Just come tomorrow. I don’t care when.

The line suddenly went dead, and Nyyrikki found himself staring at his phone with a smirk. Usually Danny seemed pretty carefree, but he was discovering that he liked a frustrated Danny just as much. Still leaning against his sink, where he’d ended up through the whole conversation with Danny, he reached up to rub the last of the slept-wrought kinks out of his neck, thinking about what she’d said.

It appeared as though he’d be going to a fancy restaurant… fantastic…

That left one small problem. The tower, and there by the restaurant, was in the city and too far away to walk by. Danny hadn’t mentioned sending anyone to pick him up. That left very few options. In fact, he could only really think of one option. He didn’t have any friends with enough pull to get him a ride in time, as far as he was aware, aside from two old grim reapers; and they were far from friends. He would have put them in the enemy category if something old and instinctual hadn’t rebelled. ‘Family’ would have to do well enough to encompass the two reapers.

His shoulders slumped and he crossed his dorm to sit in the center of his bed, knees folded up to his chest like the child he didn’t allow anyone so see him capable of being. The thought of calling them made his stomach want to revolt, but he’d already told Danny he’d be at dinner and she’d left no room for him to change his mind. Not that he would anyways; he had things that he needed to talk to her about. Things that were too important for him to chicken out now.

He swiped his fingers through his address book on his eyephone, purposely shuffling past the number he needed a couple times. It would be so easy to just turn his phone off and pretend he’d never even considered calling – that he’d been too tired to remember his conversation with Danny and had just fallen back to sleep. He sighed and pressed his thumb to the number he told himself he wouldn’t call until he’d passed to knob.

Two rings.

“Mielikki speaking,” a cool, business-like voice cut through the line, crystal clear. It was only feminine in it’s pitch.

“Hi, Mom.” He felt like there was a lump in his throat, fighting to escape. He’d forgotten that their old black phones at home didn’t have caller ID. His parents didn’t seem to have a need for it – everything was business to them, and it didn’t matter whether they knew who business was coming from beforehand.

There was a pause as if his mother was shocked into recollecting her wits. When she spoke again, her tone hadn’t changed. “Nyyrikki. We hadn’t expected a call from you.” The way she spoke for both herself and his father didn’t surprise him. They’d always had a way of being silently ingrained in each other; every thought, every feeling, seemed mutual between them.

“I hadn’t really expected to call, Mom.” He nearly spat the title, inexplicably enraged by the cold way she spoke to him. Her tone was like a metallic wall he could almost feel, blocking him from her. He decided he’d best cut to the chase and get off the phone as soon as possible. “I need to borrow the horse.”

Another pause, this one filled with the quick consideration she was giving it. “No,” she vetoed. “We might have need of it tomorrow.”

“I have need of her tomorrow,” he groaned, immediately feeling like the trapped teenager he’d been while living with them. Couldn’t they give him what he wanted without him having to fight for it? Making a quick decision, he used the only knowledge he had that might change their mind. “I’m having dinner with a demoness.” It made him feel like a d**k to refer to Danny in such a distanced way, but he had to choose his battles.

His mother relented almost immediately, and he thought he heard a bit of excitement rush through her next words. That was impossible though, because his mother didn’t feel as far as he was concerned. “We should be finished with it by early afternoon. We’ll have someone bring it to the campus.” She didn’t wait to make sure that that would be fine, didn’t bother with goodbyes, there was only a soft click as she put the phone back on the receiver and Nyyrikki was left in the silence of his room.

He finally relaxed, realizing he’d been far too tense through the entire conversation. His chest hurt from the force of the stress he hadn’t known the call had put on him. Just as the reaper was about to lay back and sleep off the unpleasantness, Rakkwin curled in his lap, the wendigo’s fur seeping cold through his pants and anchoring him to consciousness. The little present from his parents had taken an unexpected hold on his heart, but hadn’t taken enough to fill the gap where family should have existed…