POV: Cole

Setting: sometime before the Devourer's attack

And the hiatus continues. Sorry for the long wait, the next chapter is still in production, but hopefully I'll have it done by the next update. Thanks for the patience and the reads + reviews, they really help me out, and I hope you enjoy this one! :)

- Fell_and_Fallen -

I usually don't have problems with Ash. Even when I do, it's hardly ever anything serious- just as it is with the others. Sure, we've had our bouts of not-speaking-to-each-other and screaming-at-each-other-to-blow-off-steam, but never anything serious. At least that's what I always thought.

I might need to amend that statement.

The girl in question sits on the couch opposite me, her feet pressed cozily against my stomach as she flicks through a magazine. The cover screams something about the runaway daughter of some tycoon, which is strange in and of itself, but my eyes are focused instead on the different strangeness behind the magazine.

The dragon around her wrist seems to be reading with her, its eyes scanning the page along with hers. My old self would have been seriously creeped out by that, and I still think it's weird, but that isn't my problem.

My eyes narrow. "Are you seriously wearing that?"

She blinks up at me. "What?"

I give her a pointed look and she rolls her eyes. "You aren't serious."

"I am."

Ash huffs a puff of smoke like a steam engine. "Are we really having this talk again?"

"Well, since you didn't seem to get the point last time-"

She snorts and digs a foot into my side, hard enough to make me flinch. That's a talent of hers- poking in just the right places to cause a pinch of pain. Not enough for serious damage, but enough to show. "It was the first thing I grabbed this morning. Sue me."

"I might."

She rolls her eyes again. They're red, another strange fact that should creep me out but instead I found interesting. One of the thousand things that were… interesting about Ash. "It was a gift. What was I supposed to do? Stuff it in the corner of my dresser and never speak of it again?"

"Yes, actually. Or burn it. In an inferno."

She shoves her foot into my side again, and this time I grab it. Her red eyes smolder in a glare as she sets aside her magazine. "Come on, it's not that bad."

"It is. At least have the decency to put a sweater over it."

"What? And deprive the world of its wonderful glory-"

"Ash-"

"Cole," her eyebrows quirk into a familiar arch. I roll my own eyes.

"Just take the god-awful thing off."

"I can't believe you don't like it," she tugs on the fabric of the shirt, and I have to look away. "It's a pretty good rendering of you-"

"No offense, Ash, but you really have bad taste."

She gives me a pointed look. "I didn't hear you complain when I bought those shorts last weekend-"

"Why do you always flirt with me when I'm pissed at you?"

"It's a quirk," she flashes a smile. "An attempt to diffuse the situation. Especially over something stupid like the shirt I'm wearing."

"It's hideous."

"It's a portrait of you!" she sits up to give me a better view, and I roll my eyes again. "I don't know what you see in the mirror, Cole, but it looks just like you."

"Are you kidding? That isn't even my nose! It's like the artist just slapped an egg-roll on my face and called it good!"

"I happen to like your egg-roll nose," she purses her lips. "I think it suits your face quite nicely- makes you look rugged, dangerous, sexy-"

"You cannot seriously tell me that portrait looks anything like me."

"Your dad seemed to think it did since he's the one who sent it to me in the first place," Ash slumps back against the couch with her arms crossed over her chest, thankfully obscuring the mutilated portrait of me below them. "He thought you'd love it."

I gag, and she smacks my knee with her hand. "Don't be rude! He even sent me the address if I wanted to order more. Apparently they have a whole line of the other ninja-"

"I would never subject the others to the torture that is staring that god-awful thing in the face-"

Another smack. This one actually hurt a little. "Just because you don't like it doesn't mean they won't."

"Did you hear Jay the first time you wore that around? He laughed so hard he choked on an olive and Zane had to give him the Heimlich maneuver."

Ash chuckles. "I remember that."

"It wasn't meant to be an entertaining memory."

"I think you're overreacting, Cole," she shrugs, reaching out to retrieve her magazine. "This is a comfortable shirt with a wonderful portrait of you done by a loving fan who captured each of your fantastic features in stunning detail."

"I never thought I'd hear that sentence come from your mouth."

She gives me a pointed look. "I enjoy it, and that's all that matters."

"You're an extremely difficult person to work with, sometimes."

"So I've been told."