"It's not locked," Maudlin shouts, barely audible through the door and over the music filling the air, all synthesizers and metered rhyme, aggressive and hedonistic. "But if you're not invited, fuck right the hell off."
"Is this how you usually treat guests?" I ask, forcing a playfulness I don't feel into my voice as I open the door in full costume. The elevator ride up to his penthouse takes too long, so I stilted up to the roof and used the card under the potted plant. Not the safest thing in the world, trying to run across rooftops at night, but most of the fliers in the city are nominally on my side and the street lamps tend to provide enough illumination to be workable if I go slow.
Inside the penthouse are modern-style couches worth more than some car payments, art from people good enough to support themselves doing it on the walls, a full bar that gets emptied faster than any baseline human could survive, and a sound system that even the most dedicated of audiophiles would describe as a bit much. Maudlin likes his creature comforts, and he likes sharing them almost as much as he likes indulging in the first place.
He's normally better at keeping his place clean, though.
Paper is scattered across the floor, old news articles and line charts as well as used takeout containers and glass bottles, all empty. I can't see any stains on the upholstery, but that appears to be about the limit of his restraint.
"It is when they're not invited!" Maudlin shouts. He's on the balcony, sitting on the railing with his legs dangling over the edge and a bottle in one hand. "I toldja that people who weren't invited can fuck. Off. Unless you started working as an escort in these past four days that means leave." The words aren't heated though. Just... tired.
I sigh and carefully step over and around the scattered papers, adding an inch or two to my step as necessary. Bone boots click quietly against the concrete of the balcony as I come to stand to his right, the same side as the bottle. I tilt my head slightly to check the label. Cherry flavored vodka. Maudlin must pick up on my interest because he lifts it in my direction.
"If I give you booze will you go away?" he asks quietly. I shake my head, eyes fixed on the skyline. The view is amazing, even if the noise from the cars and pedestrians below is a little too loud for my liking.
"No," I reply, "I need to know that you won't do something stupid." Maudlin barks out a laugh at that.
"Me? Something stupid? Have you heard any of the stories about me time in Texas?" Maudlin asks, cackling into the night. My heart lifts a little, then falls as he lifts the bottle to his lips and takes two long pulls. "I only do stupid things."
"I'm not talking about business," I clarify, trying to remember the number of bottles on the floor of his apartment. Maudlin gives me a cockeyed glance, then looks down at the street for a long moment. He gives a half-hearted shrug.
"Nah, not going to off meself," he says, rolling his shoulders and shaking his mane out. "Just don't want to be around people for a bit." I let the statement sit in the air for a while, thinking about those words.
Another song comes on. This one's happier, brass and piano mixed with lyric and hope.
"Bullshit," I say. Maudlin groans.
"An' what makes you say that?" he asks, sipping at the bottle again. Not mad. Not interested. Just there.
"You're a people person," I say. He snorts.
"Lots of people-people out there who like a bit of peace and quiet from time to time," he says dismissively. I shake my head.
"You schedule your personal time weeks in advance. Sometimes months. That, and I asked around. No one intentionally pissed you off." There are people who meet Maudlin and don't like him. Those people tend to be either crazy enough to not be worth talking to, people predisposed towards hating Masters and social Thinkers, or people that Maudlin cares enough about to not just brute-force his way into their good books. Maudlin shrugs at the denial and waves his hand dismissively.
"People can piss me off easy enough without meanin' it," he says. This time I'm the one who snorts.
"Remind me, how is that Crowley kid?" I drawl, putting my hands on the railing and leaning into the breeze, inhaling the scent of salt.
"Doin' a lot better now that we're working on pulling out some of the shite his arsehole parents stuffed into his head," Maudlin says. "Wicky Boy even had a day two weeks back where he didn't call me monster."
"You talk to that piece of human garbage and you expect me to believe that your feelings were hurt by someone we know?" I ask, shaking my head. Honestly, Wicker Man doesn't have a worse rap sheet than Hookwolf so I really shouldn't be throwing stones, but Hookwolf also never went on a bigoted rant against me during a hostage situation. Maudlin cackles again.
"Yeah, that weren't me best lie," Maudlin says, a sad smile crossing his face. He sips again at the bottle, then holds it up, moonlight filtering through the fluid and making it sparkle like liquid diamond. "Tell you what, I'll get off this railing if you drink something with me while I finish the rest of this," he says, tapping the bottle with his other index claw. "I'll even make it for you."
"Done," I say, stepping back from the railing. Maudlin brings his feet under him, then stands up, balancing for a moment between the balcony and a several hundred foot fall.
I prepare to jump. To reach out.
Just in case
Then he steps down and strides through the sliding glass doors, beckoning with one hand.
"C'mon, we don't got all night," he says, the tiredness once more in his voice. I sigh as quietly as I can behind my mask and walk in after him.
We're not done here yet, but the danger is past.
The two of us head over to the bar, him slipping behind it as I take a stool. He goes through the motions, long fingers slipping the bitter and sugar into a glass together, stirring until the cube dissolves, and throwing in the liquor haphazardly. When I raise an eyebrow on my cross-hatched pseudo-bandage mask, he pushes the drink at me with a little more force than is strictly necessary.
"Yeah, it ain't IBA standard, but it's not like you're gonna be able to tell the difference," he grouses. He slumps into a stool behind the bar and pours the last of the vodka into a glass, then raises it in my direction. "To money," he says. I raise my own.
"To art," I correct and he snorts. Glass clinks against glass and we both drink, bone and lip parting to take in the liquid. I manage to suppress my wince at the unusually strong drink. Ugh.
We sit in silence for a bit.
The song changes. More strings, but metal ones, biting and dark.
"Why'd you go silent?" I ask quietly, looking up at Maudlin. This time he's the one to wait to answer as he fingers his glass, face drawn into an expression I think I've seen maybe twice before from him.
Exhaustion.
"I figured something out," he says. "I ain't telling you. Ain't telling anyone. It's not that sort of secret." I nod and take another sip, waiting for him to go on.
He swallows the last of the alcohol in one go, tilting his head back as his Adam's apple bobs twice. The glass comes down, but his head stays up.
"I had plans, you know?" he says, staring at the ceiling. "All this," — Maudlin motions at the apartment — "This was just for the scratch. Some quick cash so I could start working on the real problems. Cancer. Endbringers. Africa. We've got all the tech to do it, too," he adds, eyes dropping to stare at me with an intensity I've never seen in him. "Fuck tinkertech. Fuck fusion. We got shit today that can make the pack's life easy as shit. We got ways of figuring shit out that answer any fuckin' question in the world pretty well so long as you throw some cash at it. We could be meeting our great-great-great-great grandbrats. You and me," he says, gesturing to the two of us. "Can you think about what the world'd be like in fifty years? A hundred? I can't even fuckin' guess. And it's all there" — now he's staring at the ground, needle-teeth bared and whipcord muscles writhing under his fur — "and I can't touch any of it!" The final words come out as a growl as his glass explodes into shards.
I stay stock still as Maudlin pants with rage, blood too dark to belong to an ordinary human running from his clenched fist. He closes his teal eyes and visibly steadies himself, splaying his hands on the bartop.
Then he opens his eyes and looks at me, once more merry and composed
"But that's my fuckin' problem! Anyway, mind picking the glass outta me hand?" he asks, raising the bloody palm and smiling ruefully. "Really shouldn't've did that." I remain still a moment longer, then shake my head.
"You scare me sometimes," I say quietly, taking his hand in my left even as the right grows a pair of tendrils. Maudlin's smile drops a fraction as he rubs the back of his head with his uninjured hand.
"Yeah, sorry about all that. Shoulda sent a text at least," he mumbles. He flinches as I start pulling the shards out, pain showing up in the lines around his eyes.
The song changes again. Distortion slowly coming into focus, wrapped around an extended verse, the story of a life, some good, some bad, all as honest as can be expected from a musician.
"What sort of problem is it?" I ask, focusing on his hand. The shards didn't go in deep, but there are a lot of them.
"What part of secret's so hard to understand?" Maudlin asks sarcastically. When I don't rise to the bait he sighs. "It ain't anything threatening me now. I know it, it knows me, and the two of us can stay as far a-fuckin'-part as possible."
"It's stopping your plans," I state, slipping out a sliver of glass I almost missed and holding it up to the light. Thin enough to have potentially split again, with Maudlin's blood turning nearly purple under the glare.
"Yeah it is," he mutters darkly. "Ain't no way to work around it, through it, or with it. Least, no way I'd be okay with."
"So change your goals," I say, placing the piece of glass delicately down on the bartop. Only a few more left. "Think about your victory condition. Find one that doesn't care about this problem, then pursue that relentlessly." Maudlin growls in irritation.
"Yeah, I'll just toss aside me last five years o' work. That's a plan," he says sarcastically. "Easy to fuckin' say when you're not the one giving anything up." I don't reply. I just keep picking the glass out of his hand, waiting for the penny to drop. His face falls as the silence grows longer.
"Fuck, that came out wrong," he says. "Sorry."
"You should be good now," I say, releasing his hand and pulling the makeshift tweezers back into my shell. "You should still see someone about it and check if it needs stitches. In the future, try to think through your actions a little more." I look at my palm, two streaks of his blood on it. "Just because I live with someone who's a doctor doesn't mean I magically know how injuries work."
"You're saying I should try to shack up with someone?" Maudlin asks, raising an eyebrow and grinning. I look back at him, showing my smile on my mask.
"If anyone will have you," I respond, letting my emotions into my voice as I flake away his blood. It doesn't hurt nearly as much as snapping off the plate entirely would. I wipe the flakes off to the side as I lean over the bartop and mock-whisper. "I think some of Amy's friends from work might be desperate enough to date a stuffed animal."
"Hey! I'll have you know I'm a dish," he says, adopting a mock-offended expression. "I've got cash, no criminal record, and the best damn hair in the entire world."
"Most of it below the neck," I counter. "And it's not hair, it's fur. You know it, I know it, now stop pretending and go to the fetish conventions already."
"They keep sending the invitations and I keep refusing, but I'll let you have your fantasies," he says, waving his hands magnanimously.
It gets better from there.
Eventually I leave, shooed out by Maudlin after I wrangle a promise of a more organized get-together with some of the more agreeable capes we both know out of him. By then the alcohol is mostly out of my system so when I stilt my way back to the right neighborhood I'm basically sober. On the other hand, he got me thinking about the future.
I stumbled into a viable career as an artist and part-time vigilante. I've managed to mostly avoid serious injury, and when I don't I have Amy to patch me up. I don't have to worry about money for the foreseeable future, nor gainful employment. I have a car, a house, social connections, and give back to my community in at least three different ways.
What's next?
I dip into an alleyway, push open a door hidden behind a few garbage cans, and flick on the light, illuminating a bench and a quartet of lockers. A place to change, one of many hidden around the area, because stilting up to Justia's apartment is just not subtle. I pull the shell back in, catch the lenses in my right hand, then drop them into a cup by the door. Amy fixed my other eye a while back so now I wear them mostly to protect against vision-based attacks. That, and because I haven't figured out a way to make halfway decent eye protection out of bone.
As I dress, I try to imagine what might be worth pursuing, what new challenges I could take on. More hero work? I dismiss it almost as soon as it comes up. That's asking for trouble, and while fighting supervillains is both cathartic and a service that does require ordinary citizens like me to step up, most of the time a hero's job is better done by the police. No, starting a patrol route won't scratch that itch.
I push out into the alley in gently worn jeans, loose shirt, and sensible sneakers, a little too nice for this part of town but not obviously so. I don't usually have to worry about street crime in this part of the city, but there are plenty of idiots willing to try to brave Accord's aegis for a quick buck. As I walk, I ruminate more on potential futures.
I could expand my business, but I also have no interest in spending more time at the shop. Creating more art would also devalue it, and my muse is fickle enough that spending a few more hours in the studio is unlikely to produce actionable results.
I shake my head as I step into my apartment building and press the call button for the elevator. White Rose is a dead end. I'm not going to figure out anything new by looking for things to improve my cape life. No, I need to stop thinking about things I'm already doing and instead try to find something to occupy my time that either isn't there already or doesn't receive enough attention.
As I open the door to the apartment and gently flick on the lights, my mind latches on to a better question: What do I, Taylor Hebert, want to do for the rest of my life?
"Hey you." I blink, looking towards the couch. Amy's snuggled up under a blanket, laying down lengthwise and looking up blearily at me. "Where'd you go so late?" she asks quietly, voice still full of late-night exhaustion.
"Maudlin was being..." I fumble for words as I step out of my shoes and slowly walk over to the couch before shrugging. "Maudlin. I went to check up on him." Amy nods once, then scoots back into the couch and pats the space in front of her. I sigh and comply, gently sinking into the cushions. I shuck off my shirt, socks, and pants, then lie down with my back to her. One arm slips under me, the other around, and soon enough Amy's pulled me close, face buried in my shoulder and legs tangled in mine.
We take a moment to just enjoy the contact.
"He okay?" she whispers. I pat her hands comfortingly and let out a long breath.
"He'll be alright. Just needs something to do," I say. After a pause, I adjust my grip on her hands and start running a thumb over her knuckles. "What should I do next?"
"Sleep, probably," Amy says, and I can feel the yawn she stifles. I sigh and shake my head ever so slightly.
"I mean with my life," I say. "Where should I be looking to be in ten years? In fifty?"
"Where'd this come from?" Amy asks curiously, voice still quiet but a little more awake. "Pretty heavy thoughts for way-too-late-o'clock."
"Just part of the conversation with Maudlin," I say, leaning back into her embrace and taking a moment to just enjoy the warmth. "Maudlin started complaining about running into problems with his long-term plans, which made me realize that I don't really have any at all."
"College?" Amy tries. "You certainly spend enough money on books," she adds, slipping a bit of sarcasm into her voice. I slap her hand playfully.
"Remind me, how much did you drop on that B-list horror movie collection?" I ask. I hear a groan, followed by a light knock to the back of my neck as Amy headbutts me.
"It's my money, you don't get to complain how I use it," she grouses. After a moment I feel a shuddering against my back and a light panting that means she's trying to suppress a chuckle. I smile ruefully and shake my head.
"I won't make fun of your hobbies if you don't make fun of mine," I propose. "Deal?"
"Deal," Amy says. Again, we descend into a comfortable silence.
Again, she's the one to break it.
"Is there anything wrong with the way you're living now?" she asks, dropping the half-affectionate moaning for quiet sincerity. I shake my head.
"There's nothing wrong with it," I assure her, idly rubbing one of her feet between my own. "I just could be doing more. Maybe reach a little farther, learn something new, see if I can't get something better."
"Do you want something better?" Amy asks. I turn my head to look at her, but can only barely make out her face from where it's hidden by my hair. After a moment, I let go of her hand and twist, rotating until I'm facing her.
Then I hug her close and rest my chin on the top of her head.
"You are wonderful," I whisper. I can feel her shiver in my arms. I start rubbing a circle into her back with my right hand as the left slides up and down her body, following her curves with my palm, pausing over her stomach to gently trace well-defined muscle with my fingers. "You are a wonderful girl who goes out to help people every day, who has saved more lives than anyone I know including Eidolon, and I could not possibly have a better girlfriend." I crane my neck down and kiss the top of her head. "The one area of my life I could never make better is you because you cannot improve on perfection. That's why it's called perfect."
"Flattery will get you everywhere," she whispers, voice shaky in a way that means either tears or barely-restrained lust. I bring my hand up from its wandering to gently chuck her chin up, meeting her gaze and transfixing her for a few moments, taking in the dilated pupils, slow pants, and flushed cheeks.
Lust it is.
I kiss her again, swallowing her hum of happiness and excitement. This time I don't pull back until I run out of breath, both of us a little more worked up.
"Do you know what I want right now?" I rasp, pushing a little bone out under my skin to get the pseudo-strength and firmness under my muscles I know she loves.
"What?" she whispers back eagerly, hands clenched tightly behind my back. It took me a long time to teach them not to wander, but the rewards...
I smile, baring teeth as I lean down to nip her shoulder. Another shudder.
"You," I whisper.
A/N: PM me for links to the songs.
