere else to go."
"So you brought them here? Take them to a shelter. Better yet, call ICE." He waved his hands in the air before slamming them on the counter.
If he expected her to flinch, he was mistaken. She didn't budge, continuing her cool stare even as the dog barked. Hiei, however, had whirled around at the sudden noise and snarled at the man. Kurama hushed him, trying to make it seem like they weren't observing this fight that had gone on far too long.
Victoria bowed her head to her hand, rubbing her eyes and face before letting out an exasperated sigh. "You're being real fucking annoying right now, hon."
"I'm being annoying?" He demanded and she nodded. "What would you do if you came over and found me with two Chinese ladies?"
"They're Japanese."
"It doesn't matter."
"It sort of does."
"Answer me Victoria." Frankie stood up and leaned over the counter, an action that caused the two men in the living room to still.
"You might want to sit your ass right the hell back down, coming at me like that. I am not in the mood." Victoria warned him, eyes narrowing and tone growing hot. "Wipe that look off your face mister."
"You are not in a position to be bossing me around." Frankie's voice started to rise.
Kurama glanced between the newcomer and Victoria, eyes moving quickly even as they narrowed. Hiei watched too.
"She did something unusual." Hiei told Kurama, glancing at the woman. "She walked outside in the middle of the night and stared at two balls of light."
"Lights?" Kurama frowned, lifting his head from the manga he'd devoted himself to. "What lights?"
"I don't know. There were two lights by the boat." Hiei rolled his eyes. "They disappeared."
"And you found it more interesting that she went out to investigate than the fact there were two lights that just vanished?" Kurama closed the book in his hands and raised his eyebrows. The conversation in the kitchen grew louder. "Should we intervene?"
"She seems capable of handling the situation." Hiei pointed out, scowling as he remembered being tackled the night before. "Just hope the bastard doesn't touch the dog."
Kurama fought back a smile at the thought, managing to keep his expression cool. "I suppose you're right. Still, it's unseemly."
Kurama cracked the book open again and bowed his head to read it. Hiei craned around to stare at the man as he got into Victoria's face, shouting in that annoying language of theirs. The woman didn't back down but she also didn't raise a hand to him. Instead, she just offered the dullest expression he'd ever seen a human muster and rolled her eyes. The man raised his voice another octave and her cut her gaze to him.
"Get out."
Hiei tipped his head to the side. Watching at the man sputtered in the wake of her comment.
"I said get out." Victoria gestured to the door.
"How the hell can you-"
"I'll make this easy for you. Get the fuck out of my house or I'll remove you." Victoria told him, eyes narrowing dangerously as her tone grew sharp. "I will not be spoken to this way in my own house. Get out."
He went to argue and she fixed him with an unblinking stare. The man stared back, his hands falling to his sides.
Now that was interesting.
"Get out."
He did, picking his way to the door without even glancing at the men in the living. Hiei watched him go, then roved his eyes back over to Victoria who met his attention without flinching.
"Did you see that?" Hiei asked Kurama, eyes still on the woman.
"I'm afraid I didn't." Kurama admitted, once again pulling his attention up from the manga. "I'm sorry, Hiei. I'm trying to get a grasp of what our hostess might know about us."
"She knows enough." Hiei pointed out, breaking his staring contest to glare at Kurama. "She's not normal, Kurama."
"Assuredly. No one we know is." Kurama greed, then tipped his head to the side. "What happened?"
"I think-"
Plates clattered onto the coffee table between the two men, making both stiffen. Victoria glanced between them, no smile, and gestured to the food.
"Itadakimasu, boys." She told them and Kurama offered her a gentle smile.
"That's not how you-"
"We'll go shopping for you two today so you don't have to wear the archive of exes forever." She motioned to those clothes.
"Archive of exes?" Kurama repeated, tilting his head.
"Clothes my ex boyfriends have left here." She answered dryly.
"Will it be a long trip?" Kurama asked and she seemed to consider it before shaking her head.
"No longer than necessary."
"I hate this." Hiei kept close to Kurama in the sparsely populated mall. "It's loud. And it smells strange. I feel like I'm about to be attacked."
"It'll be fine," Kurama assured him. "We're just buying some clothes."
Victoria turned and looked at them, eyes moving from the redhead to Hiei. She stopped walking, halting them with her. "One outfit."
"Pardon?" Kurama looked her over.
"He only has to try on one outfit. If I can get his size, I can shop for him." Victoria explained. "He's doesn't like being here, right? It's making him anxious. We'll leave as soon as I get his size."
Kurama furrowed his brow then and then looked between Hiei and the woman. "Your Japanese is better than I thought."
"I don't speak Japanese." Victoria turned away leading them to a store and the two men shared a look before following her.
"Not normal." Hiei repeated his earlier sentiment and Kurama was quicker to agree this time around.
….
While Hiei tried on his one outfit, Kurama watched Victoria. She lounged on a bench, head against the wall, eyes closed. Even though he'd only known her for a day or so, he could see the bags under her eyes. There was a pallor to her skin that had escaped his notice the day before. In the light of day, her hair shone purple, so dark it appeared black in anything less than full light, the pixie cut longer on top and pushed back from her face.
"Have you ever heard of thin slicing?" Her words found him easily, her tone neutral. "It's where your mind is able to establish patterns you might not be consciously aware of based on tiny amounts of information. We refer to it as intuition, the sense that we know something more than what's presented, because we don't fully grasp that our subconscious has processed."
"I'll admit I'm unfamiliar with the theory." Kurama told her.
She opened her eyes and merely nodded, glancing toward the changing rooms a scant second before Hiei emerged in a pair of loose shorts and a tank top.
"I recognize a lot of situations." She spoke quietly, to the point Kurama almost hadn't heard her. But his emerald eyes flicked toward her none the less. "Too many."
Kurama complimented Hiei's choice and sent the other man back into the stall to change once again so they could check out. "Hiei saw you chasing balls of light last night."
"I'm relieved. I thought I was having a nightmare." Victoria admitted. "If Hiei saw them too, at least I know I was awake. And probably sane."
"You consider lights to be the material of nightmares?" The redhead puzzled.
"They weren't lights. They were will-o-wisps and they weren't supposed to be there. We've never had them on the lake before." Victoria got up from her seat as Hiei marched toward them.
"Never?" Kurama stared at her.
"Never." She repeated, looking all the more exhausted for the comment. To Hiei she held out her hands, accepting the pile of clothes from him. "You can go outside, if you want. Do you remember where we came in at? We'll meet there in half an hour."
Hiei glanced toward Kurama, raised an eyebrow until the redhead relayed the message. Then he looked back at Victoria, nodding. Kurama offered his basket of selected clothes to her, casting an appraising glance over her before he walked out with Hiei.
The relief that washed over her when they left nearly buckled her knees. Hiei was nothing more than a tightly wound ball of stress constantly on edge, overwhelmed by his environment, by his senses, by everything. Kurama wasn't much better, but he didn't display it. He felt less anxious and more curious about everything. More concern, more desire for control, for understanding. Their juxtaposed needs gave her a migraine the size of Texas. She just needed a half-hour away from them.
Just some time to dissolve into herself.
It was always worse after sleepless nights and active days. The emotional upheaval of the morning hadn't helped at all. Frankie's anger had frayed her already wound nerves. And now with the tension of bringing those to the mall…
She just needed time.
So she took it, picking through the men's clothes with a lazy productiveness that eventually led her to the register but not too quickly. By the time she paid she finally felt hungry, realizing she hadn't eaten that morning with a sharp pang.
"You boys hungry?" Victoria met them outside the mall with five minutes to spare, her arms weighed down with bags. Kurama accepted a portion of her load from her, relaying the question to Hiei, who grunted his acceptance. "Good, I know a quiet place."
Her smile didn't do much to assuage the doubt either man cast at her.
The hole-in-the-wall restaurant was indeed quiet. And also quite dim for the middle of the day. The tables were spaced out to allot for privacy, one on an elevated platform even having curtains that could be pulled close. That's where Victoria led them, arranging herself on one of the cushions on the floor provided for seating and cracking open a thick menu.
Hiei and Kurama seemed to relax once the curtain was drawn. She pushed a menu toward the two of them as they settled down, side by side. "The tea is good."
The tea was ninety-five percent of the menu. All varieties of the stuff, black, green, herbal, roobois, chai, milk based, from all different regions of the world. And the food was smaller, but equally delicious. Tea snacks and some light entrees. Hiei and Kurama discussed their choices in low voices before pointing to them in the menu and Victoria rang a bell to summon a quiet, but cheerful server who took their orders with a smile.
"I come here to withdraw." Victoria looked around their enclosed space, thankful for the blissful silence it allowed. "After hard cases, I need quiet."
"Cases? What exactly do you do?" Kurama leaned forward.
"I investigate and research paranormal phenomenon." She explained, opening her hands wide. "And when I discover things that aren't supposed to be here, I send it back."
"Send it back?" Kurama pressed.
"The method varies based on the entity. But I can work with spirits to help them move on. I can banish demons. And it makes good money, but I do most of my business out of the house. Small craft work, divination, minor spells. People 'round here, they go to church on Sundays. They say their prayers, but when they find themselves having a run of bad luck, they come to me." Victoria told him with a shrug. "When they need a boost on getting that job, they come to me. And when they find two men walking out of a summoning circle, they come to me."
"And this takes energy." Kurama surmised. "It causes your exhaustion."
"It's part of the cause, yeah." She bobbed her head. "You two feel better here too, right? It feels like home even though you've never been here before. There are sigils all over the place to promote peace and rest. There are stones littered around the place to mitigate negative energies. The food is all made with intention."
"Intention?"
"An energy directed toward a goal." She explained. "The guys here, they can tell what you need just by looking at you. You'll feel better when we leave."
"Kurama, explain." Hiei demanded, annoyed he'd been left out of the loop. "That damn tongue of hers just wags and wags."
Kurama glanced at Hiei only because Victoria's eyes moved in that direction. Her head tipped to the side and she frowned.
"Some things can't be controlled." She pursed her lips and then smiled as their server arrived with their various teas and food. With a wink, she picked up her tea cake and took a bite. "My ravenous appetite for example."
But Kurama saw her cover for what it was. For a moment that pallor had crept back into her cheeks, her eyes growing heavy. Only for a moment though. And only when Hiei's agitation had caused him to speak.
"Yes, I suppose somethings can't." Kurama agreed with her, feeling that he was getting a grasp of this woman.
And with his realization he turned to Hiei, taking great care with relaying their conversation to the other man, trying his best to recite the words verbatim.
Because it was important.
Because she was important.
With every passing minute in this strange world, he had begun to realize that Victoria was their only fixture. That made her honesty not just refreshing, but necessary. Trusting her would be vital to their survival. It was paramount to getting them home.
So the fact she was lying was just as important as all the truths she'd spilled. He knew it.
And he needed Hiei to know it too.
