The card had come packaged in a red envelope with nothing but his own name scrawled upon it in in a handwriting that took a moment for Rowan to decipher. There was no stamp accompanied with the letter, and the lack of address indicated the card had been delivered by hand from someone. A fluttering of hope rose up in Rowan and that hope soared when he managed to read through the elegant yet sloppy handwriting. It was from Elex. There was no hesitation in his decision.
Bundled up against the cold of the night in his jacket, scarf, and gloves, Rowan departed the warmth of his silver car at 10 minutes ‘til midnight. With the headlights of the vehicle gone, the wharf descended into near pitch dark. Street lights from across the road were the only real light source except for a single weak lamp that burned towards the end of one of the larger piers. Before he had removed the keys from his car the turned off the lights, a familiar figure had been lit standing on one of the docks, looking back at him.
The cold wasn’t going to stop him. There were too many emotions. Too much to say.
His breath, a foggy mass, trailed upwards with each breath as he hurried to Elex’s side. It hadn’t been so terribly long since their first spat, but Rowan had found himself passing the days in misery and anxiety. Doubts haunted him. With Elex being missing from his usual correspondents Rowan found himself missing the youngest Yorke boy more than he thought he could.
“Elex.” He said softly as he reached the boys side, the darkness of the wharf made it hard to fully make out his face, but Rowan knew that petite frame well. “I am so sorry. I didn’t want to upset you or make you feel like I was trying to pry where I shouldn’t I…” He paused and took a deep breath. He stood so close, within arms reach, but he dared not to reach out to the other teen. Felt he didn’t deserve it though his body ached for that physical reassurance.
“Thank you.” He finally said, a soft, unsure smile gracing his face though likely missed in the dim light. “I had thought I had burned all bridges with you after you left the tea shop.” I feared texting you and finding out that was right.
Elex arrived an hour early to let the cold cut into his skin. Each slicing gust drew unique patterns over his pale glamour in gooseflesh. Sometimes his hair caught the drifting snowflakes that searched for a place to land. Behind him, the river raged at a constant; it rattled and jostled the moored monuments to frivolous spending. Somewhere far down the quay, near the end of its length, the Yorke boat sat disused but for a single occupant. He wondered if that occupant was watching now -- if he was waiting with bated breath.
As Elex, he lacked the piercing perception for auric energies. The guesswork of it excited him nonetheless.
Come and see, Sinope. Come and see what you've done. Come and see how far the wreckage spreads.
The hour passed with the Yorke boy grounding himself in the river's constant complaints. It lashed the wharf with its tongue, cursed the sky for its snowfall, and damned the beach with every waking word. Elex knew that same indiscriminate rage in the hours after Rowan revealed his concerns, and in the hours pending his discussion with Schörl. Soon the wind circumscribed him with her delicate knives, cutting away more and more of his ambient heat until he was forced to sit and pull his coat over narrow legs. Small fingers rubbed his shins for friction, which only whistled the weather-resistant material. Soon, it wouldn't matter.
He checked his watch, hidden behind the laser pointer, and glittering gold with its gift reminder. Two hours left.
Headlights bathed him with their searing, accusatory glare. They blazed and snarled and blared until Rowan cut the engine, locked the car. Afterimages danced before Elex's eyes and he stood, perhaps unsteadily. The world moved too quickly, or Elex slowed himself down enough that geological time became a comfort.
He did not look to his companion. "Rowan," he greeted tepidly as he rubbed the glare from his eyes. Rowan already launched into trite apologies and fumbling gestures. So much for being in performance arts. In all those years spent playing someone else's face, you've forgotten how to write your own lines. Pity for you.
But he waited, as ever, through the disjointed apology. Hurt of an honest well leaked into his voice, all the more austere for its foreign feel in his mouth. He stood and brushed the stiffness from his legs. "You didn't want to make me feel like you were prying. But you're not sorry for prying. You're just sorry you were caught.
"Walk with me." He gestured toward the far edge of the pier, where the lone light waved on any flotsam in its vigil. Elex started off at a clip less purposeful than average, and the old bones of the wharf groaned under their passing. The whole place felt like it never stirred out of a dream. "I want to show you something."
Welp. That was expected yet not what Rowan had hoped for. What had I hoped for? Elex to just forgive and forget, wipe the slate clean, call it all a mistake and move on? What good would that do either of us? Still, he found himself missing that content glint in the Yorke boys eye and that lovingly mischievous look. The darkness hid much of Elex’s countenance but Rowan knew those things weren’t there.
“I am sorry that it bothered you so much. I am not sorry that I worry about you, and that is where my prying came from.” Perhaps I am digging a bigger hole for myself. Should I just have the coffin made too?
Eyes glanced down the pier in which Elex gestured to before forward motion mad Rowan in stride beside his boyfriend. It was easy enough to keep up with the pace set and longer legs eating up the wooden planks with each step. An eye was kept out for the occasional warped plank that could lead to either of the boys finding an ungraceful ending but the majority of his attention was on Elex. How he moved. What he gestured to, his gait, stance, all of it. It was all important in that moment.
The far edge of the pier with it’s dim lighting highlighting the drop to darkness easing ever closer like a harbinger. The sound of the water lapping against the wood below them and boats bumping against their docks were the only real sounds around the two as silence lengthened between them. It was nerve wracking. Rowan was practically on his toes, figuratively speaking. Normally silence could be enjoyed, relished even, but not here. Not now.
“You can yell at me you know.” He said finally, as he continued on with Elex at his side. “I frankly deserve it considering I cornered you in that tea shop the way I did. I should have confronted you in private since I was so dead set on it but…” He sighed and ran a hand through his hair as he turned his attention forward. “I wasn’t thinking right. I was worried, anxious, wanted answers and in the process acted rashly. I may regret how I went about it but I don’t regret asking.”
"I didn't ask you for an explanation." You know now that I'm part of the Negaverse. You know we take souls. Do you understand what that means? For the way you run your mouth, for the way you assume I'm so safe and delicate, it's never been more than abstract information to you. Maybe it's just a lie.
I can't take that chance.
The silence between them reached far enough that it could touch the horizon. With their long path walked to the edges of the sea, Elex let the silence and stillness bear down on both of them. But the spine that bent first under that weight was Rowan's, and he opened with more petty frivolities. More bids for a familiar turn of conversation learned in movies, in books, in schooled conversation. He wanted normalcy -- a type of life that Elex thought he needed even now. But Rowan wanted benign arguments and candlelit dinners and that special someone to stare at during his climactic part in plays. Instead, he received the sham that was Elex. Disappointing, isn't it?
Then Rowan launched into it again. 'You can yell at me you know.'
"Stop." Elex raised a hand between them, fingers splayed to bar the march of words. "I know what I can do. I know I could yell at you. I know I could slap you for this. I know I could walk back to your car and cut your gas line for some pointless retribution. I thought about all of it, Rowan. Trust me."
The pier groaned its disapproval as Elex stepped forward, toeing the last boards of the pier. "There's something you need to see." He knelt, and after rifling the pocket to his wool coat, pulled his cellphone for the flashlight app. Its cold LED stare raked over the staunch pier support. Its gaze revealed digs into the old wood, running parallel and intersecting and intertwining carefully. A half-finished ship it was, pressing on boldly as the sea's foreboding tentacles coiled in around it. A promise of adventure with equal parts danger.
"When I joined that organization, this is what I expected." Fingers traced the old, forgotten work. "You know how that call to the fantastical sounds. It's this promise to deliver you from a dull life. From toiling away at doldrums that never meant anything. We're locked into these lives we never asked for, and we're expected to live them without complaint. Sometimes we find our escapes -- like you with ballet -- and sometimes they find us. That's how I got started with them. The Negaverse."
Wordlessly he handed off his phone to Rowan. The intimation was clear -- train the light on what lay half-finished. Elex pulled from the back of his knee-high boot a whittling knife, recently sharpened. He sunk the business edge of the blade straight into the support, draggin it in bold strokes that split the image in half. He raked and clawed and slashed the boat until splinters hung off the wood as grizzled remains. When he finished, the pier looked mauled. The knife slipped from his hand in a loud clatter and he looked to Rowan at once. "This is the fantasy they give you."
Elex's tongue caught his teeth in a pause of thought. "I've seen what happens to the people at the top. They're not people anymore. They've twisted themselves -- deluded themselves into these abhorrent realities. Self-appointed moral judges, people too emotionally broken to function, others too dogmatically bent to know reason. Others are unapologetic killers, megalomaniacs, rapists. No one gets through the ranks unscathed. And if they promote me…" Elex lynched the words with the genuine fear they produced; he would think of it now, burn it into his mind, and quake with it to the avian bones of his fingers for this unrehearsed performance.
"The Negaverse… It consumes you. It consumes everyone you know. It bleeds into your thoughts, your actions, your friends and family. It's this infection you can't purge without killing yourself with it. And…" He struggled against a callous laugh and lost. "That's where I am. I don't know what to do. Where to go. It's killing me, and I can't stop it." He swallowed hard, averted his gaze, urged himself into Rowan's lantern-cast shadow. "It wants me to push you away."
The litany of apologies and explanations slid to a halt at the raised hand. Those small, bird-like digits were like a glowing, red stop sign. There was no blaming him. Rowan knew his nerves was making him chatty, unable to keep his calm. What was it about this young man in front of him that brought out such anxieties? Made him fear loss? Want to right his mistakes or at least explain his intent?
Mentioning cutting his gas line had Rowan open his mouth to respond but he thought better of it and instead shushed himself before uttering a syllable. Instead, right now, Elex needed him to listen. To grasp what was going on, not utter more apologies that would accomplish nothing. So, listen he did. Listened and watched.
The boat, half-way carved into the pier’s post looked fresh. New, actually. The lighter wood underneath stood out starkly against the dark, weather worn of the surface. His eyes fixed upon it as Elex’s light emblazoned upon the image like a spotlight. “Negaverse?” The word left his mouth before he had a chance to comprehend it on his tongue. Eyes flicked to Elex then back to the carving. “Interesting name.” He murmured, continuing his feint of not knowing what Elex spoke about as he took the offered phone, assuming spotlight duties.
The knife, sharp and potentially dangerous was procured from Elex’s boot and Rowan watched with fascination. By this point, he could only assume, Elex had been the carver, who else after all? The boat was too perfect a depiction of what Elex had thought he was getting from his allegiance with the Negaverse. I sweeping blows the carving was quickly struck. One piece of wood after another was chipped away, revealing more of that pale flesh beneath until the image of the vessel was nearly indiscernible.
Swallowing hard, Rowan listened intently. Hung on each following word as eyes never roamed from Elex after the destruction of the boat. That symbol of adventure and freedom was effectively destroyed. It’s not much different than senshi. The only difference here is it sounds like he had a choice and not have a guardian cat come up and effectively awaken him then trot off with little to no instruction. We are the same in some sense, yet I feel now like we are so far away because of it.
“What can I do?” He finally said at Elex’s last words. “I won’t be pushed away by them. It’s not right nor fair to either of us. Elex, you’re too good of a person. There had to be a way out of this. A way to cut yourself off from them? If you’re so unhappy, so...stifled, surely someone can help us, help you.” Surely there was a way something could be done? I refuse to just let him go.
“Please don’t push me away because they tell you to. Don’t let them run your life like that. It sounds like they’ve taken so much from you and...if you’re happy with me, if you want this as much as I do, let’s fight for it. I’ll fight for it.”
"I don't know a lot of the details." The admittance was easy when true -- when unadorned by falsehoods and pantomimed flair. "But I've heard of purification.
"The Negaverse touches you in a way that it can't be left behind. It's indelibly a part of you. Purification unravels that at a cost. I don't know the cost, and I don't know the method. It would have the same magic to it as stealing souls, as taking energy. I know how that sounds, but it shouldn't be hard to believe for you now." I know you've seen monsters out of bygone imaginations. I know you've seen a boy with black eyes and smoky pipes coming out of his back. If you play ignorant now, I'm calling a farce.
Elex walked the short edge of the pier nearest the water. He considered, briefly, how best to win Rowan's heart. What of twisting more heartstrings? Should he leap into the sea to prove a point? Was there more to prove? The silence spread until he spoke again.
"Have you told anyone else what you heard about me? They might know something else. This city is full of people with second lives. Even your brother might have one. Maybe you do too." He left to words to linger while he reversed his pacing direction. "But they're more likely to know something about purification. What it costs, what it needs, where I can go…"
He paused, ran a hand through his hair, echoed the thought. "Where I can go. I'll have to say goodbye to my family." A sardonic laugh left him, puncturing the waves' quietude as they lapped at the docks.
"I don't know what else to do. That's it." He turned toward the sea, looking far past the reach of the lantern. In the distance, the waves formed a steady line that met the sky. So dark were they that they blended together. Darkness muted it all.
The whole talk of purification was new to Rowan. Even as Alrakis he’d not heard of such a thing before, not that he did much snooping around for something like that. But now? Perhaps he had more reason to power up and investigate more. Try to find something more about purification, the cost, and what exactly happens during the process. That was something he could do for Elex. Something to make him useful in this whole situation.
The silence lengthened between them as Rowan grasped at ideas and attempted to formulate a plan. Who could he go to with his questions? He’d met so few white moon so far.
Under watchful eyes, Elex strode to the end of the pier. The light from above cast shadows over him in a dramatic scene worthy of any performance Rowan had seen. But, this wasn’t a performance. This, all of it, was real life. Back and forth Elex paced the end of the pier. Questions arose with speculations. Rowan listened to it all in silence.
”I don’t know what else to do.”
The words held a mixture of emotions. Whether Rowan put them there or Elex truly poured himself out to him didn’t matter. The hurt, pain, sadness...desperation, they were all there. He wasn’t quiet, couldn’t be with the wood beneath his boots as each step echoed with his approach. He didn’t want to look at Elex’s back. It looked lonely as if he were turning himself away from everyone he cared about. Ready to set out on this journey alone.
Pressing himself against, Elex’s back, Rowan’s hands intertwined with Elex’s as his head leaned against the mop of black hair. “I said nothing. No one else has heard me say a word about any of this. Who would believe me anyway? You’re the one who really opened my eyes to everything that goes on in this city, even I tried to hide away from it when it was right there in front of me, affecting me. So, who would believe me? How likely is it that I’d find thosefew people out of the millions who live in this city that would understand? Besides, it’s your business. No one else.”
With Elex’s hands still intertwined in his own, Rowan lifted his arms to wrap them around his waist. Adjusting his grip on Elex’s hands as needed. Eyes closed, Rowan squeezed his boyfriend in reassurance. “You’re not alone in any of this. Please, please don’t ever think that. I am right here by your side and I will be. We will find a way to locate the people we need to help you. One way or another.” Why he didn’t tell Elex his own duality was a mystery even to Rowan, but something in the pit of his stomach told him that the secret he had was better left as such. At least for now while he searched for answers.
“Don’t worry about where you’ll have to go. If nothing else I will make sure you have somewhere to call home.” Lowering his head so lips were close to Elex’s ear, his breath rustling black wefts. “I refuse to let you go. Not like this.”
Is that all it takes to court Rowan Cameron? A couple pretentious dates, an encounter with the supernatural? Are you really so lonely?
Arms enclosed him, Rowan's warmth tugging at his coat of chill. He listened while Rowan expounded on his own points, even as Elex sunk back into his taut body. He could taste the seaspray on the air, and the salt smelled fresher in the winter months. Elex allowed himself to wonder, briefly, on the life that he plied as a lie. If the tale of purification worked, then how would the day taste with his hands and tongue free of corruption? With Rowan alongside him, with a blank life, with all the myriad social paths laid at his feet? With no Sinope to dog him and no Schörl to rule over him?
It's a fool's dream. The Negaverse knew his affiliation with Rowan. Even if this purification came at no cost, they would each be hunted. A pair of teenagers with their wits put together meant nothing against the Negaverse's experts, who spent years tracking and hounding those daring enough to turn coat. They would see to Elex's family, then to Rowan's, then to everyone known between the pair. Facebook pages ran through internet time machines would inform them of all the friends had, and those would suffer.
Then further out. Then further out again. The Negaverse wouldn't stop until they reached their six degrees of separation. He knew this -- he knew this as one taught for rote pursuance.
Elex breath hitched a harsh note into the dry air. There is no home, Rowan. You don't know how alone I am. You can't know. Not now. And when you do… Licking his lips, Elex drew in a shaky breath. It roiled in his throat, thrumming with all his tumultuous energy, and stripped out all his steeled resolve as he pushed it back out. The sea stole it away, weightless as it was. Passed it over the rolling waves. Delivered it far from the pair, where it might find better use over the mute ocean. Elex struggled yet more to hold onto his dolor.
But this is all so wrong. Leading him on like this… It's so Stroud. It's the same way she uses people for toys. The same way Sinope treats people like objects. But I know the value of others -- I want to know who they are. How they think. What they like. Why they do what they do. Their aspirations. Their successes. Their failures. Rowan is no different.
You can't know what we'll do to you.
He stole another breath out of the air, and turned toward the face at his neck. Lips met the lobe of his ear with a few fragile words. "Then let me thank you for it. Right here." His hands slipped from Rowan's grasp, one reaching for Rowan's strong jaw, and the other reaching for the darkness between them. A white nail traced the shell behind the dancer's ear.
"We both talk about breaking out of customs. Out of expectations. So let's make good on that now."
The cold, salty breeze from the ocean went unnoticed as his full attention was on the shorter Elex, leaning against him, leaching heat from Rowan’s own body. Easing back into him, Elex had obviously relaxed some, but each tense moment was telegraphed through his body and Rowan stood like a pillar supporting the young Yorke.
That hitched breath and shaky exhale Rowan held onto Elex the entire time. Another gentle squeeze was given as if telling the other teen ‘it would all be alright’. Confidence in what they needed to do was there. A plan, while broad and undetailed, was laid and Rowan was sure he could do a lot with it. First thing he’d be doing was seeking out information. This whole purificiation thing had to be known by others or at least people knew who to point him to. Yes. It’ll work. We’ll get through all of this and things will be fine. I just hope he can wait long enough for me to find out what we need to know.
A sudden shift. Elex turned in his grasp, releasing hands to venture to other pursuits. Locks of black hair brushed against Rowan’s face as he watched with interest turned to surprise at elicit words. Gold searched black as a rise of gooseflesh was drawn across his skin at the sensation of nail on skin. You stand there, wanting to thank me right here and now in the cold of the night, but thanks is unneeded. Lover or not, even if we were just friends, I’d do everything I could for you. I’d like to believe it’s the same for you. No, I am sure it is. You’re too kind of a soul despite your frank speech and show of bravado.
He opened his mouth to argue, to make a case against any sort of expectations that Elex may have, but what could he say? Elex was right. Both wanted to break from what was expected of them, to venture out into new adventures and just be themselves. Not worry about what others sought. How could he deny this dark eyed young man?
He couldn’t. Wouldn’t. Expectations and cold be damned.
His own hands reached out again and pulled Elex to him. The gap between them unacceptable. With one hand remaining on the smaller waist, another trailed from the small of the back, mid-drift, chest, to cup delicate neck. A thumb absently roved along the line of the jugular. “Thanks isn’t needed, but you’re right.” He confessed verbally. “Let’s forget about everything. Take that first step.”
As if on cue a buzzing sound followed by a generic phone ring shattered the quietude. Rowan visibly tensed at the sound, eyes drifting from Elex to the general direction of the coat pocket in which the device laid. Each vibration, each tone was like life calling him back to what he wanted to run from if only for a single night. Jaw tightened as he released his grasp on Elex’s neck to retrieve the phone from his pocket where Elex’s own had been stashed after the mutilation of the ship.
‘Mother’ was the caller ID.
A hesitation.Thumb hovered over the answer icon.
Decision made, Rowan thumbed the red. The ringing and vibration stopped as he heaved a sigh. A bench nearby was spotted and Rowan disengaged himself from Elex for a moment and deposited both devices there before turning back.
His body found it’s desired heat source once again as a hand rose to brush back locks of black hair from elex’s pale face. “No expectations for either of us. Not tonight.”
Lips captured lips.
The hand to his neck fit well with his adam's apple, his lymph nodes. Rowan's thumb ran the hot circuit between clavicle and jaw, where his blood pumped the brightest. Briefly he wondered if Rowan felt every mistruth in the beat of his heart. Nonsense, he knew, but nonsense he wished he could believe nonetheless.
The call was fortuitous -- Elex watched with bated breath while Rowan decided on whether or not to answer. It wouldn't matter; Elex's intentions would separate him from the phone one way or another. But when he elected on his own to leave the phones on a bench, that drew the perfect opportunity for fleet-footed paws. Twenty pounds of feline wouldn't garner much note in the old, groaning quay.
"Good," he returned, his façade slipping to a more neutral expression. A hand slipped into pocket for the laser pointer, pinched between thumb and fore, and he drew his hands around Rowan in the slip of thick material. As they kissed, he shined the laser out into the darkness beyond the beach. The cat would see it; he never worried of that.
No, the worry was in keeping Rowan occupied long enough for Tiberius to check his phone, and for his performance to remain unhindered by feline eyes. Elex slipped the pointer back into pocket before he broke the kiss. Then, with a tug on Rowan's thick collar, he urged the other man toward the ground. "Sit down. We'll be here a while."
He still had an hour and a half. Tiberius won't be long, but Rowan might.
Tiberius worked for cheap, really. In the grand scheme of things, his fees weren't nearly what they could have been. Faustite had needed a Mauvian's special touch on a pet project and he'd happily fallen in line...with a little bit of encouragement in the form of bartering. Bribery. Whatever one wanted to call it. Tiberius enjoyed slumming it at the Finn's warehouse, but did not enjoy the commute. Faustite could teleport. It was worth a few rides, certainly. Terms had been discussed and agreed upon without too much back and forth, after all - Tiberius did like Smokestack, and knowing whether or not he'd been betrayed was pretty important to the Cause.
There had been more reasons for the Mauvian to assist Faustite than there were to not.
Which was how he'd ended up huddled while the glamoured up half-youma made kissy faced soap-opera garbage with some other kid while the fluffy Mauvian waited for the agreed upon sign. Idly, and because he had literally nothing else to do while he waited, Tiberius considered whether or not Faustite - or Elex, wasn't that his name when not being a creepy mix of metal and person? - had taken the purpled haired kid to bed or not.
Snatches of their conversation floated to his ears, but mostly he didn't want to listen. Just like he didn't want to contemplate them having sex. It was distressing, really.
The mechanics of Smokestack's junk really weren't something Tiberius wanted to consider - it was one thing for people, but when you added in the youma weirdness...well. That got freaky, fast. He supposed that if he were being fair, even half-youma deserved to get one off from time to time too, not just the straight-up 'normal' humans, after all...there was nothing quite so fine as mounting a b***h. But not that piece of garbage dog. Dogs don't deserve s**t except shock collars and neuter surgeries.He can mount a cactus. Shifting slightly with his fluffy elbows in peaks up by his ears, Tiberius' eyes caught the signal he'd been waiting for - and just in time! He did not want to go further down those mental pathways.
A red dot laser pointer was a fantastic signal, even if the urge to chase the damn thing was pretty strong. Tiberius was a professional, so he just rose from his shadowy hidey-hole and slunk over towards the quay, wrinkling his nose in distaste - could they not smell that? Lucky bastards. Maybe they'd be less interested in making out if they could.
Maybe not.
Focus. Mission first, decaying sea life and possible corpse later. Wary of catching attention from Rowan, the Mauvian continued a bit of a roundabout creep. There was a bench, it looked likely. Yes. The scent of sweat and oil, of metal and wire, of stale food and plastic. All these things came from the bench. People. Are so gross sometimes. Maybe just teens. Or maybe it was just all amplified by the smells in the area already assaulting his sensitive nose.
Either way.
Tiberius moved silently, fluff padding his steps as he moved his considerable bulk to the bench to snag the phone he was meant to. One smelled faintly of ash and was recognized - not the target. The other? Bingo. Target acquired. Delicate work, with teeth, with paws, to pull a phone from it's spot on a bench. Easier when it was on the ground to hide the light of it being accessed with one's fluff and body. Cake and pie...human technology is entirely too easy… Even the potentially tricky parts, like accessing buttons and touch screens with paws not made for such things, could be circumvented with Mauvian ingenuity.
His bracers had extendible bits that locked into place, for this job only one was needed. Piece of cake. Easy as pie. Cake and pie.
Each noise from the humans had his ears twitching and swivelling as he worked, wary of being caught, but his focus was on the phone. There were mostly texts between Rowan and his mom (wow), someone named Trey (the ******** was this joker?), Smokestack's magically delicious glamour, and some other people that didn't really rate notation due to either the quality or quantity of messages. Some lame and dated memes, homework bitching...the minutiae of this screwball's tiny life...and not a single goddamn d**k pic in sight.
Utterly and completely boring. Wow, I'm kinda surprised Smokestack. You sure know how to pick 'em. He's about as far from the Mistress as you can get.. With a sigh but also a bit of pride at having done his job, Tiberius turned the phone back off, sheathed his pen tool, and finagled the phone back up next to Elex's before slinking back into the shadowy brush and yowling like a cat in heat to let Faustite know he was done.
He had the best signals.
Strickenized
Syrie