Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The day was dull when Neil arrived at the last place in the world he wanted to be at that exact moment. He hated taverns on rainy days—it’s when farmers weren’t out in their fields, and took to flocking the poor waiters and waitresses with hopes of getting drunker faster. He grimaced at the sound of deep, barreling voices belting out from the crack in the door. He glanced over his horse’s saddle to where a group of guys pushed through the door and brought the roar out into the downpour. The guys shouted at the torrent of rainwater rolling over the rooftop and into rivers in the mud.

Neil wrapped the horse reigns around a wooden post and rubbed his hand over the side of Roach’s neck. “I’ll be back soon,” he promised, and hurried out from beneath the stable awning.

He was soaked from head to toe by the time he made it through the tavern door. He shook his hands out in disgust and avoided the host at all costs by slinking behind a group of unruly men to search the tables. Among all the unfamiliar faces, there was a man he recognized in an instant. Neil crossed the wood floors and slid onto the bench across from his mentor.

“Matthew,” Neil said with a grin, and earned an unfriendly frown in reply. “Why are you the glum one? You know how much I hate meeting here.”

“I know. But they have excellent food,” Matt said, and slid a mug across the table to Neil’s waiting hands. Neil sniffed it and, sure enough, the contents were warm and spicy, without a hint of alcohol. Just as he liked it. “Sugar tooth,” Matt scoffed as Neil guzzled half the mug of cider.

Neil gasped for breath after a moment, setting the mug down. “Ya can’t blame me, considering.” Sugar wasn’t exactly something on his mind as a kid. Survival was. At least, until Matt picked him up. “I’m an adult now—I get to decide what ends up in my stomach these days.”

“So you say.”

“Fuck off. One time. Kidnapped one time, and you joke about it like it didn’t just happen last week,” Neil whined, and Matt drummed his hands on the table laughing. Neil rolled his eyes. Granted, he was taken hostage by a group of bandits—not exactly a problem for someone in their profession, and it wasn’t until it was too late that the thugs knew just what group they were dealing with. They hadn’t fed him much else other than something alive and slimy like worms. It was too dark for him to tell, exactly. He’d surely remember the taste if he happened across it again, though.

Matt sobered fast, and took a drink from his mug. When he pulled it away, his eyes flitted across the busy tavern. Just that one action managed to wipe all the humor from his expression. When he looked at Neil next, Neil felt his good humor fade as well.

“What is it? What happened?” he asked. “Does it have to do with Seth?”

Matt shifted uncomfortably. So that’s a yes, he thought.

“Allison, actually,” he said. “Dan hasn’t seen her since she left to follow a lead north of Novigrad.”

Neil knew that Allison was away, but it wasn’t like her to be gone for more than a week without sending word. If circumstances called for more time, she always let Matt’s fiancé know. Dan and Allison were close, which was an obvious effect from training together through their adolescence. They were both far more capable of dealing with Allison’s husband’s disappearance than Neil was. At least, that was what he always told himself. Somehow, though, Matt found him worthy enough for higher-ranked execution deals with villages on the fringes of the wild—where monsters were at their worst.

“Has Dan gone after her?” he asked. “She must have left something about where she went.”

“She did, and Dan already checked it before someone in Arette disappeared,” he explained. Neil resisted the urge to roll his eyes. Of course Dan would put her civic duty before Allison. Granted, it was what they were supposed to do—work for the good of the people—but if not even Allison could escape whatever dangers Seth wound up in…

“You want me to pick up where she left off,” Neil sighed, and Matt nodded. “How far did Dan get?”

“She got to Yantra before having to backtrack. Whoever Allison went to for the lead is still there and likely has information on Seth,” he went on. “Dan thinks spirits are involved, so you might need this.”

He reached behind him, and tugged a wooden box out from a worn, waterproof bag. Neil studied it, not daring to reach for it as Matt undid the clasps on the box. It was cherrywood with golden hinges, and detailing around the corners. Matt used the hooked edges as leverage when lifting the top off and presenting the contents to Neil.

Neil raised his eyebrows, unimpressed.

“New bracers? Gee, thanks. Not like I could have bought some myself,” he said, and Matt merely smiled.

“It’ll help later. They go underneath whatever you’re wearing,” he explained as Neil tugged the box closer and inspected them. There was a shine on the surface unlike leather, and blacker than any of the clothes in his wardrobe. He couldn’t exactly be bothered with the dyes that came with pure black fabrics and leather. There weren’t any laces on it—only small clasps that didn’t seem at all sturdy for the occasion. “You won’t need anything else on top of it.”

“A bit thin, don’t you think?” he asked, raising an eyebrow at his mentor. “Not much protection.”

“Trust me—nothing you’ve gone against could break through them,” Matt promised, and pushed away from the table. He downed the rest of his drink and stood up. “The guy’s still waiting in Yantra—innkeeper named Wymack, I believe.”

“You’re leaving already?” Neil said. Truthfully, he missed seeing Matt these days. Traveling was lonely business, but it came with the job. Ever since graduating from Matt’s training, Neil hadn’t talked to more than a face here and there on the road next to troubled villages and the monsters infesting them.

“I’m actually on my way to meet with Dan about the case in Arette,” he said, and waved cheerfully, as if he hadn’t just assigned Neil the same task that took both Seth and Allison. Sure, he always figured Matt thought highly of him, but this?

Matt pointed sharply to the bracers as Neil shut the case and latched it. “I’m not kidding about those,” he said.

“Yeah, yeah, I know. I’ll wear ‘em, God,” Neil groaned, and grudgingly accepted the pat Matt landed on his shoulder. He frowned into his cider as he watched Matt walk off to the exit and leave.

Neil sulked around the edge of his cider, eyes narrowing on everyone who looked his way. Eventually, he dropped his eyes to the box in front of him. Matt wasn’t exactly “one for giving gifts”, so Neil didn’t know how to process the sentiment. Might as well use it, he decided, and began unlacing his current bracers. He rolled up his sleeves, as per Matt’s rule, and ignored how uncomfortable the air felt on his exposed arms.

He lifted the box lid and removed the first bracer. He searched for the clasps in the light of the candle on his table and pressed them in to their designated slots on the opposite side. It wasn’t until he lowered the second onto his left arm that he realized that this was hardly a gift at all.

The instant the two ends met around his wrist, it sparked and burned like embers on his skin. He resisted the urge to shout and instead grabbed the edge of the bracer and ripped it off. It didn’t budge a single inch.

He twisted his arm around and searched for the clasps on both arms. They were gone. The material had become one consistent, uninterrupted cuff on either arm. He tried to squeeze his hand through it, but his knuckle was too wide. He’d gotten out of handcuffs before, but this? This was just impossible.

Nothing you’ve gone against could break through them.

“That bastard,” Neil seethed, snapping the box shut and lunging out of his seat.

He shoved past drunkards on his way after Matt. He pushed through the door just as someone was coming in, and wound up slamming it in their face. The guy cursed at him, and shouted swears as Neil searched the stables for Matt’s mare, and instead found it out on the road, bolting away with Matt perched atop its saddle. Neil raced after him in the rain, shouting, “You motherfucker—what the fuck is this?!”

“Glad you like it!” Matt yelled back, and took off laughing. Neil whipped back around to grab Roach, only to stop in the tracks of the guy he slammed the door into. The man’s face was half-pink with blood run through with rain water.

The man spat at Neil’s feet and jabbed a finger at his crooked nose. “You fuckin’ broke my nose, you little cunt,” he seethed at Neil, and yanked a short sword from his belt. “You’ll pay for that.”

“Might want to get that checked out first, don’tchya think?” Neil said, and ducked to the side to avoid the man’s meaty hand aiming for his collar. He cut across to the stables, saying, “I really gotta go—seems like you’ve got your issues and I’ve got mine. Might as well cut it off here before—”

Neil narrowly managed to dodge the punch, but it only succeeded in letting the man crack his knuckles against the stable pillar. The man screamed, and Neil’s eyes went wide at the man’s disjointed fingers. Damn, that might have hurt, he thought, thinking of the bruise that man’s punch would have left.

“—we do something rash,” he finished in a huff, and didn’t bother with a sword, not when his opponent was already bloodied.

Neil countered the man’s next attack by swinging his hand up against the man’s elbow, and shoving it aside. He rammed his elbow into the man’s neck and sent him choking on the floor, splashing through puddles. Neil took the opportunity to free his horse’s reigns, and just got them loose when an unfamiliar, bored voice said, “Comin’ in hot.”

Neil glanced behind him, just in time for a short sword cut down on the wood near his hand, and caught in the grain. Neil stared at his opponent struggling to free the blade.

“I wouldn’t if I were you,” he said, and rammed his elbow back into the guy’s gut. He spun fast and knocked the guy sideways with a hefty clap across the cheek, and used the chance to lunge up off the stable bar and swing onto his horse’s saddle. He spurred Roach ahead and the two of them bolted out into the rain, kicking up mud over their fallen opponent’s bloodied face.

Neil looked only once to ensure he wasn’t being pursued, and turned back with a gleeful laugh. He cruised past the town sign and slowed over the gravel country roads. The rain was steady through his entire jaunt across the long stretch of gravel splitting the fields in two. The road was built up from the flooded trenches of wintered crops. It wouldn’t be long before all this rain turned to snowflakes.

He was thinking about the weather—an innocent topic, really—when something dark shot in front of his vision, and elicited a squeak from him.

And then, there was a man.

Standing no more than five paces in front of Roach.

Neil screamed and reared Roach to the side. His panicking momentarily clouded the fact that he hadn’t seen this guy walk up, or approach in any sort of manner. One moment the road was clear, and the next, it was occupied by a man more irritated than Neil was at the time.

He steadied Roach back onto the road, shouting, “What the fuck?! Where did you—?”

Their eyes met, and Neil stopped short. The guy was standing directly beside Roach’s side, close enough to see the details. Specifically, the two punctuating either temple. Through the guy’s light curls, Neil differentiated two sharp, black points arcing up exactly like horns. Neil had his sword out before he could even think to scream.

“Trust me, if I could kill you, I would,” the guy said through a sigh, and it stopped Neil’s blade short. “Do me a favor and don’t put that sword near me.”

“What the hell are you?” Neil said. He couldn’t get past this guy’s unhealthy red eyes. Not only were the whites bloodshot, but his iris gave off an inky red glare.

“Right now, I’m sick of your bullshit. You’d think witcher would be able to sense something like me before putting those damn things on,” he said, pointing to the bracers.

Neil scrambled off his saddle and looked down at the bracers. The guy stayed put, arms crossed, but his own pair of black cuffs were visible out of the corner of Neil’s eyes. He frowned at them, and then up to where those red eyes rolled in annoyance and settled on the fields, listening to the rain fall. Neil couldn’t put together what reason Matt had for doing this to him. He couldn’t understand why Matt would willingly give him something as deadly as…

Whatever this man was.

The guy turned away, tugging his curls back as he cursed under his breath. Neil yanked his sleeves back further to get a better look at the bracers. That… explained the burning sensation. He worried about the potential blisters festering underneath.

“Your arms are fine. No more damage than what’s already there,” the guy said, and Neil stilled. He rubbed a hand over his wrists and scowled at the demon with growing irritation. He’d wring Matt’s neck for this. Personal space much? he wined internally, bitterly.

“So you’re cursed,” he determined, and the guy made no attempt to refute it. He passed his fingers over the bracers in a way that made his finger burn, and his insides tingle. Definitely a curse. “Are you originally a demon?”

“No, I’m not. My soul was bound to those bracers when I died. Until now I don’t—” He shook his head, and looked more tired than anything. “It’s annoying that you even summoned me to begin with, but I can’t be more than twenty meters from you. I just wind up teleporting like crazy when you’re on a horse.”

“How do I put you back?” he said, and regretted it given the look the guy shot towards him.

“Just rub the bracers together or whatever,” he said, looking away so he wouldn’t have to see the way Neil grinned. “Don’t fucking—give me that look.”

“Like a genie?”

“Fuck you,” he hissed, and Neil clapped his hands together and threw his head back laughing. The guy turned and started walking, and it wasn’t until Neil stopped laughing that he realized the guy wasn’t going to stop walking. He walked as far down the road as he could, and teetering the fine line between farmland and forest. When he stopped walking, he seemed very certain of where the edge of the radius was, though Neil found himself wishing the guy would take another step, just to see what teleportation looked like.

Neil rolled his eyes and glanced back at his horse before coaxing him along to follow after the demon. “For fuck’s sake,” he huffed under his breath, marching across the grass. It’s not every day I have to deal with moody, cursed demons, he thought, and hoped the excitement was for the better.

“Listen—do you know a man named Matt? Matthew Boyd?”

At that, the guy turned around, and Neil was momentarily distracted by the horns again. He narrowly missed the recognition flitting into contempt on the man’s face.

“I’ll take that as a yes,” Neil said. “How’d he break the bracers?”

“What makes you think I was his?” he said, and Neil pointed hesitantly at the armbands, and then back to the town, where Matt once was. “Friend of his?”

“Sort of. He’s my mentor. Neil Josten,” he said, and reached out to shake the demon’s hand. When it became clear that there would be no hand-shaking of any kind, Neil retracted it.

“Andrew. And your mentor’s the main reason I haven’t been able to stretch my legs in a century. He ripped the cuffs off the dead body before you,” he said, and promptly muttered under his breath, “Well, now I remember why I hated people so much…”

“They’re not that bad,” Neil sighed.

“You’re one of them,” he remarked, unimpressed. He waved his hand at Neil’s arms before crossing his own arms again. “Just… do the thing. I’ve had enough of this bullshit.”

Neil lifted a hand to the sleek, black material on his arm. He frowned at it, and then to where Andrew was waiting impatiently for him to make the move. From far away, it was impossible to differentiate Andrew from any other human, and truthfully, Neil was starting to feel guilty. Were he in Andrew’s situation, the last thing he would want was to be confined to whatever abyss awaited him in the bracers. For a demon as well, Andrew was definitely on the docile side of things.

At least, that’s how it seemed at first.

Neil lowered his arms.

“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me,” Andrew groaned, turning away only to rear back, furious. He jabbed a finger at Neil. “You’re a fucking witcher! Stop pitying me!”

“How do you know I’m pitying you?”

“The level of pity on your face is sickening. I might actually vomit,” he seethed, and Neil risked a small smile. “You’re not supposed to be an empathetic shithead, alright?”

“Matt always did say I was a special case.”

“‘Special’ alright,” he scoffed, and went on to curse as Neil assessed the situation, and the fact that Roach was waiting for him back on the road. He started to walk, and figured that if Andrew decided not to follow, he’d get to see the teleportation firsthand.

“We need to get another horse.”

“You’re kidding, right? You do realize no one can see me,” Andrew said, and Neil swallowed his surprise with a simple shrug. He ignored the scoff Andrew bit out, and it gave Neil a vague understand of how much Andrew could sense on the surface of Neil’s mind. So lying was definitely out of the question, but that was easier said than done. Matt always called Neil a pathological liar. Considering his upbringing, lying was just about the only real skill he picked up.

Next to killing.

He kept onwards, and tried to think of the exact species Andrew must be. His soul was bound to the bracers, which suggested that this projection was merely a spirit. Normally it was impossible for Neil to perceive spirits without using the senses Matt equipped him with early on, and even then, uncorrupted spirits were almost undetectable. From what Neil could determine, just based on the sensation the bracers gave him, was that Andrew wasn’t corrupted, merely cursed. The nature of the curse gave Neil the impression that perhaps Andrew wound up with ancient witches from centuries ago. The conclusion wasn’t pretty, but the “servitude” aspect—stuck to one individual with a mind link, and inability to drift far—fit the bill well. Witches back then were big on slavery.

“Perfect. Stuck with an idiot of a witcher,” Andrew sighed, and Neil was pleased to find him not too far behind.

Neil took Roach by the reigns and guided them back towards the town. Andrew stuck to the opposite side, so Neil couldn’t see him except for his boots. When they approached the stables, Neil passed Roach’s reigns to Andrew, who let them fall in favor of keeping his arms crossed. Neil rolled his eyes and went to the stablehand in search of the owner of the horses. He retrieved his coin purse just as a man, clad in a flannel shirt, approached with an impressed whistle.

“My, my, what pleasure do I have for treating a witcher here?” he said, and Neil managed a stiff smile.

He pointed to the black mare farther down the line, its stable door sporting a carrot it played with. “How much for that one there?”

“Hundred crowns and a favor,” he said, and Neil thought, Dammit. Should have just stollen it tonight.

“Depends on the favor,” he said, tightening the band on his coin purse. “I’m on a tight schedule.”

“There’s been some sightings out in the fields south of here. Two of our own went missing around the time the ghost showed up.”

“Ghost?”

“I don’t know the terminology,” he said, and waved his hand dismissively. “If it floats, it’s a ghost for all I know.”

“Describe it to me,” Neil said, and distantly heard Andrew groaning.

He made mental notes of everything the man described before heading off to find the last person to see the monster. He whistled for Roach, and likewise, Andrew trailed shortly after. He pocketed his coin purse and mentally prepared for what came next.

“Sounds like people go missing a lot around here,” Andrew commented.

“You say that like it’s my fault,” Neil said, and turned back to find Andrew shrugging.

“This would be so much easier if you’d just put me back where you fucking found me,” he sighed under his breath, and refused to meet Neil’s eyes from that point onwards down the street in the midst of a rainstorm.

Neil long since gave up on staying dry, and accepted the fact that his clothes were soaked through and wouldn’t dry for ages. Andrew, however, didn’t obtain a single drop. The obviousness of his fluffy hair would have turned heads that day he and Neil tied Roach to a farmer’s fence and approached the front door of the estate. He stuck a few steps back, looking from the sky to the fields to the chickens tucked away in their shed farther from the door that opened for them.

An older woman with graying black hair peered out at them. “Yes? What can I do for you?”

Neil lifted a hand to shake hers. “I’m investigating the wraith you spotted the other day. Could you tell me where you saw it?”

She looked him up and down and stopped at the necklace tied around his neck. It was a silver fox with red gems for eyes—symbol of the witcher guild he was in. She asked him to wait a moment and came out wearing a pair of shoes and an umbrella that she sheltered them both with on the way to the fields. Neil crossed his arms and observed the area the woman pointed to, and asked about the people who went missing.

Being a witcher wasn’t exactly something Neil chose, necessarily. After Matt picked him up and dusted him off, monster hunting felt like the only thing he was ever capable of. It wasn’t an ideal business—plenty of people gave him nasty glares once they caught sight of his guild amulet—but it was an honorable business. No ordinary individual would take on a wraith like Neil was mentally preparing to do.

“—They left that way. Not sure you’ll find any tracks in the rain, but—” she started, but Neil waved her off.

“It’s not a problem. Thanks for your help,” he said, and went back to fetch Roach and his reluctant accomplice.

Andrew eyed Neil from the collar down and turned away with a gruff, “Aren’t you sick of the rain?”

“Nature’s shower,” he replied.

“Don’t you need to be naked for that?” When Neil glared at him, Andrew just stared off into the distance with a bored shrug. “It’s been a few centuries. Can’t say I remember the days.”

“Fuck off,” Neil laughed, and whistled for Roach to continue steadily onwards towards the tracks.

They walked over the gravel path until Neil stopped at a nick on the side of the road from a horse’s hoof. He turned Roach onto the grass and through the break in the trees until the track was completely invisible in the mud.

Andrew called out from the road, refusing to take a step into the muck. Neil ignored him, clutching a hand to his necklace. Matt always called it a placebo handicap, but Neil was convinced that the amulet was how he’d get the job done. A moment later, after swallowing his reservations, all the color in the world dropped around him and spiraled into a red track at his feet. He lifted his eyes to follow it between dense, shadowy trees. Distantly, he heard Andrew curse and come thrashing through the forest.

“What the actual fuck did you just do?” Andrew seethed, throwing his arms down. When Neil turned back to him, letting the red marks vanish and the color flooding back, Andrew looked damn near close to passing out. On the bright side, he was at least looking Neil in the eyes when he glared then. “Way to give a guy a headache.”

“Do demons get headaches?” Neil asked, and smirked when Andrew merely scowled at him. “Kidding. We’re heading this way. Looks like there was blood involved. Horse took off that way.”

He pointed east and went on continuing south with Roach at his heels, and Andrew fuming behind him. So much for that dull, reluctant attitude.

Chapter Text

Music for the soul :D

Andrew never claimed to have a simple life, nor did he ever intend to have one, but this was just fucking ridiculous. It was one thing to spend his afterlife in aggravating darkness, but a complete other shitshow to wind up back in the world that fucked him over. Nicky might call it “third time’s the charm!” but Andrew wasn’t that optimistic. If he fucked life up once, he decided that any other time was just his own personal hell.

His last summoning proved that.

And Neil… if having to suffer through another person’s idiocy was another form of hell, then this was it.

Andrew smelled the body long before Neil discovered it in the underbrush. He was grateful the guy didn’t need the witcher senses to find it because eventually the stench was strong enough for them to both feel suffocated by it. Andrew stood farther off and watched—more interested in Neil’s reaction than anything else that forest provided. Something howled in the distance, and Neil looked after it before pulling the branches aside, away from the pair of feet lingering out in the open. The woman’s leather boots were soaked through and muddy.

“Body’s been there for five days. Not many maggots left,” Neil said. Andrew rose an eyebrow at the guy but didn’t question it. Detective’s apprentice it was.

“Cause of death,” Andrew said, low from boredom as he turned away. Truthfully, he couldn’t stomach the sight of clammy, grey skin. The woman’s eyes were open as well—all white and grey and chewed away at the lashes by flies.

He heard Neil rustling around in the underbrush before a moment of silence. It ended by an arm being dropped wetly on the ground, and something shucking out of the skin. 

“Knife wound. Knife’s dull—throwing dagger,” Neil said, and tossed it aside, back into the bushes. He looked around, and Andrew shut his eyes as soon as the color started seeping from his vision. He rubbed his temples and sighed through it before the weight on his skull lifted. “The nightwraith’s still around. We’ll have to stick here until nightfall.”

Andrew bit the inside of his cheek before he could remind Neil of the painful fact that his feet were sinking in the mud. As much as he loved being grounded, he didn’t want to start floating around like the ghost he was. He got into the habit of keeping his feet on the ground during the last summoning, and wasn’t about to break the habit for a bit of muck stuck to the ankles of his boots.

He yanked his feet out of the dirt and grimaced at the sound of mud sucking up the space he left behind. Given Neil’s incompetence with other-worldly monsters, Andrew wasn’t entirely surprised that the man made no comment on it. Granted, witchers were better equipped to deal with corrupted beasts like zombies and shit (Andrew didn’t know the specifics, necessarily) and monsters who played a part in black magic rituals. That he knew of. A little too well, if he was being honest, and that all played a part in the shit show that was his last summoning. Long story short, he could deal with mud on his shoes so long as he didn’t have to go back to that.

“What do you suppose would happen if I broke the curse?” Neil asked. Andrew looked up sharply, and realized that Neil was just thinking aloud. No need to respond. “I bet I could find something in Matt’s records. Though, if he had those bracers on hand before, he must know whether or not there’s something in the library that could fix this. Maybe he knows and he’s just being an asshole.”

That seems likely, Andrew thought. All he could remember from the centuries stuck in the bracers was the fact that Matt was a quiet guy—or, at least, the place he was stored in was quiet. Every opportunity Andrew had at eavesdropping, he took it, so he knew the owner of his bracers was a witcher from the start. People who talked that much about monsters and witches were bound to be one. Still, Andrew never saw Matt investigate the curse despite knowing about it.

“Tricky curse you’ve got there,” he had said just before snapping the lid shut. Andrew shuddered at the memory of it—at least, that’s what it felt like.

There was an outcropping of rocks smoothed over by the creek passing through the swampy terrane. Neil dusted off a rock under the overhang and propped himself up onto it. He maneuvered Roach beneath the cave entrance and made room for Andrew, who took to standing until lingering near Roach’s rear end worried him too much. Once settled, Neil tugged off his gloves and wrung them dry. He removed his vest and did the same, and laid them out on the rocks. Off went his boots, his socks, and Andrew waited for the rest that wound up staying right where they were.

Neil sparked a flame with just a flick of his hands. The rainclouds dulled the forest around them, and with the shade from the canopy, it felt more like evening than midday. The flames lifted a warm, orange glow around them and the rocks, and it wasn’t until then that Andrew realized that he was shivering. His muscles were tense from containing the warmth to his crossed arms. He relaxed under the heat.

He looked down at his hands. His fingers were short, his palm wide, and the skin calloused. There were deep red markings, almost like indentations from buttons pressed to the pads of his fingers. He flicked two of them together—his middle finger and thumb—and remembered the motion from plenty of times before. A soft, choked flame lifted, and puttered out a second later. He tried again until the action became a familiar habit.

He rubbed the flames out onto his palms and pushed them up his arms to warm them. The fire licked across his skin and settled into embers that sunk into his muscles, and faded a minute later. By then, he was already looking back at Neil, who stared in amazement.

“I hadn’t realized you needed—gods, that makes so much sense. Creatures from hell tend to run a high temperature,” Neil said, putting a hand to his head. He looked pained as he moaned, “I’m such an idiot. And we’re going to the mountains—”

“It’s not your problem, so don’t worry about it,” he said. “I’m dead, remember?”

Neil pushed his hands over his reddish, auburn hair. “I know, I know. Gods, how did that happen anyways?” he asked, and those curious eyes prompted Andrew to stare out past the flick of Roach’s tail, and up to where water dribbled over the cave entrance. He waited until Neil shifted away, the firelight flickering shadows over the floor. “Sorry. That’s a personal question.”

Andrew’s hands twitched. He rubbed them so fire built up off of his fingertips and carried up his arms. He could really go for a cigarette right about now. Or a drink.

They sat in silence until Neil cleared his throat from where he was holding his gloves up one at a time to the flame so that they would dry faster. Andrew kept his eyes forward, hands still hot with embers. “I can’t say I’ve died before, but life wasn’t exactly easy before Matt found me,” he said, and avoided Andrew’s eyes when he looked to see what, exactly, Neil meant by the way Andrew’s chest seized up.

He rubbed a hand over his shirt to shove away the sensation Neil inadvertently pushed on him. He didn’t need to know or feel these things. The helpless nature of Neil’s insides made Andrew far more furious than Neil’s indifferent expressions. It seemed Neil had a habit of holding shit in, and just a few hours with the guy gave Andrew a taste of it. The confusion, uncertainty, some long-developed sense of inadequacy.

Andrew swallowed hard at the sensation of something else rising up. A familiar, vile taste in his mouth from feeling his previous host’s emotions. His insides felt soaked in it, and no amount of scrubbing with fire would get rid of it. He turned away and wondered how easy it was for Neil to look in his eyes and see just how fucked up his innards were.

Neil rubbed at the back of his head, pushing the short hairs up so they stuck out at all angles. “But I don’t know. Lots of people have shitty pasts. Might as well just… get over it. That’s what Matt’s offered me, anyways. A way to get over it.”

“Is that what being a witcher is to you.”

“No. Definitely not. I always knew there was something off about me. Just didn’t figure it was witcher signs,” he said, and flicked a spark of fire at Andrew. Andrew didn’t flinch, even when the spark hit his shirt. “My father used signs. He wasn’t trained in it, but… no guild of any kind. No one ever recruited him,” he explained, and Andrew felt the lie tugging at the back of his mind.

He has his reasons for lying. No need to push it, he told himself.

The rain drifted into a quiet, gentle patter. Even as the rain rolled to a steady finish, Andrew started shivering again. He tried to hold it in and hated the idea of Neil noticing. So he wasn’t exactly an intimidating demon, big whoop, but noticing meant Neil mentioning it, or doing something to stop it. If only he could remember how he shut it off before… but most of those ideas that popped into his head were enough to send his brain spinning. He swallowed back the taste of bile in his mouth.

Neil shifted so that he could kick his legs up and cross them. He cupped his hands together and straightened his back, and it wasn’t until he closed his eyes that Andrew started to wonder what this guy was up to. He looked at Roach, who was staring out at the creek, unalarmed.

From what Andrew knew about witchers—outside of his previous host’s hatred for them—was that they were spiritual without a necessarily distinct dedication to any one god. They approached religion just like any skeptic might, and used it only to connect to their spirit to the world beyond them. So, it wasn’t all that farfetched to assume that Neil was getting ready to meditate until sundown.

Andrew stoked the fire around his arms and pushed to his feet. He stepped around Roach and decided to wander around now that the rain ceased.

The second he stepped out from the overhang, though, his foot slipped straight off the rock and into the creek.

“God-fucking-bless,” he sighed, and took to staring at the sky. He inhaled sharply, and let it out. All he needed was a few good breathing-exercises to get through the shit nature was likely going to serve him. It certainly didn’t stop him from smelling it, though.

He crossed the river and came out the other side dry as ever. The mud on his boots cracked and fell away into the grass after a while as he searched for the perimeter of his designated radius around Neil. Paranoia convinced him not to go farther than ten meters, but once he crossed that line, he felt like he could run forever. He wondered how insane he’d look running circles in the woods. It was the only thing he could think of to shake the Ol’ Bracer Knees.

He stretched his legs out against a rock. He hopped up and climbed to the top of the overhang, legs swinging underneath. From across the creek, Roach lifted his head to watch, and Andrew mockingly saluted him before jogging to the perimeter.

The sun came out from behind the clouds, and promptly vanished several hours later. Andrew occupied the passing time with senseless jogging followed by climbing trees that peaked his interest. By nightfall, he felt a spark of energy lift from inside of his chest, and realized that Neil was awake and moving. He stayed where he was, swinging upside down on a branch, and crossed his arms so that when Neil approached, Andrew had the satisfaction of witnessing the man’s momentary fright.

“What makes ghosts different from spirits like me,” he asked, and Neil put a hand over his face to mask his surprise as it fell into annoyance.

The man sighed and said, “Ghosts never went to the other side. I’m able to see things that only ever existed in this realm and not the afterlife. Matt’s better at judging spirits than I am. Explains why he knew you were in the bracers before I did.”

“Say whatever makes yourself feel better. We both know you’re just an idiot witcher.”

“Stop calling me that,” Neil sighed, and turned away as Andrew grabbed hold of the branch and flipped his legs forward. He stuck the landing, hands in the air, as Neil started walking off. “I’ve only ever met one demon before, and it was because she was incredibly powerful and possessed her lover so that she could continue living in this life.”

“Sounds like a fun party. Say the word and I’ll possess whoever you want,” Andrew said sarcastically, and jolted to a stop when Neil halted and turned back to glare at him. “What? I used to do it all the time.”

“And what’s stopping you from possessing me now?” Neil said, and squared Andrew up like they were about to fight. Andrew found the action childish, and grinned boldly. “My theory is that whoever did this to you planned for slavery, not partnership.”

Andrew’s smile only widened, and he knew just how unsettling it was just based on all the times his previous host demanded he cut it out. “I’d watch your mouth. Unless—you want me to do that for you.” Neil’s eye twitched, and he sucked in a sharp breath to keep himself from doing something rash.

Neil turned on his heels, and looked up through the canopy to assess where the moon was. Andrew went on smiling, laughing under his breath as he followed in Neil’s footsteps.

“What, can’t you, like, do a séance and banish the spirit back to hell,” Andrew said, and played it off like he hadn’t done that before. His childhood was filled with dealing with literal and metaphorical hell.

“I can’t banish something back to hell when it’s never been there in the first place. Nightwraiths are specters tethered to the area they died. Usually they break away once the body decomposes. They can fade after that, but until then… this one might continue killing,” he said.

“Killing. How do you know it’s the cause of the other disappearances?” Andrew asked.

Neil opened his mouth to answer, but was cut off by an infernal shriek through the woods. Neil’s sword was immediately unsheathed from the cover strapped to his back. Andrew shuddered at the sound, and turned to search for it in the woods.

The night was dark, incredibly so when the moonlight was caught behind the rainclouds. The trees all loomed in towering shadows that merged into the inky black. He wondered, then, about the glowing white outline drifting farther away, cutting between trees, and breaking apart into fragments of a whole. That was a ghost if Andrew ever saw one. He cursed under his breath, and a second later Neil had his hand on Andrew’s chest and was pushing him away.

“Don’t touch me,” Andrew hissed.

“Then get out of the way, because—” He never finished. A shot of white light bolted between the trees, its high-pitched shriek hallowing and resonating across the forest. Flames shot up Andrew’s arms before he could stop himself, and he immediately quenched them. If Neil was idiotic enough to fight monsters for a living, Andrew might as well let him. Besides, being a witcher had a high mortality rate. Andrew would be back in the bracers before long.

Neil threw a hand up and struck it down, sending a ripple of purple light up from the ground and across the bolt of light mere inches from his face. The wraith froze, torn fabric swaying in slow motion now that Neil had successfully stopped its movement entirely. Andrew released the breath caught in his chest, and let out a premature laugh of relief. Neil cut his sword through the wraith—from shoulder to waist—only to jump back at the explosion of his trap.

He lunged to the side, and ducked behind a tree as the wraith spun at a maddening pace, its two broken haves merging together by the fine threads of its garments.

And then, it turned on Andrew.

“Fuck,” he hissed, and leapt up before the wraith could tackle him. He was in the air for a split second before he grappled for a branch. The wraith circled the tree furiously, unable to reach Andrew’s dangling feet from where it was stuck to the ground.

Bursts of fire sent the trunk’s bark up in flames, and the wraith running from Andrew’s tree. “Ha! Suck on that, you fucker,” Andrew said, only to snarl with the wraith came back for vengeance anyways. He could feel his hackles rising, his gums aching as his teeth sharpened to a point.

A bolt of purple cut around the tree’s trunk, forcing the wraith into the inferno. Neil struck it with his sword, swinging it high over head and across. It burst into shards of white, all caught in the fire, and incapable of reassembling. Andrew was still hissing like a cat up in the tree, even after the threat was gone.

The fire crackled at the base of the tree, scorching hotter. The wood popped, and Neil stepped back from it as it began to crumble to the side. Andrew clung to the branch despite Neil shouting for him to get out of the fucking tree. His sharpened fingers dug into the bark, but when the tree really did begin to tip, he dislodged them and dodged the falling branches, winding up a few paces to the side and above Neil as they watched the fire glow and sputter in the rain-soaked forest.

Andrew curled his legs up, arms crossed to hide his claws from view. He could feel the heat in his face like the black, charcoal skin now encircling his eyes. Neil sheathed his sword and sighed.

“That… could have gone better,” he said, and Andrew couldn’t argue with that.

***

“The horse is yours,” the stablehand said, passing Neil the reigns. “Who’s it for?”

“My wife,” Neil lied, and grinned when he heard Andrew crumple on the roof of the stable, groaning. “We’re traveling to Yantra.”

“Lovely city. I’ve heard some shit’s been happening up there. I’m sure you can handle yourself, though,” the guy said, and gave Neil a pat on the shoulder before walking off to talk to the other stablehand. Neil walked Roach and the new black mare out of the stables, and onto the streets. Andrew walked off the roof and floated to the ground beside Neil, hovering a few feet off the ground with his arms crossed behind his head.

“Call me your wife and again and I might actually kill someone,” Andrew said.

“Is that all it takes to turn you into a hitman?” Neil asked, and cleared his throat awkwardly as a passerby gave him a strange look. He thrust the reins into Andrew’s hands and moved on to mount Roach. “Anyways. We’ve got a long trek ahead of us.”

“It’d fly by so much faster if you just put me in the damn bracers, but whatever. Humanity needs to be taken into account. It’s not like I’m dead or anything,” Andrew said.

He reached for the horse’s saddle, only to have the horse skitter away from him, and prance to Roach’s other side. Neil rose an eyebrow at Andrew, who clenched his hands into fists and grounded himself. He marched over to the horse, grabbed it by the saddle horn, and forced himself up onto it, even as it took off prancing elsewhere. “For fuck’s sake, get ahold of yourself,” he hissed, stilling the horse with a tug of the reigns.

Roach glided up beside him, and brought Neil’s smug smile into view. “Fuck off,” Andrew hissed.

“Seems like animals don’t take kindly to you.”

Andrew hissed at him, baring his sharp canines before scowling down at the horse’s black mane. He combed his hands through it to calm the horse. They started the jaunt out of town, and into the country.

“What’re you gonna name her?” Neil asked.

Andrew squinted at him and said, “Not Cockroach, for sure.” Neil scowled at him. Andrew’s attention flitted down to Neil’s witcher guild amulet and said, just for the hell of it, “Maybe Fox.”

Neil looked down at his necklace and laughed. “Sounds good to me,” he said, patting a hand over the fox amulet before nudging Roach ahead at a steady jaunt. Andrew rolled his eyes, and went back once again to a solid, immovable frown.

Chapter Text

Neil was used to sleeping in the woods, but that didn’t mean he liked it. The ground was hard and bumpy, and blankets rarely ever did him any good because the there wasn’t a spec of insulation between him and the cold hard ground. He didn’t like paying for inns, either, or hostels along the way. But, after an entire day riding twenty miles via horse, and another five walking, his ass was sore enough to warrant a decent bed and food to hold him over.

“Do you eat?” Neil asked Andrew as they approached a small hostel at the intersection of two roads. It was a small conglomeration of buildings at each of the corners, and nothing more.

Andrew shrugged, and Neil took that as a yes. He dismounted at the inn’s stables and sent Roach and Fox off with the stablehand. He tipped the boy well and led the way to the front of the building.

At the door, they were met with a wide open foyer and common room. Andrew hesitated at the threshold, and only moved to side-step the closing door. It was warm inside, and Neil watched the way Andrew relaxed into it just before they were approached by the host. She was a tall, intimidating woman with thick black hair bunched up into a cloth knot. She smiled at Neil and said, “Hello—what can I do for you today? A room?”

“Yes, please, that’d be great,” Neil said, and was momentarily distracted by Andrew walking off to inspect the hearth on the far side of the room. The woman’s gaze followed his before swinging back. “And… a bath would be nice.”

“Of course. I’ll take care of that for you,” she said, and walked off to fetch the room key.

Neil tugged off his gloves and resisted the urge to sigh. There were some travelers out in the common room drinking and sharing a pot of soup. He could smell it from here, and his mouth watered at the taste of it on his tongue. He passed them on his way to the hearth, and ignored the way they turned to stare at the swords crossing his back and knives stashed on his waist. When the woman came to meet them at the fireplace, he accepted the key gratefully and reminded himself of the manners Matt taught him early on.

She led them up to the second floor where they settled at one of the doors overlooking the common room. Neil caught the eyes of those travelers on the first floor, who all looked away the instant he caught them staring. She left to fetch water someone to help with the bath, and so when Neil opened the door and Andrew peered inside, they had no one to complain to.

Andrew leant an arm against the doorframe and smirked at Neil. “You forgot to ask for two beds, dumbass.”

“I forgot she couldn’t see you,” he sighed back, and waltzed inside. “Whatever. Can’t ask her for two now or else she’ll start waiting for my ‘wife’ to show up.”

Neil walked inside, yanked his boots off, and unclasped his sheath buckles. He dropped his swords off to the side and collapsed face-first into the bed. He’d regret the cost later.

Andrew kicked the door shut and floated off to the ceiling where he lingered even as someone came in to fill the bathtub. Neil stuck to the mattress, and didn’t get up until the woman asked if he needed help bathing. “No, thank you,” he said, and sat up as soon as she shut the door behind her. As soon as he stood up, he realized another dilemma—the tub wasn’t separate from the bedroom. He studied it from afar, for a moment, and glanced at Andrew, who looked to be asleep on the ceiling. Eventually, Neil decided what to do.

“Do you suppose you could—”

“I already know about it,” Andrew sighed, and squinted one eye open to peg Neil with it. Neil swallowed hard, and turned away, hands clenched over the buckles on his suit. “You can’t hide much from me, Josten.”

He scrounged up the necessary courage to undo the layers of his armor and shirt. He unlaced his shirt, his back to Andrew as he flattened a hand over the myriad of white scars and indentations across his chest. His naturally tanned skin just made the marks more distinguished. After taking a deep breath and reminding himself that Andrew was dead and couldn’t talk to anyone except him about this, he shed the shirt and tugged off his trousers. He looked away so he wouldn’t have to see Andrew’s reaction to his exposed scars. His back was worse, though, so he figured that it was for the best that he couldn’t see Andrew.

Though, when he turned back around, Andrew had his eyes closed, back to the ceiling, with his hands clasped behind his head. Neil took that as a sign to strip the rest down and hurry into the tub.

He sunk into the steaming water, and wished he could dissolve into it. His muscles were so tense from feeling so exposed, watching Andrew out of the corner of his eye as he reached for the soap. Andrew stayed still, fake-sleeping up above. Neil’s skin crawled, and he hurried to finish up so that he could be clothed again. After washing the suds out of his hair, Neil was up and throwing a towel around his waist. He tugged it tight and secured it.

Neil hardly had his shirt laced up before being interrupted by a splash, and a thrilled sigh.

He turned just as Andrew kicked his bare legs up on the far edge of the tub, and sunk into the water up to his nose.  Andrew’s owlish, red eyes were half-lidded, looking as content as a cat by the fire. In fact, heat flared up from the tub in a sudden burst, and soon, it was steaming in earnest.

“Water doesn’t even effect you,” Neil said, reminded of the fact that rainwater seemed to pass straight through Andrew.

Andrew lifted his chin up to say, “Don’t care,” and promptly sunk his mouth back under the water.

Neil finished dressing, ignoring the sound of Andrew blowing bubbles under the water and splashing his legs around. The guy hadn’t bathed in over a century, apparently, so he could stand to put up with Andrew’s shenanigans for a while longer. Though, he wasn’t entirely sure demons needed to bathe, necessarily… Whatever the case, he didn’t push it, and instead left Andrew to his own devices in favor of hunting down some food.

He found the hostess before long, and meandered around the first floor for some time before ending at the fireplace. There was a cat nestled against the stone backing, and he tried to tempt it closer by clicking his fingers and patting his leg. The cat merely blinked at him before shutting its eyes and looking away. The actions seemed oddly familiar.

“Hey,” someone said. The voice was far enough away that Neil assumed it wasn’t for him—at least, not until the voice sounded again, only closer. “Hey, buddy.”

Neil turned, and recognized the guy as one of the men sitting at the table when he and Andrew arrived. Neil likely looked less intimidating without his armor and weaponry—Matt always did say he was a bit on the scrawny side for witcher material. Not only that, but according to Andrew, he was also an idiot of a witcher, too.

“Hey. What can I do for you?” he asked, and the guy took to standing just in front of his chair, over by where the cat got up and walked away.

The guy tipped his chin up and said, “That amulet. You a witcher or something?”

Neil looked down at it and tugged on the chain. “Yeah, I am. Is there a problem with that?”

He couldn’t ignore the hostile grimace of the man’s lips, or how he crossed his arms in annoyance. “We don’t take too kindly to guys like you around here. We don’t need that bloodshed on our doors.”

“I’m not exactly a omen of impending doom,” Neil scoffed, and stood up. “Sounds like you’re capable of starting violence without me.”

“I hear your kind’s useless without those fancy silver swords of yours,” he remarked, and Neil’s eyes narrowed.

“The only thing I hear is ignorance. Learn a little before coming back to me with that bullshit,” he said, and flicked his hand in dismissal before walking off. He caught sight of the hostess exiting the kitchen with the chef just as she shrieked in alarm, and Neil caught the discrete sound of the guy winding his fist back to punch.

Neil leaned to the side and caught the guy’s wrist. He threw it forward, spinning the guy head over heels crashing onto the coffee table. The hostess cried out, nearly dropping the soup on her way to stop them. The chef cursed as Neil stepped back and lifted his hands in surrender.

The guy grunted on the table, struggling to pull himself up. Landing on such a short surface must have fucked up his back, because he wasn’t getting up any time soon. The hostess stuttered to a halt on the fringes of the fight, unsure who to go to.

“I’ll be eating in my room,” Neil said, and added less steadily, “Sorry about the… that.”

He scooped the bowl of soup off the nearby table, and accepted the second one from the chef. He hurried up the steps before he could be bothered by the guy on the floor cursing up a storm. As he pushed through the door and nudged it back with his hip, he wondered just what issues the north had with witchers like him. Sure, not every guild was great, but the amulet said enough about where he was from and what his morals were.

He cursed in annoyance as he shoved the soups onto the table and went back to lock the door. Andrew was still in the tub, but seemed more intent based on the way Neil barged in.

“How’re the fangirls?” Andrew asked, and Neil turned back around with a glare. Andrew shrugged uselessly and slipped back into an lazy position.

“I just hope the hostess isn’t too pissed at me. I flipped a guy onto a table for trying to punch me,” he confessed.

“Coulda been worse.”

“Yeah, I could have started a forest fire,” he remarked, and earned a glare for it. “See? How does it feel?”

“You’re just being mean now. Don’t talk to me,” Andrew whined, and curled up in the tub with his back to Neil. It was enough for Neil to notice the scars cutting up Andrew’s shoulder blades in fine, white lines. Neil turned away before he could inspect it any further.

“Anyways,” he said, clearing his throat. “I’ve got food if you’re interested.”

Andrew glanced over his shoulder at Neil, and nodded distantly. Neil hesitated by his own bowl before lifting it up and moving to the bed. He lounged with his back on the headboard. The spoon dipped into the creamy broth, wafting chives and herbs and savory onions to his nose. The potatoes came in simply diced chunks that melted in his mouth. One spoonful had him diving in for more. He didn’t stop until it was all gone. Jerky and bread had nothing on this soup.

Distracted by eating, he missed Andrew getting out of the tub and fetching his own bowl. Neil only looked up as Andrew quite literally drifted towards the corner window and crossed his legs, preparing to eat on his own over there.

“There’s space right here. That can’t be comfortable,” Neil said, gesturing to the wide stretch of bed beside him.

“Tell me to share a bed with you again. We’ll see how that goes,” Andrew said, and punctuated it by shoving a mouthful of steaming hot potatoes into his mouth. “Speaking of which, you can forget about sharing a room with me tonight. Soon as this soup’s done, I’m forcing you to put me back in the bracers.”

“What? Hell no! I mean, unless you’ve got a mansion in the bracers. Is it, like, your own dimension? Can you alter it?” Neil asked, suddenly thrilled by the idea. Andrew gave him a what-the-fuck look, and Neil determined that Andrew’s special world inside the bracers wasn’t as fantastic as he thought. “What is it then?”

“A deep pit of shit like your asshole.”

“Be reasonable.”

“I am. It’s just darkness,” Andrew said, picking away at his soup and stabbing a potato slice with his spoon. He bit it off and pointed the spoon at Neil. “Once you get used to it, time flies.”

“Yeah, and it hasn’t demented you one bit.” Andrew glared at him, and Neil leaned back with a smug smile. “So you can tell things about me. How does the mind thing work?”

“How the fuck should I know?” he scoffed. He twisted around, sliding backwards with the bowl on his stomach. “I never had a manual for this.”

“Well, have other people had the bracers? Matt must have taken these from someone,” he said, waving a wrist up for Andrew to see. He didn’t like to think about how, exactly, Matt forced the bracers off of another person. He imagined it had something to do with… dismemberment.

“Yeah, your mom.”

“Andrew,” Neil groaned, and Andrew stuck his tongue out childishly before hiding his face behind the soup bowl, slurping the rest down off the edge of it.

Eventually, exhaustion convinced Neil that he couldn’t spend another second awake talking to Andrew. More accurately, he tended to talk at Andrew. It wasn’t a symbiotic relationship, but Neil had high hopes. Not many of the Foxes could claim to have befriended a demon, and he aspired to be the first. Andrew’s inability to reciprocate that friendliness, though, was another story on its own.

Neil figured it was a product of too many hours, days, years spent in the darkness. After finishing the soup, and after the hostess came up with an apologetic smile and a mug of alcoholic cider, thought, Andrew seemed far more willing to play a game or two. Neil came back from the door after locking it and raised the mug to Andrew.

“All yours,” he said. “I don’t drink.”

“Well isn’t this just my lucky day,” Andrew said, and reached down only when Neil was close enough to heft the mug higher. Andrew snatched it and downed half of it in the next second. “I can’t remember the last time I ate or drank anything.”

Neil started at that, but he was turned away enough that Andrew wouldn’t see the wheels in his head ticking. Well, perhaps he could feel it, but regardless, Neil couldn’t stop from coming to conclusions. Andrew was in the bracers for a century. But what before then? Who had him then?

“If you think too hard on it you’ll bust a nut.”

“Thank you. For that lovely image,” Neil said, and bowed sarcastically on his way to spinning onto the bed.

“Any time. And no, I didn’t eat the last time I was out. Well, a handful of times at the start, but I didn’t know what the hell I was doing and found out I don’t need food to keep going like you do,” he explained, taking another swing before donning an annoyed, confused look. He waved the nearly-empty mug around and said, “But you know what? It still tastes good. But I haven’t shit in ages so I don’t know how that’s going to go.”

“Fuck,” Neil moaned into his hands. “What the fuck…”

“I’m serious! First time I pissed out of the bracers I thought I was expelling my inner demons through my dick.”

Neil put his hands over his head and tipped to the side, away from where Andrew rambled on about pissing and shitting as he fueled the inevitable by downing the rest of the cider.

A solid twenty minutes later, Neil laid on his back staring at the ceiling as he listened to a stream of piss hit the drain and Andrew screaming, “MOTHERFUCKER. This is what I’m talking about!” When he buttoned up and stepped out of the bathroom, Neil glanced at him, and Andrew jabbed a finger in his direction. “Absolute worst part of being human.”

“You think so?”

“Next to libido and insane asylums.”

“Gods,” Neil huffed, and turned his eyes back to the ceiling with a laugh.

Andrew, now fully on his feet, wandered to the bed where, after nudging one knee onto the opposite side, he pegged Neil with a sharp look and pointed at him to stay where he was. Neil lifted his hands in surrender, and watched out of the corner of his eye as Andrew climbed on and flopped onto his back. He wiggled up into a sitting position and pointed to Neil’s opposite hand.

“What?” Neil said.

“Let me see that. I think I felt the wraith nick you there,” he said, and so Neil lifted his hand over to where Andrew caught him by the wrist and squinted at the hand. “Oh, yeah, right… there.” He shoved Neil’s hand down so his wrists banged together, and scraped his hand up off of the band. Neil cursed at the spike of heat up his arm, before a flurry of embers glowed across the bracers. Andrew shattered into sparks that flew in all directions like fireworks. Neil flinched away from the heat, only to have the sparks collected on the band, and faded away.

“You little—” Neil seethed, and cursed as the heat flared in his arms. It receded a second later, and he just knew Andrew was fucking with him then.

***

Neil woke up to quiet, and got ready for the day in silence. He strapped his belt on along with the holster with his sheathed swords on the back. He braced it in the front and tightened the buckles before leaving to head to the first floor. That time he looked down from the railing, he caught sight of the thugs from before, missing the man who Neil had flipped onto the table. He eyed them as he descended the steps and passed their table on his way to the hostess.

He forked over the money for the stay, saying a silent farewell to it as she stowed it away. “Thank you—for the drink last night,” he said, and she waved off his pleasantries with a smile.

“Have a nice day, sir.”

As he left, back to the common room, he missed the way the table of travelers turned to watch after him, or how the hostess leaned over the counter to see him off. The bell rung over the door as he opened it, and let it fall shut behind him. The rain from the previous day gave way to clear skies. Without the clouds to trap the heat, the air was bitter cold, and he realized quickly what that meant for his travel partner.

Right, Andrew, he thought, and looked down to the bracers on his hands. He had a cloak stashed in Roach’s saddlebags, but that wouldn’t be enough for the two of them.

He stood in the empty intersection, and looked between the buildings. There was a tavern, the inn, and the stables where Roach and Fox were kept. Neil turned to the last one, and sighed in relief. A common shop.

As he walked through the front door, the bell chimed overhead. Inside, it was warm and comfortable, but dressed in his gear, Neil became swelteringly hot in a matter of seconds. He lifted the bracers up and struck them together like a match. The spark erupted into a plume of fire that settled in the shape of his demon. Andrew smirked at him just as the shopkeeper approached Neil.

“What can I do for you today?”

“I’m looking for… winter clothes, I guess,” he confessed, and as the shopkeeper went off to show him, he gestured for Andrew to follow.

“First a horse and now clothes? What next, a honeymoon?” Andrew commented, flitting his eyes over the walls of clothes neatly folded and inserted into shelving slots.

“Fuck off,” Neil laughed under his breath, only to stop when the shopkeeper turned back in alarm. “Oh, no, not you. Just… talking to myself.”

Andrew smiled devilishly off to the side as the shopkeeper turned back around, hesitantly. “Right…” he drawled. “Well, here we are. All winter items are here. You looking for anything specific?”

“Coats and cloaks, I supposed.”

The shopkeeper pointed out the section of shelves dedicated to cloaks, and then pulled out a rolling rack of jackets from the wall. Neil’s eyebrows went up in surprise, and said, “Wow, you’ve got everything. Thanks, I’ll take it from here.”

“Let me know if you need any help,” the man said, and walked off towards the front of the shop. Neil started picking through the jackets, and didn’t stop until Andrew floated, upside-down, from the other side of the rack.

“Is it cold out?” he asked.

Neil glanced at the front of the store. The shopkeeper seemed intrigued by him—perhaps because he was the only visitor there. He went for a whisper. “For you it is. Quick, try this on.”

“It’ll disappear the second I put it on. Relax,” Andrew said, and plucked it out of Neil’s hands. Neil’s anxiety skyrocketed—how much could the shopkeeper see? Did the man witness the coat floating up, before disappearing from sight? There was no way he could tell without staring and giving himself away. “What, you never shoplift before?”

“We are not shoplifting,” Neil hissed under his breath, and tugged a cloak out from the wall. “We’re paying. Put this on over the top.”

Andrew tugged the waist belt tight on the jacket. The black coat went down to his knees, but the front and sides were split for riding purposes. The caramel-colored cloak over the top, however, covered most of that. It had a synched, turtle-neck neckline made of heavy wool. Neil wouldn’t have minded that, and hoped—considering the cost—he’d eventually be able to have it for himself.

“Good?” Neil asked, and Andrew scowled at him as he shoved his arms through the holes in the cloak.

Andrew didn’t say anything, and Neil figured he’d complain if he wanted to complain. Since there was nothing to complain about, Neil sighed at the cost before Andrew yanked the coin purse out of his hands and shoved it into the new pocket on his jacket. Before Neil could demand it back, Andrew said, “Hold still,” and shoved his hand straight through Neil’s forehead.

The sensation was… sharp. Like the sting of a split-second migraine that made his eyes lose focus. He kept them open, though, against all sense of desire to shut them and force the feeling back. He hardly noticed the way Andrew drifted around behind him, pushing his other hand against Neil’s temple.

“Follow my lead,” Andrew said. Neil didn’t seem to have a choice. At least, it didn’t feel like he did, and the panic that rose up nearly shoved Andrew back. “C’mon, it’ll be fun. Just relax.”

They were walking. Well, Neil was walking, and it was then that he realized what possession felt like. It wasn’t awful, as soon as the migraine from sharing a headspace fell away. He just didn’t need to think at all—Andrew was doing all the thinking, talking, and moving for him.

“Find anything?” the shopkeeper asked.

“Not especially,” Andrew said, and likewise, Neil said. He would have winced if he had the chance. As if he sounded like that. “Thanks for the hospitality though.”

“Anytime. Have a nice day.”

“You as well,” Andrew said, and off they went, out the door, and away from the bell ringing over the door. The moment they were out of sight, Andrew pulled his hand out of Neil’s head and drifted ahead. He hit the ground at an easy jog. “See? Shoplifting is a piece of cake.”

Neil, though, was coping with having his head back on his shoulders. He staggered to the side, holding both sides of his head. He struggled to walk straight for the first few seconds before hurrying to catch up. “‘Thanks for the hospitality though’? Are you an idiot?” Neil snapped. “What the fuck did you just do to me?! I thought you said you couldn’t possess me!”

Andrew waved it off, already heading for the stables. “You can thank me later after you take that stick out of your ass. Also—never said I couldn’t.”

He went through one of the open windows of the stable while Neil went through the front. The stablehand directed him to his horses, where Fox was having a fit over Andrew trying to sit on her saddle. The stablehand tried to calm her, and only got so far as to grab the reigns before Fox took off prancing to the exit. Andrew sat crosslegged atop her, and saluted Neil as Fox sauntered past.

The stablehand made as if to go after them, but Neil just shook his head. “I’ll take care of it. She never goes far. Thank you for taking care of them.”

“I—um, okay,” the boy said, looking nervous as Neil coaxed Roach out and followed in a lazy manner after Fox and Andrew.

Andrew was… about as inclined to horseback riding that day as he was the previous. By that, he complained as much as he was silent, and the day dragged on like that. Neil’s ass was still sore from traveling the previous day—not even a five mile walk could reduce the ache, but twenty miles later, they were on their feet again, walking through a small town as the sun set lower, and the chill made the air feel thin and sharp in their lungs. It took an awful lot of convincing to prevent Andrew from lighting his new clothes on fire every few minutes, and by the time they were off their horses and looking for lunch, Andrew’s lips were blue, and Neil could tell by how tense his muscles were, and how tight his jaw was, that he was fighting to keep his teeth from clacking.

“Don’t do that,” Andrew bit out through clenched teeth.

“Do what?”

“Just stop it,” he said, and marched ahead while Neil stuttered and stammered, hands going out in a what-the-fuck? gesture. Neil slapped his arms down and stomped ahead. He wondered if he’d ever understand.

Andrew bolted into the first store he could reach, and Neil was forced to follow after him. The storefront was all glass and wood paneling, with a blue overhang and chairs out in the fading sunlight. When the door opened, a waft of freshly baked pastries met Neil, and convinced him that nothing in the world could have smelled that great. The wall behind the counter was filled with loaves of bread, all perfectly arranged and ready to be bagged. It was there that Neil witnessed Andrew stealing not one or two, but three loaves of bread on top of an apple fritter from the front counter.

“For gods’ sake,” Neil cursed quietly, looking around to see if any of the customers noticed. When the baker went to fetch bread for one of the customers, Andrew side-stepped him and maneuvered around the counter and back to where Neil was. The place was too crowded for him to say anything, and so he merely scowled and likely frightened the nearby old lady. 

“See? It’s easy,” Andrew said, and slipped around Neil and out the door.

Neil looked back at the baker, and the elderly woman giving him the stink-eye. With a disgusted groan, he followed after Andrew.

They wound up on a stone ledge tearing bits and pieces off of herb spice bread. It was a lot like a time Neil remembered from long ago—he must have been eight or so, sitting with his mother on a cobble hedge. It fenced off an orchard that smelled of apples and honey. The fritters were cold then, just like the air, but today… it was toasty and soft in his mouth. He didn’t feel like an adult anymore with bloodied weapons on his back. He was just that kid on a cobble hedge.

He perched his heels up onto the stones and bent forward with his elbows on his knees, plucking a slice of apple out of his pastry. He licked the cinnamon sauce off of it before taking a bite and licking his fingers. Beside him, Neil had already devoured his half of the apple fritter, and was working on a loaf of bread. He had one leg propped up atop the ledge, and the other curled beneath it. Neil decided that Andrew was incapable of sitting correctly.

“You’re one to judge.”

“Seriously, how much of my brain can you read?” Neil demanded with a jolt of annoyance.

Andrew shrugged, but managed to side-eye Neil before digging back into the bread. Neil waited a minute before staring down at the fritter in his hands. “Some things are easier to understand than others,” Andrew said, and instantly Neil’s eyes were on him again. Andrew smiled derisively down at the bread. “As if I could understand any brain other than my own. I can barely manage that. Like… reading in a different fucking language every goddamn time. Gods, I need a cigarette.”

“Can’t say I know where to go for that,” Neil confessed, picking away at the fritter.

“Yeah, well, I might. Been a while, but people still smoke.”

“How would you know?” Neil said, and Andrew faked the motion of putting a cigarette to his lips.

He blew the smoke out. “People have their vices. If it isn’t smoking, it’s drinking or drugs or sex.”

“Or worse,” Neil huffed. Andrew’s eyes darted over to him. The red was piercing, and Neil swallowed hard. “Stop that.”

Andrew grinned at him, and Neil’s shoulders tensed. Andrew was mocking him with that smile. “I’ll figure you out, Josten. One of these days. You can’t hide much from your own head.” He tapped the side of his skull before going back to eating.

Fuck Matt for sticking me with a brain-rooting demon, Neil thought bitterly, and wasn’t sure if Andrew’s constant smile was also a response to that thought.

Andrew devoured his food fast, and leapt off in search of a smoke. Neil stayed put. He didn’t want to be a part of a shoplifting unless he had to be. He’d done it before, when times were… worse… and he wondered if Andrew could pick that up. But now Neil had Matt. He didn’t need to rely on theft as his main mode of finding food and clothes.

Neil worried over this regardless. He knew being a witcher was perhaps the last thing his mother would have wanted for him. Witchers were hated, feared, and loved for what they did, and that just got them attention. Everyone could tell a witcher from their guild amulet, or by the sword he or she carries. Silver swords were a common occurrence among his kind, and anyone with a bright eye for blacksmithing could tell it just by looking at his sword’s pommel.

She’d be so disappointed in me. Especially with father still alive, he thought, biting his thumbnail. He avoided the eyes of a couple passing him on the street. He glanced after them, though, and quelled the difficult reality of the chances. The chances that his father could escape from an imperial army cell.

The last thing he needed was that demon asking questions.

“I’ll ask as many questions as I want. Like what the hell that was all about,” Andrew said, and Neil flinched. Andrew exhaled sharply, and the smell of smoke clouded the air. Neil caught Andrew’s eye for a moment before flitting them elsewhere.

“Nothing,” he said, brushing his hands off. “I’m done. Let’s go.”

“Whoa, hey, innocent question.”

“You know it isn’t,” Neil snapped. “Lay off, alright?”

“Or you’ll what?” Andrew said, sticking the cigarette to the corner of his mouth. “You’ll hurt me? Fat chance. Worst you can do is a few bruises. It’ll take more to break skin. I bet that sword of yours could do it.”

Neil gave him a disgusted look and started walking. “I wouldn’t do that,” he said. He didn’t want to think about it, but he did anyways. He thought about what Andrew must have gone through to know he couldn’t break skin without a weapon made for killing monsters.

Chapter Text

That night the ground was dry, and so they took to sleeping under the canopy. They weren’t anywhere near a village to stay in, and so they were stuck in the wilderness. You know, the place were monsters tend to flock in the dark. Andrew took the first watch post, perched up in the tree above Neil. The coast was clear as far as Andrew could tell, and that stretched on for several hours before it was time for Neil’s shift.

“I really don’t need to sleep,” Andrew said. He was starting to remember how to ignore the initial sleepiness. He called it his Life Hangover. He’d get over it eventually and be back to normal.

“No way. I see you slouching up there. Sleep—I’ll keep watch,” Neil demanded, and Andrew tried arguing again, but he yawned and that was that.

He propped himself up against the tree root and leant his head back. He clasped his hands over his stomach and glanced over at Neil, who walked down a ways and back. When he came back and found Andrew still awake, he stopped to stare at Andrew until Andrew shut his eyes and tiredly saluted him from the ground. Neil scoffed under his breath and kept moving.

The darkness behind his eyelids reminded him of the bracers, and so time flew. By the time he was sick of the darkness, he opened his eyes and half-expected the world to still be dark. Instead, he was—

Shit.

He bolted upright, and smacked heads with the kid sitting over him. The boy shrieked and fell off the bed, groaning and clasping his forehead.

“Ouchie! Andrew!”

Andrew didn’t even think to register the pain. He was too busy looking around the room in a panic. He got to his feet and stepped swiftly over Nicky. He clasped a hand over his wrist, and found it empty. As much as he tried to cover them up with his hands, it was impossible. Their security was all that kept him sane back then—it reminded him that his bracers were a constant escape if the host let him use it.

He opened his mouth to ask where he was, but he already knew. The bizarre shape of the room—half-peaked ceiling, angled walls, and the three beds—told him exactly where he was. His memory from before was just as crisp as the day he died.

With that in mind, he turned to face the kid on the floor, who was getting up with a feeble groan. Andrew stared at his cousin and his head of black curls before looking to the top bunk of his bed. The mattress creaked and an instant later, a pillow flew across the room and hit Andrew across the face.

“Shut up! I’m still sleeping,” Aaron whined.

“No, no—you have to get up,” Nicky snapped, still holding a hand to his forehead. He started tugging on Aaron’s blanket, and Aaron flung his hands around trying to smack Nicky away. Nicky yanked on the blanket so hard, Aaron scooted to the edge of the mattress and tipped over.

Aaron hit the ground with a hard thud, and Nicky fled screaming. Andrew stood where he was, and remained frozen even when Aaron stood up and faced him. It was like staring in a mirror, which was really something considering Andrew couldn’t shed a shadow, much less see himself in a mirror most days. Some days were better than others—as Neil put it, “stronger demons” are easier to see, and some days Andrew felt more alive than others. Those were the days he could see a ghostly outline of himself in water puddles and the like.

But this? This was too real to fathom.

“What’re you looking at, asshole?” Aaron snapped, and stormed off yelling, “Nicky! I’m gonna kill you!”

Distantly, Nicky squealed, “Nonononono!” and shot out the front door. A woman cried out from across the house, and Andrew felt his chest condense and flatten, sucking all the air out with it. Nicky’s mother, he realized, which meant…

Andrew cursed under his breath, hands in his hair. He barely registered the fact that Nicky just flew by his window screaming, and Aaron followed close at his heels. What was he doing here? Was this all a dream? What was he—

“Andrew!” Maria called out. He flinched at the sound, clutching at his chest as he went to the window and looked for the grooves in the wood where Nicky carved their names as children. He ran his fingers over it, and looked at his palms afterwards, The red markings weren’t there yet. The pads of his fingers were all clean. “Andrew, come help me for a moment!”

He stared out the window. The sight of the ocean made his chest hurt far more than he expected it to. He rubbed his collarbone and up to his neck as he slipped on his shoes along his way to the door, only to stop short when he found Maria coming after him. She stopped, and sighed in relief to see that he was following orders. As if he ever did before. “Oh, good, you’re already up. I told Nicky to wake you two—we have to leave for church in ten minutes. We’re meeting Luther on the way there.”

“Oh goodie,” Andrew said, voice tight as he followed her through the house.

The kitchen was a disjointed addition to the house, but it was large and open, with glass windows and herbs scattered from floor to ceiling. She pointed to a whicker basket sitting out on the counter. “Could you take that? My shoulders are acting up again.”

He lifted it wordlessly, along with a box of pastries sitting beside it. Maria leaned out the back door and shouted for Aaron to let Nicky go. Aaron had Nicky slung over his shoulder, and when Maria said so, he dropped Nicky from that height. “Fuck!” Nicky shouted.

“Language!” Maria snapped. “Get your shoes on! We’re leaving!”

“I told you—we aren’t going to that church,” Aaron said.

Maria gestured sharply to Andrew. “Your brother’s already set to go. Now get moving.”

Andrew blinked, slightly startled. So that was the year they were in. Aaron scowled at him and flung his arms around in a what-the-fuck! sort of manner. The markings on Andrew’s hands were from a later date, when Maria gave up trying to force the two of them to accompany the Hemmicks to church. She was adamant through their adolescence, but as soon as Andrew and Aaron hit the age of fifteen, she gave up dragging them out of bed by their ankles to get a move on. It wasn’t like the town they settled in was particularly religious, either, so the pressure wasn’t as great.

Though, Luther being a pastor certainly put a wedge between the twins and the Hemmicks.

Andrew felt his skin crawl when he realized what waited for them at the church. It was never a threat in these days, and it was never a threat in this life, either, but knowing what he knew now… he was tempted to chuck the desserts and tell Maria to go to hell and see how that damned him. And, even if this was a dream, it felt too real for him to speak up. Nicky told him once to treat Maria with respect, and he intended to uphold that promise.

Aaron left to get his shoes on, grudgingly, of course. Nicky got up off the ground with a grunt, and whined about his elbow hurting. Andrew might have rolled his eyes at one point, but he couldn’t stop staring at Nicky, or Aaron, or even Maria for that matter. How could he have fucked this up so royally? As much as he hated Luther… this life was objectively better than his second one.

He walked beside Maria on the way out of the house. He stood off to the side as she locked the kitchen door and swatted Nicky’s hand away from the basket Andrew was carrying. Nicky hurried ahead to catch up with Aaron, who was furiously moping ahead on the stone bridge. As they walked up to it, Andrew delved into a vivid flashback of the two of them sitting on the bridge ledge and tossing pebbles down to the street below. People would enter the tunnel there, spitting them back out the other side—the main shopping street for “less-wealthy folks”. The merchants there tended to sell bullshit antiques and rusty junk, and he and Aaron would steal from them and sell it themselves once they had a decent sized stash.

The merchants hated them

“You’re being very docile today, Andrew,” Maria commented. “I’m grateful.”

He didn’t say anything. If he did say something, he figured it’d be a curse having to do with the gods and hell, and some ironic reference to his time there. Instead, he just thought, Years of practice, and moved on.

The city was filled with red rooftops and stone facades with cobbled streets and street stands selling baked goods and trinkets. The walk to church was filled with those sorts of temptations, and Nicky lingered at every last one. Nicky and Aaron were far enough ahead that Maria thought nothing of it when they lingered at the bakery stand and talked to the boy over the window flower box. Andrew recognized Erik from here, and the lovestruck way Nicky listened eagerly to everything Erik said. Aaron stood as a safeguard between Nicky and Maria, and caught Andrew’s eye as they approached. He tugged Nicky away. Erik waved to them, and smiled as Andrew and Maria walked by.

“Morning Mrs. Hemmick,” he said.

“Good morning, Erik,” she said with a smile. No suspicion at all.

Andrew felt sick. If only Nicky knew how all that ended up. The Hemmicks weren’t exactly gung-ho about Nicky’s love life and the gender he chose to share a bed with.

Erik certainly didn’t deserve the backlash, and Nicky…

Well.

That was another story.

“Andrew,” Erik said, and he realized that he’d been staring. Andrew nodded in passing, and continued on to catch up with the others. He glanced back to find Erik leaning over the counter, watching them walk off. It felt as if Erik knew he was the reason for everything terrible in their lives.

***

Church went how you might expect it from the Minyard boys standpoint. Andrew zoned out during the entirity of it, and Aaron sat grudgingly with his arms crossed and refused to kneel for confession even when Maria yanked him by the arm. Andrew was in shock and therefore incapable of processing the way he followed the cues of everyone else around him. He knelt and acted like the perfect nephew, but inside, that was hardly the case. If only the man at the altar knew a demon set foot over the church threshold.

He glanced up and noticed the way Luther, as he recited the prayers, said them all to Aaron, who sat back on the pew with a foot up on the padded kneeling cushion. When Luther’s gaze drifted to Andrew, though, he couldn’t help but drop his gaze.

It felt like spider eggs hatched under his skin.

They crawled all along his nerves and sent shudders up his spine every second to remind him of who he was sitting in front of. In the pew behind him was the last person he wanted to see, and never realized was a problem until the bracers wound up in his hands.

Luther ordered them all to stand.

Andrew pushed off of the pew in front of him, and looked over his shoulder.

The man standing there was looking off in a different direction, distracted by the family seated a few paces over from Maria. Drake’s hair was still shaved short, and his posture was militant—broad shoulders, hands clasped behind, stance wide. When he turned forward, Andrew did as well, and he could feel the heat rising up in him like every other wave of raw anger. It gnawed at his chest, churning and burning smoke into his lungs. He wondered if he could kill Drake now and prevent anything from happening. How hard would he have to tug Maria’s cross off her necklace? How deep would he have to gouge it into Drake’s neck?

After they were all dismissed from their seats, what seemed like ages after confession, Maria instantly turned to the family behind them. She addressed Drake. “Lovely to see you back from the Guard.”

“Just for the weekend,” he said. “I’ll be back again three months from now.”

“He’s stationed in Oxenfurt,” his mother said, looking oh-so proud with her toothy smile.

Andrew heard Aaron hiss under his breath, and looked over to find him discretely giving them the middle finger. Andrew grinned and nudged him with his shoulder. Aaron cackled and Andrew snickered until Maria snapped at them to behave.

No longer on board with the bullshit of the Hemmick’s life, Andrew turned to Aaron and gestured to the end of the pew. Nicky looked like his heart was about to give out, and was startled awake by Aaron grabbing him by the shoulder and leading the way out. Nicky looked over his shoulder frantically, trying to ask where they were going, but they were already on the move, and Maria made no attempt to stop them. Having them gone was better than having them embarrass her.

Andrew fast-walked like his life depended on it. The spiders didn’t vanish—he wasn’t sure if they ever would—but at least now he could breathe without the smoke collecting tar on his lungs. He refused to look back, and Aaron and Nicky were forced to follow.

“This better not be one of your little runs, is it?” Nicky said, snatching his arm away from where Aaron held onto it “Alright. I say we go to the hideout and drink ourselves senseless. Ma’s got that whole brunch with the Spears so we might as well just ditch the whole thing if we’re gonna miss the walk there.”

“Agreed,” Aaron said. “I can’t stand their son.”

“He’ll be gone before ya know it,” Andrew said, and he said it without thinking. He said it like he would have, before everything. His fingers shook. “I need a smoke.”

“Here,” Aaron said, reaching into his back pocket and passing it over.

Nicky slapped him on the arm. “You brought that into church? What’s the matter with you! Ma coulda saw it.”

“What’s it matter,” Aaron sighed. He jumped the steps down onto the street and began the trek to the hideout. Andrew hung back, and lit the cigarette off of one of the lamps in the church garden. He snapped the glass case over the top of the flame and pocketed one hand, using the other to stick the cigarette onto his lip. A jump over the stone hedge and a scolding from Nicky later, they were on their way down the narrow, switchback walkway to the under roads filled with all their favorite sorts of people.

Andrew sucked the smoke in like there wasn’t already tar weighing his lungs down from seeing Drake. His arms ached to shiver, and his spine so desperately wanted to shudder, but nothing passed. He was just tense, and starting to feel a little less like himself as the walk went on. He remembered the hideout, though. It was his favorite place, once upon a time, and some nights he snuck out the bedroom window just to sleep there instead. Luther always wondered where he snuck to—figured he was seeing someone at night in the most unholy way possible, and by “someone” he meant a woman. Even less likely than the truth—and Andrew accepted the scolding hits to avoid giving it away.

The last straw for Luther and Maria was witchcraft, and that was exactly what Andrew, Aaron, and Nicky intended to do the days they spent in the hideout.

The hideout was a simple catch-all term for a grungy nest beneath an upgraded warehouse. When the city built upwards, the under roads were paved with delinquency and disinterest from the local government. They stopped up keeping the fronts that never saw the light of day, and so little-by-little Andrew and Aaron chipped away at a stone wall in an alleyway, and broke through to an old pantry in a warehouse full of books long forgotten. Most were in other languages, few translated, and on lazy days with nothing better to do, Aaron liked to sort through them and find the gems that they could actually read.

Their pantry was full of them. It seemed most books in the warehouse that were translated had things to do with white and black magic and monsters. Aaron predicted that there must have been a hefty witch population before the hunts that broke out in waves across Novigrad and the cities nearby. Witchcraft was outlawed, and thus, books pertaining to it were either burned, or hidden. It was pure luck that they found the warehouse full of foreign books. It was the perfect place to disguise a few witchy gems.

So, to the alleyway they went. Nicky made it there first—always so eager, considering the adrenaline that came with not only breaking the law, but doing one more thing to piss his parents off. By the time Andrew turned the corner, Nicky already moved the crates out of the entryway, and pushed their makeshift door in. It was crooked, and not even hinged, so it made a ruckus opening and closing.

“We’ve really got to fix that,” Aaron said. He stepped inside after Nicky, and leaned out to snatch Andrew’s cigarette from him. “Thank-you.”

“Fuck-you,” Andrew remarked in the same, sing-song way before dodging a hit from Aaron. He laughed and ducked inside, slamming the board back into place once there.

“You know what to do,” Aaron said to Nicky.

There wasn’t a single window, and so they were stuck in darkness until Nicky could shed some light. Andrew leant against a nearby crate, wishing Aaron would hand back the cigarette—there wasn’t much left on it anyways.

Nicky tugged a wicker basket over and removed the lid. It scraped across the floor, and the contents were crisp and brittle as he sifted through them. He placed the contents in the bowl, and Andrew, despite his current inability to look anywhere other than the floor, wanted to see exactly how far along Nicky was with his magick. It would give him a better idea of the number of months it’d be before Maria gave up on Andrew and Aaron for good.

Nicky murmured the chant under his breath, and, from the sound of it, circled his fingers around the brass rim of the bowl. He started at the far side, and joined his index fingers together at the spot nearest him. Halfway there, embers cracked, and by the time his fingers touched, a small, meager flame was lifting up.

“Not bad,” Aaron commented, and Nicky beamed, sitting straighter at the praise.

“Yeah, not bad for someone who’s been at it for over a year,” Andrew said.

“Be nice,” Nicky whined.

“Maybe I’ll oblige if Aaron gives me the damn cigarette back,” he said, thrusting his hand out to Aaron. He snapped his fingers, and grudgingly, Aaron moved over to pass the cigarette.

“Finish it up. I wanna get started,” he said, and moved over to sit adjacent to Nicky around the fire. Andrew blew the smoke through the crack in the door before ditching the stub end of the cigarette. Aaron stole the last of it.

They sat so they were equal distance from each other around the bowl. The fire grew in height, and as they settled in and took a collective deep breath in and released, they soothed the flames back down. Once calmed, Nikky reached for Andrew’s hand and Aaron’s, and after a stiff side-eye to one another, the twins clasped hands.

The instant they did, the candles around the room ignited. It was slow—one-by-one they glowed—and Andrew determined that they were about three months away. Two years away. They were seventeen. That meant Luther was trying to get them apprenticeships. He would try to recruit Nicky. Send him off to the seminary.

I’ll be working for Bee soon, he realized. Three months from then. Without Luther and Maria’s ultimate support, he had more of an incentive to work. Betsy Dobson was an… herbologist of sorts. She knew the ins and outs of magick and medicine, but kept the former disclosed from her customers and patients. He respected her because she was willing to do what was best for people, even if the government didn’t view her work that way.

They meditated around that fire, and while the Andrew present in the moment delved into the practice, the Andrew from the future was wondering how to break this. Aaron was better at mental tricks than Andrew was, but that didn’t mean he was entirely useless at it. He tried a few spells to break out of whatever dream this was. He’d done it before during nightmares, but this didn’t seem to be the case. The dream spells were useless, so he wasn’t asleep. After spending the entire meditation session trying to locate some semblance of the world beyond his mind, he determined that nothing would break this.

If it was life or death you might be able to think of something, he thought as Aaron pulled out a book and Nicky opened the pages of a journal they filled with dried herbs from Maria’s stash ages back.

They went through phases. Right now, it was Nicky’s turn to decide what topic they tackled, and so revitalization and restoration magick it was. He cared about it from the start—when he first caught wind of Aaron and Andrew’s hobby. It happened ages ago, but Andrew still remembered it. It seemed his memory was only clarifying as the years went on, because the day Nicky first met Bee was stuck in his mind.

She was the only witch in Novigrad that sold the ingredients for many of the spells Aaron used for mental magick, and Andrew used for meditation. It didn’t take a genius to find out that these two idiot twins were practicing their hand at magick, but Bee never minded. Going on their runs for supplies was something of a sacred task not meant for eyes to follow, and yet Nicky followed them one day through the under roads and beneath a tunnel where they took a hard left up a flight of stares to the sunlight. Bee’s garden store was stationed there, surrounded in a glass dome.

Andrew fell into the memory.

The door was wide open when they approached, and he could hear a woman shouting inside. Aaron stepped in ahead, calling out for Bee, only to be dive-bombed by something black and feathery. Aaron ducked, and Andrew stepped towards the door as if to close it.

“No, keep it open! I’m trying to get it out,” Bee shouted, hurrying between the isles of plants. “Do me a favor and open those windows for me?”

Andrew moved over and began undoing the latches on the windows and propping them open. The bird had stopped on one of the rafters, panting heavily. As he moved on to the next, he missed the way Nicky, still on the outside, peered in through the open window as Bee waved a lid at the bird frantically, puffing air against its wings to try and get it back in motion.

The bird swooped again.

It landed on the window ledge next to Andrew.

“Push it out!” Aaron shouted.

“Be careful not to touch it! It’s bad luck!” Bee said.

Andrew took the lid from her when she came close enough, moving ever so slowly. He stilled as the bird turned a beady eye on him. It was panting hard, mouth open, feathers ruffled. He stared it down before swatting at it with the lid. He didn’t expect to hit it so hard, or to smack it straight into the semi-open window.

“Fuck!” Aaron shouted.

“Oh dear,” Bee said, hands in her hair. “We shouldn’t be killing crows…”

“Well,” Andrew said, flinging the lid away. “Shit happens.” Aaron gave him a disapproving glare as they listened to the bird hit the ground on the other side of the wall.

Bee frantically grabbed a leaf of some unidentifiable plant, a flower blossom, and a cup of water from the well. She hurried to the door and wandered around to the stairs beside her shop—the ones they ascended to get there. Nicky was out there, but he wasn’t spotted until Aaron and Andrew followed Bee out. They skidded to a halt at the top of the stairs, and, as Bee picked up the crow, Andrew said, “Nicky, what the fuck are you doing here?”

Nicky was smaller then, though his hair was twice the size it would be. He fidgeted with his shirt. “I wanted to see what you guys were doing…”

“Nicky? Nicky Hemmick?” Bee said, cradling the bird to her chest. Her eyes were wide, and Andrew translated it as panic. “The pastor’s son?”

“He’s cool,” Andrew said, and when Nicky turned to stare at him, trying to shake his head, he added, “Right?” His voice said it all, and Nicky was made too terrified to argue.

“Alright. Then come here,” Bee said, gesturing for them to get closer. “I’ll hold the crow out and you all grab hold of my arms.”

They came forward in the shadows of the building. Andrew placed his hands on her forearm, his pinkie just grazing the crook of her elbow. He looked to her face, and her tangled mess of black braids. They were loosening from the bun after chasing the crow around.

She used the water and poured it over the bird. The herbs remained crumpled in her hand beneath its body. Nicky stood before it, eyes wide as she closed her eyes and murmured the spell beneath her breath. It took several tries, but before long, the crow was panting again, and jumping to its feet.

Nicky squealed and laughed. “You—! It’s alive!” he cried, only to be shushed by Aaron.

Bee grinned, about to say something, but the crow squawked at them, shook its feathers, and took off away from the shop. “Well, it certainly did bring a bit of sorrow. Hope it doesn’t linger,” she said, brushing her hands on her skirts. “I better cleanse the place. Aaron, if you’d be so kind…?”

“Yes. Of course,” he said.

“What do you mean?” Nicky said, and followed after them eagerly back to the store. There, Bee explained the repercussions of a one-crow run-in, and passed him a bundle of sage. The instant Aaron lit the end of it, Nicky coughed and cried, “Smells like drugs!”

***

When they got back from the hideout hours later, dinner was ready and they weren’t hungry. They sat at the table anyways, for Nicky’s sake, and kept their eyes away from Luther when he reprimanded them for not being at the Spears house. They muttered apologies, and picked at their plates for a long while until eventually they were clean. Chores were managed afterwards, and the act of it was so familiar and painstakingly bland that Andrew’s mind glazed over it all. He wound up on the back porch, tired, and closing his eyes so he could shut out the sight of the ocean down below…

The instant his subconscious lulled in, it crashed back, and he jolted awake to a road on the cusp of nightfall. The transition was so startling, he flung himself to the side, only to realize he was on a horse, and Neil was screaming behind him as he crashed onto the road and rolled to the side, off into the ditch.

“Holy shit! Oh gods,” Neil said, dismounting from Roach and chasing Andrew down off the road. Andrew lifted himself onto his elbow, coughing, and clutching at his chest. “Are you alright?”

He waved Neil off. “Ask me that again and—” he gasped a little, out of breath, “—fuck.”

“No, seriously, are you okay?” he asked, and the question seemed far larger than a fall into the ditch. He looked up, squinting, and then at the scenery. He… remembered a night in the woods…

They were approaching the mountains.

“You passed out and were suddenly in a trance. I couldn’t wake you,” he explained. “I tried putting you in the bracers and taking you back out again, but it didn’t do anything.”

Andrew stared at the foothills in a daze until his arms gave out. He rolled onto his back, panting, and pushed his hands over his face. Distantly, he heard Neil ask what happened, and he just shook his head. “I have no clue. I have no fucking clue,” he said.

Chapter Text

“I don’t need sleep,” Andrew said that night. Neil studied him for a moment, but Andrew seemed content staring out the room window.

After what happened that day—Andrew, with his eyes rolled to the back of his head, mumbling under his breath from sunrise to sunset—Neil couldn’t argue with him. He didn’t want to test the odds and see if it would happen again. Whatever it was seemed to have shaken Andrew in ways Neil couldn’t comprehend. He had no desire to push it.

So, Neil fell asleep on his own, and woke up the following morning to the sunlight streaming in. He groaned against the pillow and forced himself up onto his hands, and then back onto his knees. He stared at the wall for a moment before moving to slouch off the bed and gather his things. He slipped his arms into his armor and buckled the front of it, followed by the sheathes for his swords. Andrew wasn’t anywhere in sight, and so he went to go search the premises.

He wandered down the hall, clasping his cloak around his neck as he went for the stairs. The hostel was small and condensed, which meant one look over the common room reassured him that Andrew wasn’t on the premises. Unless he snuck into someone’s room, he thought, but figured that was almost as likely as Andrew wanting to share the bed with him. Neil nearly stopped to ask the host if he saw a blonde-haired man with demon horns pass through there, but thought better of it. Chances were no one had seen a thing.

Neil walked out the front door and headed for the stables. Roach was being groomed by the stablehand when Neil approached. He hooked his thumbs on his belt and asked, “Has… Fox been acting alright? She’s been acting skittish lately.”

“She’s fine. Earlier this morning she was fussing, but hasn’t since.”

He left the stablehand to it. So Andrew had been through here. As he left the stables, pushing through the half-gated door, he looked down at his wrists and rubbed a hand over them. The heat speckled down his fingers, reminding him of the sensation of striking his sword against a solid object. It rang down his arms and past his elbow. He didn’t want to force Andrew back into the bracers just to find him.

He walked down the street a ways and distracted himself with a herbal shop on the corner of the street. It was raised up on a hill, and he took the steps up to the garden surrounding it. He walked the length of it, and jumped the stone ledge in the back. He narrowly missed stomping on the shrubbery when something in the air burst beside him. A flurry of floating embers fell with it, and revealed the shape of Andrew looking less impressed by the second.

“So you think treating me like a human will improve your chances with the Devil?” he asked.

“I just—” he started, but felt idiotic arguing with Andrew on the matter. “What would you prefer I do?”

“It’s not against the rules to cheat once in a while,” he said, and guided them back onto the street. “If you think I’m human, you’re able to cheat the laws of this realm to either A) get rid of me or B) summon me. You can’t do that with most servants.”

“Slaves. I told you—”

“Euphemisms, euphemisms,” Andrew said. “Bottom line: Stop fucking around and acting like my goddamn hero by humanizing me. I don’t need that shit.”

“Right, because you think me viewing you as human is synonymous with me pitying you,” Neil sighed. “Very heroic.”

Andrew turned on him, and Neil was forced to stop in the middle of the street. Andrew narrowed those animalistic red eyes—pupils slit and all. Neil wondered if Andrew could see in the dark as well as he could. His own pupils were a testament to his witcher genes, something that always unnerved his mother and puzzled his father. The blue was what tricked the world into thinking Neil and his father were just average humans.

Andrew jabbed him in the chest. “I’m fucking serious. If you knew what I was capable of, you’d quit treating me like this. I’m not some travel companion, alright?” he hissed, and smacked his hand down so their bracers clanked together. Neil resisted the urge to step away. “Just because you’ve got this safeguard doesn’t mean— You know what? That forest fire was nothing. That was a fucking spark compared to what I’ve done in the past.”

“I don’t care what you can do. I don’t need your protection,” Neil said, and Andrew turned away with a hiss. “I’m not asking for that!” he snapped, keeping his voice down. He caught the eyes of some people passing him by and realized he probably looked crazy talking to himself in the middle of the street.

He turned them off to the side, and pushed Andrew into the alley between residential stoops. Andrew snapped at him, flinging his arm out to smack Neil upside the head. Neil dodged him and grabbed him by the wrist.

“Don’t fucking touch me,” Andrew seethed, eyes flaming. His sneer pulled to reveal sharpening canines, and Neil watched the red swell across Andrew’s hand. It curved his fingers into sharp, fine points like solid, metallic claws.

Neil dropped him in an instant, only to have his necklace caught by Andrew yanking him forward. Their noses fell mere inches apart, and Neil struggled to pick which eye to stare at as Andrews skin turned black like charcoal. “Just because I can’t fight back and kill you doesn’t give you the right to touch me.”

“Okay. Okay! No touching,” Neil said, and staggered back in the instant Andrew dropped him. He leant against the stone wall, tugging on his necklace. It was still secure.

Andrew seethed, chest heaving. It occurred to Neil that, were it not for the bracers, he’d be dead by now. Those claws were sharp enough to cut a man’s throat with just a fine pierce. Andrew clenched them into fists and cranked it back with a furious shout, slamming it into the nearby wall. He punched a dent into the stone, and loosened the mortar. Pebbles fell out when he dislodged his hand and reeled back to strike again.

Neil flew forward without thinking. He darted his hand in front of Andrew’s target and said, “Whoa! Hey, calm down.”

Andrew hesitated, but only for a second. His eyes were down, and it wasn’t until he grabbed at Neil that he realized why. He grabbed the pommels of Neil’s throwing daggers and Neil, too shocked and scared to fight back, stood there with his arms up. The daggers clattered in the dirt. Andrew yanked a knife out from its sheathe and swung it up fast enough for Neil to shout in alarm, grabbing to stop him.

The silver knife stopped at the base of Andrew’s throat. The point pressed into his skin and drew thick, black blood. The pebble of it descended, dripping against the wool collar of his cloak.

“I’ll be back in a second. Just let me do it,” he hissed at Neil, who was frozen by the wave of guilt flushing through him. He didn’t want to do this. Andrew just told him a minute ago not to touch him, and yet there he was, holding Andrew’s wrist back from stabbing himself through the throat. This new emotion was too new for him to accurately respond to in the time Andrew gave him.

“No. Don’t—” Neil started, but Andrew pushed the knife in.

The blood bubbled like lava. It sent glowing red cracks across Andrew’s skin as his throat convulsed, and he spat blood up through his mouth. Neil nearly fell with him. He held onto the dent Andrew made in the wall and waited until Andrew’s body ruptured into embers. The knife clanked to the ground.

Neil pushed his back against the wall, and struggled to stay standing. What just happened? Did he do something wrong? Could he have prevented that reaction?

He didn’t get to sink in these thoughts for long, because a moment later, his bracers shot white-hot across his arms. He winced, looking at the sky so he wouldn’t get to see what expression was on Andrew’s face when the sparks reassembled. He waited as Andrew gathered the weapons one-by-one and stuck them into Neil’s belt.

“There. Not so bad,” Andrew said, and slapped Neil right on the crotch.

Neil doubled over with a grunt, only to be smacked upside the head for leaning forward. “Let’s get moving!” Andrew said, and marched out of the alleyway with a purpose.

Neil recovered and caught up in the next moment. His dick still hurt from the hit, but Andrew seemed to be back to normal from the looks of it. Whatever “normal” was, anyways.

***

The only inn in Yantra was a brick building with three stories, surrounded by similar residential homes all accompanied with iron fencing and dirty, white window frames. It took a little investigating and talking with the local people to find the place, but they arrived before dark. Their fifty mile journey was complete.

“Well, this is it,” Neil said, and looked to Andrew, who was flicking open his cigarette box to pull out a new one. “C’mon, we’re about to go inside.”

“Well, I’ll stay out here then,” he said, mocking Neil’s voice as he took to the iron fence. He propped himself against it and snapped his fingers. A flame caught on the end of the cigarette, and soon he was sucking down smoke like it was all he breathed.

Neil sighed in annoyance, and hoped Wymack wasn’t expecting him to be a decent guest. His ass hurt from horseback riding the past ten miles, and it felt like his feet were made of wood. He pushed past the creaky gate and made his ascent to the front door. When he glanced back at Andrew, he found the guy studying him, red eyes lingering for a moment before staring off down the street.

Inside, the room was filled with the evening light from the open windows. It was warmer here, and he shed his cloak in the process of approaching the main desk. A woman with blonde hair and a genuine smile was there, and Neil felt displaced. She was the sort of person who reminded Neil that he was as far from normal as possible.

Her gaze dropped to the amulet, as did her smile. “Oh. You must be here for David,” she said. “I’ll go fetch him.”

“Thank you, that’d be great,” Neil said, and smiled to let her know that everything was fine. Even if Allison disappeared, Matt seemed certain that it wasn’t for good.

As the woman hurried off, Neil turned back to the front door and tugged his gloves off. Allison was one of the best witchers in the guild. She was part of Matt’s elite group with Dan. From the outskirts, Neil might be considered one of them, but he was more of an apprentice than anything. He never considered himself to be a part of their elite group of expert witchers. He was just barely twenty. They all had half a century of fighting in them, maybe more. Allison wasn’t one to talk about her age, but she looked like a goddess considering her immortal complexion.

Just as he was considering her chances of mortality, a heavy set of boots approached from behind, and he turned to find an older man with greying hair walking through the backroom threshold.

“You must be from Allison’s guild,” he said, reaching a hand out. “David Wymack.”

“Neil Josten. Matthew Boyd sent me,” he said, and gave Wymack’s hand a firm shake. “I wish this was on different circumstances.”

“Agreed,” he sighed, straightening his shoulders back. He looked Neil up and down and raised an eyebrow. “You’re young for a witcher.”

Don’t mention that you’ve only been in the practice for three years… “I just look young,” he lied, and gestured to his hair. “The… auburn doesn’t help much.”

“I’ll say,” the woman said with a grin. “Abby. Nice to meet you.”

Neil nodded to her in acknowledgement. “So Matt didn’t have many details for me. Could we start before Allison was called in?” he asked, and Wymack gestured for him to follow.

They stepped into the back room and down a hall filled with dense lockers that looked more like vaults. Neil glanced at them sparingly before being distracted by something Wymack said. The room opened up fast, and displayed something of a library merged with an office. Abby followed them in and went to pour Neil a cup of tea. He sipped it as Wymack gestured for him to sit down.

“Well…” Wymack said, clasping his hands on the back of an arm chair. He leaned over it, staring at his hands. “It happened last month. Yantra isn’t exactly a small town, but word spread fast once farmers’ children started disappearing. We chalked the first two off as coyote attacks, but…”

“No tracks,” Neil assumed, and Wymack nodded. “Any bodies that you know of?”

“None. They just vanished.”

Sounds a lot like Seth. Not much to go off of, he thought. “What time of day has this happened?”

Wymack shared a look with Abby, who hummed thoughtfully, stirring her tea. “In the evening, I think. When you’d assume the coyotes to be out. We haven’t seen deer in a while, though,” she confessed. “Hunters have been having a tough time in the north.”

“Just the north?”

“Mostly,” Wymack said. “It’s a bit strange. Most of the hunting happens this time of year.” The edge of winter was traditionally the time of year to hunt. Next to spring. “But the southern edge of town has open fields. You normally find groups of turkeys around there.”

He didn’t want to think aloud, so he said nothing. It prompted Wymack to continue. “We lost five before gathering the money to hire a witcher to investigate the problem. All vanished in the same manner, except the last two were grown men and women. Allison arrived a week later. She talked to the families who lost people the night she arrived, and she never came back.”

“Really?” Neil said, startled. Wymack shrugged, as if to say that he was at a loss as well. “Have you talked to those families about it?”

“The last one to see her said they saw her walking to the woods. Said she was following the trail of where his wife disappeared.”

Neil glanced to the nearest window. It was getting dark out. “Alright. Considering what you’ve told me, it’s best to start tomorrow morning. Retrace Allison’s steps.”

“That seems fair to me,” Abby said. “We’ve lost one other, since Allison disappeared. I’ll write the names of the families. I can take you around and introduce them to you if that’d be easier?”

“That’d be lovely. Thank you,” he said as she sifted around the desk for an empty piece of paper and began writing names.

Wymack guided Neil out with a firm hand on his shoulder, and brought him out to the foyer. Neil let his eyes linger on Andrew for a moment, who smelled of smoke and stood off to the side where someone was playing a piano. He looked just like any other human when his eyes weren’t visible, or his horns weren’t front and center.

“I imagine you’ve already filled Allison’s room,” Neil commented.

“I saved it the way it was. Figured you’d want a look at it,” he confessed. “Afterwards I can have it cleaned out and you could stay—”

“No, no. That’s not necessary. Though I was wondering if I could have a room with two beds,” he said, and spared a look at Wymack, who seemed startled for only a moment.

“Allison asked the same. Her room has two for you,” he said, and sent Neil off to the steps in confusion. “Next floor up, all the way down to the left. Door’s unlocked—here’s the key.” He fetched it out of his back pocket and tossed it. Neil caught it and looked back only to find Wymack grinning like he knew something Neil didn’t. Perhaps he did.

As Neil climbed to the second floor, Andrew floated after him, and swung up over the railing on their stop. “What do you think the chances are?” Neil asked.

“High. When Matt found me I was the only one on the shelf. He put two other boxes there over time.”

“Shit,” Neil hissed. How could he have missed that? Matt collecting demons like they were trophies—it didn’t seem like his mentor at all. He felt like punching something, and it ached like it probably did for Andrew when he punched the wall. “If Matt knew what the problem here was, why didn’t he just come here himself?”

“What makes you think he knew,” Andrew said. They approached the door, and Neil hesitated to push it open.

“He wouldn’t have given you to me if this was an ordinary hunt,” he explained, and looked up at Andrew. “He must think you and whatever demon he gave Allison… I don’t know.”

“Maybe he’s just fucking with you,” Andrew scoffed, and Neil rolled his eyes.

He pushed open the door and together they walked in and observed the place. Both of the beds were still tangled—unmade  and suggesting two inhabitants rather than just one. Allison didn’t bring much—it was in their nature to keep their valuables close on hand and nothing extraneous.

Andrew went to the far bed, closest to the window, and said, “Hey—try your senses.”

“Thought you didn’t like them. Something about a headache,” Neil mocked, and Andrew glowered at him. Neil complied, though, and a moment later, the color drained, and all that was left was a collection of red across the room.

Footsteps paced around the bed. Neil followed them to the tangled sheets. An imprint was leftover from whoever laid there—shorter than Allison, whose imprint remained on the opposite bed. “A girl,” Neil said. “She’s smaller, though. Full-grown but smaller.”

“Wait,” Andrew said just as Neil was about to shut off his senses. He pointed to the print the girl’s hand made on the pillow. There were circles on the pads of her fingers—a darker red. Andrew turned his palm up.

“What does that mean? Did you get those before or after dying?” Neil asked.

“Before,” he said. “I didn’t think it was…”

Neil waited, but Andrew said nothing, staring at the girl’s markings before Neil let the image vanish. He had a hunch, and decided to go with it. “You practiced witchcraft,” he said, and Andrew looked up sharply. It was enough of an agreement. “I don’t care, honestly. I’m more interested in monsters. Witches aren’t monsters.”

“Some would say otherwise,” he said.

“The majority of my guild would say the same. There’s always a bit of argument about witches who practice black magic but—”

Andrew’s eyes sharpened, narrowing on him. He stopped to recalculate. “Black magic did this to you.”

“Maybe you’re not as much of an idiot as I thought,” Andrew said stiffly, leaning back against the window frame. He nodded to the bed. “But it sounds like she did the same, whoever’s with your friend Allison.”

“Allison is not my friend,” he corrected, and Andrew raised an amused eyebrow. “What do you think the chances are of this monster being involved with black magic.”

“Slim,” Andrew said. “More likely it’s involved with demons.”

“I considered that. But the demon would need a place to stash the bodies. They can’t take humans out of this realm as far as I know,” Neil said.

“Who’s to say Allison wasn’t following that track when she disappeared?” Andrew said, and Neil answered with a frown. “Doesn’t look like she left much behind.”

“We don’t tend to have much we can’t store in our saddlebags,” Neil explained. He never really knew a life outside of a rucksack. Seemed life on the road made him equipped to deal with the witcher lifestyle.

Andrew shook his box of cigarettes and took to the windowsill. Neil dropped onto the bed and unlaced his boots. The window let out a deafening creak when Andrew cracked it open a tad. Neil watched from over his shoulder as Andrew let out a shudder before the winter breeze even approached Neil. He walked over and sat on the opposite side of the windowsill, reaching for the box.

“Surprise, surprise. The man smokes,” Andrew hummed out of the corner of his mouth. He lit the cigarette for Neil before passing it over. He blew smoke out through the window crack. “If I didn’t know any better I’d say you’re worried about Allison.”

“She can handle herself,” Neil said. “She’s not dead.”

Andrew laughed.

“It’s not funny. She isn’t dead. If she was, Matt would have felt more obligated to do this himself,” he insisted, taking a sharp breath in. The smoke fell heavy in his chest before he expelled it. He grimaced at the taste. He looked disgustedly at the cigarette and muttered, “Now I remember why I quit.”

“More for me.”

“I didn’t say I wouldn’t finish it,” Neil argued, and laughed when he saw Andrew grinning with his head back against the wall. He smiled as he unbuckled his holsters and leant the swords off to the side. “When did you pick this up?”

“Fifteen. Though it wasn’t a cigarette,” he said. “Don’t even remember where I got it. You?”

“Ten. My father used to smoke.”

“Damn. You beat me.”

“I wouldn’t call it that. I quit once I was on my own,” he said. “How did it happen?” Andrew waited for him to expand upon it. Neil looked down at his foot as he propped it up on the sill. “Becoming a demon.”

“I don’t know,” Andrew lied, and Neil pursed his lips in frustration. “For someone who lies to every inn host, you sure don’t know how to take it.”

Neil laughed, turning his eyes to the window. “Yeah, well, I don’t like talking about myself to people. Who are alive, that is.”

“Oh really?” Andrew said, grinning.

“Yeah, really.”

“How well does Matthew know you?”

Not at all, he thought, and Andrew picked it up well enough to stretch his grin wider.

“I’m one lucky guy then, hm Josten?” he said, and raised his cigarette up before flicking the butt out the window. “I need a drink. I’m gonna go see what Wymack’s got stashed in the cellar.”

“What makes you think they’ve got a cellar?”

“You’ve got your little witcher senses, and I’ve got my alcohol senses,” he said, jumping off the sill. He turned back to wink at Neil before swinging around and heading for the door. He snapped the cigarette box shut and stuck it in the pocket of his pants on his way out.

***

The farther north they got, the colder it became. In the foothills of the mountains, it didn’t take long for Andrew to slam the window shut and be scolded twice for trying to start a fire.

He came back with a full bottle of rum, and downed half of it claiming alcohol didn’t effect him much at all these days. Neil figured he was lying, but Andrew never defended himself to Neil’s thoughts as he drank away. He claimed the bed farthest from the window in hopes of finding warmth under the covers, Neil watched him draw up the covers over his head so that only the bottle was visible when he tipped it up.

Neil reclined back on his pillows and ignored the subtle way Andrew’s teeth clacked like it was a normal everyday thing. He couldn’t imagine spending his afterlife in a constant state of near-freezing. Truthfully, Neil was more of a summer-all-the-time kind of guy. He used to run for miles in the heat like the sun wasn’t burning the skin off his back. He wasn’t sure when the last time he ran shirtless was, though. It must have been when he was a kid, but even then he was self-conscious about… everything.

He listened to Andrew’s blankets shift. He turned his head and watched the demon tip over and curled up on the bed with an empty bottle in his hands. His eyes were shut, knees curled to his chest. After a short moment of debating, and no rebuke for his mental train of thought, Neil got up and tugged his blankets with him. He tore the sheets off his bed and flung them over Andrew.

“What’re you doin’…” Andrew moaned, twisting around under the growing mound of blankets. Neil flopped down next to it all, making sure to have several layers between them and a pillow to boot.

“Making sure you’re warm,” Neil said, turning to his side so he faced the window, away from where Andrew lifted the blankets to squint at him. “I don’t move much when I sleep. I’ll just stay here.”

He settled in, and watched the moon outside halo the mountains. After several minutes, the bed shifted as Andrew moved, and twisted the blankets around until his back pressed against Neil’s through the mounds of knitted wool and quilt.

Chapter Text

Andrew tended to accidentally drink too much too often. This was one of those moments, because he was drunk enough to be stupid enough to fall asleep.

And it went worse than last time.

He remembered the long, first, dark hours spent in the bracers. They were petrifying and cold, and his first thought was, Shit, I actually just killed myself didn’t I? Well this afterlife is shitty. He had hoped death would bring some sort of relief to his conscious, but instead it brought an existential torrent of: An eternity to think of what you’ve done.

And then… Luther found him.

He wasn’t sure what to make of it at first, but he saw a vague shape of the floor disappearing from beneath him. It was more of a memory than actual reality—foggy around the edges, not quite clear, but Luther’s face was recognizable enough through the fog. Andrew’s thoughts twisted into a tight bunch, wondering if this was it. The final straw.

“What is it?” Maria’s voice broke through, and soon she was peering over Luther’s shoulder as he twisted Andrew around in his hands.

“I don’t know. The boys didn’t clean up after they were done outside yesterday. Have you seen them?”

“No. I figured they might have taken Nicky over to Erik’s again. I should really give Erik’s mother a piece of my mind. You think she knows her son is a twink?” she asked, and Luther huffed. “Where could they have gotten those?”

“No clue. I have no use for them,” he said, and walked back inside with Maria close in step.

The sunlight said that it was morning, but the day could only last so long. Andrew wished he could sit back and relax, but his nerves were in a knot. He couldn’t remember how this went, but he knew either way what the ultimate course of action would be. After wondering about the whereabouts of Nicky, Maria grabbed her coat, muttering furiously under her breath about how she’d tear Erik’s mother apart for this. Luther sat at his desk, only to look up at the bracers and grab them.

“See if Erik enlisted. He might get some use out of these,” he said.

Maria took them. “Else I’ll stop by the Spears. Their son gets back tonight.”

“It’s been that long already? Give him my best.”

Andrew wished some things would change. Had he had the chance, and had Erik actually enlisted, Andrew would have done everything to keep that kid safe if it meant he wouldn’t have to fall into the hands of some other shitty soldier. He thought about it frequently enough back in the day that he was convinced that Erik was the single best entity known to mankind that was still living. Nicky would have been the first, but he wasn’t around anymore.

Maria stashed Andrew away in a bag and tossed him over her shoulder. He shuddered in the dark and clutched at his hair. Don’t let this go like last time. Don’t let this go like last time, he thought, wondering just how long he’d be in control this time. Perhaps if he kept his head, he’d be able to hide in the bracers longer this time. He’d just wait it out. Drake will think the bracers are defective and nothing more. He’d try and get them off, and fail, and die in battle before long.

Maria knew the neighborhood well, and so the walk to the Klose residence took longer than expected. She stopped at just about every smiling face and asked how they were doing, though it was obvious that every one would say, “Fine, thank you. And yourself?” It was nauseating to listen to it, especially when Andrew was trying so damn hard to keep his shit together. All he had to do was hope that Drake wouldn’t summon him like Neil did—by accident, that is. He couldn’t fight against the pull, but the instant the bracers latched on, it felt like freedom for a split second before realizing that being in the world came with a price.

Then, they were at the Klose’s red-painted front door, and Maria was knocking hard on it with a stiff, false smile. When the door opened, it revealed Erik’s mother, who looked like the gods just shat on her doorstep.

“Maria… lovely surprise,” she said, hand on her hip as she glanced Maria up and down, unimpressed. “To what do I owe the pleasure?”

Maria straightened sharply, clearing her throat. “My son didn’t come home last night. Please check your son’s room.”

“He isn’t here,” a voice sounded from down the hall. Mrs. Klose turned to the side, displaying Erik standing there looking concerned. “Was he out with Andrew and Aaron?”

“Yes. I figured they might have brought him here seeing they’re so good at influencing him to do stupid things,” Maria remarked, and Mrs. Klose pulled the door to block Erik out.

“I told you not to speak to him like that. He’s my son, and I don’t appreciate you—”

“Luther wanted to know if your son has enlisted yet,” Maria said, turning her nose up. Startled, Mrs. Klose crossed her arms and looked away. “I’ll take that as a no.”

“He’s apprenticing with his father. His eyesight isn’t all that great, either. Military didn’t want him,” she said. “I’d say it’s a good thing. We don’t believe in the war, you know.”

“Yes, I’m very aware of where you stand,” Maria said, and as she turned, she glared at Erik and stormed down the steps. Andrew cursed. Fuck, I’m so totally screwed.

***

The Spears residence was a walk across the southern side of the city, up above the under roads. Andrew cherished every last speck of supposed freedom during that walk. His odds of getting out of this before dark were slim. How did he break the cycle before? Was it just an all-day thing, or was there something more to it?

When you fall asleep you wind up here. When you fall asleep here, you wake up on the other side, he told himself, but how could he sleep in the bracers? He never once slept during that century Matt kept him on the shelf. His conscious just didn’t work that way. In the bracers, he didn’t have a body to preserve, or energy to restore. That meant—

—he’d have to escape the bracers to sleep. The only way to do that would be to give himself away to Drake.

Think: How did it go last time?

Maria was making her way up a set of stone steps when Andrew reminded himself of the time Maria walked in and offered the bracers to Drake, who had arrived earlier than expected. Drake, who spent the entire day with his mother because that was all she wanted. If Drake was distracted enough, chances were Andrew could run off to the brink of the radius—he’d have to spawn somewhere discrete, like in the other room where Drake would only be confused by the pain shooting through his wrists, and not the sound of Andrew bursting into shape away from him. Yes, that could work, but Andrew couldn’t exactly control his sleep cycle, now could he? He wasn’t exactly the sort of guy who could snap his fingers and start snoring in an instant. He’d have to convince himself that he was entirely safe.

Fat chance.

Andrew could feel his nerves getting the best of him. He wished he could shut off his brain and be done with it. His fingers were already sharpening, blackening at the tips where the red marks faded. His canines nicked his lips as Maria climbed onto the front porch of the Spear residence. He kept his cool this long—just a little bit longer and he’d be back in that stupid inn with that idiot witcher. Neil, that stupid fucking idiot who needed to stop thinking about Andrew before one of them would do something even more asinine. The amount of shit that kept floating through Andrew’s head was enough for any person with a brain to spit at.

Maria knocked on the door.

She offered a more pleasant smile when Cass Spear answered the door. She pulled the bag off her shoulder and held it out to Cass in greeting.

“What’s this?” she asked.

“Something for Drake,” Maria said, smiling sweetly. “Something to keep him safe after he leaves again.”

“How thoughtful! Actually, would you like to come in and give it to him yourself?”

Andrew shut his eyes as Maria got oh-so surprised, saying how lucky it was that Drake came back so soon, hours earlier than they expected. Maria would distract Drake. They’d have a little family tea party, and Andrew would be out of here in a matter of minutes. He squeezed his eyes shut, but nothing could escape his mind when his consciousness wasn’t attached to a physical form. He could see everything through the cloudy, black fog. The foyer, the sitting room, the balcony beyond the kitchen where Drake lounged against the railing, forearms pressed to the wooden ledge. He turned at the sound of Maria’s voice, and offered a lazy smile. His actions were just as innocent to Maria as they were in the church, sitting in the pew behind them, paying more attention to the back of Andrew and Aaron’s heads than Luther’s voice at the altar.

He hugged Maria around the shoulders and clapped his hand on her back as he pulled away. “I hear you have something for me.”

“Just a little something Luther picked up,” she said, handing the bag over. No—no, no, no— “For when you go back.”

The instant Drake reached in the bag and his fingers brushed over the bracers, Andrew’s entire being was shaking. It felt like the world shattered around him. The cuffs shocked Drake’s hand, and he pulled back with a hiss and shook out his fingers. “Arm bracers?” he asked.

“Yeah. We figured you already have military-grade armor, but this will fit under anything they have. Extra protection, I suppose,” she said. “I don’t know much about what the military gives you.”

Andrew was shaking, wishing he could clutch at a chest that didn’t exist. He heard the echo of Cass suggesting Drake try them on, but it couldn’t be possible. None of this was real. It was all in his head. It’s all fake. Why was his brain doing this to him? He felt his screams choke up in the abyss. He didn’t have a voice to shout with, let alone demand Maria take the bag back.

Drake succeeded in taking him out into the sunlight. Andrew froze. Not wanting to familiarize himself with the sensation of Drake rubbing his hands down the bracers, he stuck himself in the loop of his plan. Spawn in the other room. Run to the backyard. Jump to the under roads. Nearest alley—sleep it off.

The bracers clasped on and sealed. The heat swelled, insisting Andrew break free this instant. He was able to, wasn’t he? He held back, though, gathering up every last ounce of self-restraint to stay put until after Drake complained to Maria that he couldn’t find a way to get them off. Maria laughed nervously, and twisted Drake’s hand around to see that the seal had completely vanished. Cass insisted they looked nice, though, and that they could worry about taking them off later. After tea and coffee.

Andrew felt like his mind, for a moment completely free, was now confined in a box that shrunk with each passing minute he spent chained to Drake’s wrists. The moment Drake was in his seat, Andrew took Maria’s chattering as the chance to escape. The opening was still there, waiting for his mind to flee the bracers.

He bolted out, burning Drake’s wrists as he did. Drake nearly dropped his coffee, only to freeze when the embers collected in the other room, in view of the archway beyond Maria’s shoulders. Andrew staggered to a stop, attention frozen by Drake’s eyes caught on his. Drake’s jaw dropped, and his reaction prompted Maria to look back and search the room. Cass walked straight pass Andrew with a pleasant, “Lovely day out. We should spend it out on the porch.”

“I—” Drake started, eyes only leaving Andrew’s when Maria turned back to him with a peculiar look.

“Did you see something?” she asked.

Andrew stayed absolutely still as Drake stiffened as if to stand. A shudder crawled up Andrew’s back as he processed the torrent of thoughts flitting over Drake’s mind, chief among them being, “They can’t see him.”

“No, nothing,” he said, returning back to his usual, pseudo-pleasantness. As soon as he said it, Andrew darted for the door. He didn’t hesitate when Drake bolted to his feet, only to have to make excuses to his mother about, “Yes, the porch sounds nice.”

Andrew flew through the front door and across the yard. He lunged over the ledge beyond the street and dropped down to the under roads. He couldn’t go much farther than that without risking teleportation—not that Drake knew that yet. Were that the case, he probably would have suggested the backyard, just to force Andrew closer.

Andrew flopped onto the ground, looking up to the street above him. Distantly, he heard Cass talking, Drake answering, and Maria laughing. Panting hard, Andrew rubbed at his wrists and hoped to the gods that Drake wouldn’t think to summon him. He didn’t know how yet, and it’d take time before Drake could do anything about it. He wasn’t raised like Neil was, accustom to elements of magick.

He leant his head back against the stone blocks and sighed. He was in control. He wasn’t going to lose his shit. Even if it was all just a dream, he didn’t know what the repercussions would be if he set the entire city aflame. He was in control. He was safe.

He closed his eyes and waited for sleep.

***

Andrew burst awake to the sound of someone talking at the door. Flinging himself off the bed, he tripped over the blankets and cursed on his way to the floor. Someone swore at the door, and instantly Neil was saying, “I’ll be down in a minute! Sorry for making you worry—”

“Is your demon alright—” Abby was saying, but Neil shut the door in her face.

Andrew’s hair was slick against his forehead. He pushed it back, hands passing over one of his horns. He grabbed onto it like it was the only thing grounding him now. He slammed his other fist on the floor with a colorful, “Fuck. Holy shit!”

“What is it? What happened?” Neil demanded, yanking the blankets off of him. He twisted onto his side, kicking his legs to shed the sheets. Though he was shaking, he wasn’t cold.

Andrew pressed his forehead to the floor, fists clenched so those long, black nails dug into his flesh. Black blood sprouted between his fingers. He told himself never to fall asleep again. He’d rather die by the hands of Neil’s sword than go through that again. He was simply lucky it was the first day this time—next then he knew, he’d be a year into his servitude with Drake Spear.

“Andrew,” Neil said, getting down onto his knees. He couldn’t look up, knowing his eyes were likely the color of blood, and his skin black charcoal. “Please.”

“Gods, I hate that word,” he bit out.

Neil said nothing, only sat there and waited for Andrew to calm down. It took several minutes before he was able to breathe again, and raise his face off the ground. He rubbed a clawed hand over his forehead and eyes before staring at Neil’s chest. “I’m fine,” he hissed.

“Okay. You’re fine,” Neil said, and the sound of it sent a shuddering breath out of Andrew’s chest. “Are you hungry?”

Andrew rubbed a hand over his stomach. He forgot what it felt like to be hungry, but he was always craving food. “Sure. Yeah, I guess,” he said.

“Abby brought some food up earlier. She made extra for you,” Neil explained, getting to his feet. Andrew struggled to follow suit, using the bed to level himself. He left a black handprint on the sheets.

Neil passed him his plate in silence. Andrew stared at it, and slowly lowered himself onto the windowsill, one hand still clutching his stomach. He wasn’t hungry at all. “I’m not sleeping again,” he said aloud, mostly so that he’d have someone responsible for his declaration.

“I won’t let you sleep again,” Neil said, and Andrew glared at him. “What?”

“I don’t need your help with that,” he said.

Andrew seethed for several seconds until his appetite returned. He dug into the plate and shoveled food in his mouth out of pure anger. His hands were shaking by the end of it, trying not to burn the plate to smithereens. After a frantic moment of setting the plate aside and rubbing his hands on his legs, he burst them into flames and rubbed his palms over his face and across his hair. Once settled, he cut the fire short and found Neil staring at him from across the room.

“Good?” Neil said, and Andrew nodded. The action felt more like he was trying to convince himself rather than Neil. “Alright. Let’s go. Abby’s walking us around the neighborhood to talk to the families.”

“You say ‘us’ as if she knows about me.”

“Allison’s demon is Renee. I told her about you,” Neil said, shrugging as if it meant nothing. Andrew stared at him like he’d grown a second head. “What? Do you know Renee?”

Andrew gave him a weird look of annoyance. “What makes you think I know Renee?”

Neil shrugged. “I don’t know. You’re both demons—maybe you both… you know.”

“What?”

“I don’t know! What do you want me to say?” Neil whined. Andrew got to his feet and started for the door. “Well, sorry for assuming demons know each other. I don’t know what the fuck’s going on these days.”

“Neither do I,” Andrew muttered, and pointedly glared at Neil before stepping over the threshold.

He could feel Neil’s guilt like a coat of slime on his shoulders. He tried to shake it off and failed, which only made his desire to cuss Neil out stronger. The guy didn’t exactly deserve it (unless idiots deserve to be cussed out, which Andrew tended to think they did).

“Listen,” Neil started, and Andrew resisted the urge to close his eyes and groan in annoyance. “If something happens today with that monster, I don’t want you to feel obligated to help me. I dragged you into this against your will—I won’t make you fight whatever’s out there on top of that.”

“Who else is gonna save your ass if not me?” Andrew said.

“You don’t have to save me. I don’t need your protection, trust me” Neil hissed, voice low. They were at the stairs now, likely to be heard by anyone in the foyer if they didn’t keep it down. Andrew wondered the chances of Neil feeling just how furious he was. They were slim, but his anger felt palpable.

“Don’t tell me what to do,” Andrew snapped, not bothering to keep his voice down. It wasn’t like the world could hear him anyways. “You don’t even know what I’m capable of, and you’re an idiot for dismissing it, especially with whatever shitshow that’s waiting out there. You think if Allison couldn’t take it, you can?”

“I’m not saying that—”

“Then stop fucking saying anything at all,” Andrew snapped, shoving Neil by the shoulder. Neil staggered towards the stairs, vexed and letting Andrew know what the look he shot Andrew’s way.

Andrew seethed in silence down the steps. Neil made it abundantly clear from the start that Andrew held no obligations towards him, which just meant that Andrew’s fierce determination to protect Neil must have been borne from something else. He blamed it on the fact that Neil was as idiotic as they came, which would require a great deal of effort on Andrew’s part to protect him. They’d be going up against gods know what, and they’d be doing it because Neil was stupid enough to take the deal with Matt Boyd.

This kid is unbelievable, Andrew huffed internally, arms crossed as he watched Neil greet Abby with a smile. Neil probably fooled Abby with it, too. Anyone who smiled like that would be able to fool anyone into thinking they weren’t secretly burning from the inside out.

It took a severe amount of control to quell the heat spilling over his fingertips in hot white flames. He clenched his fists and stuck them in the pockets of his jacket beneath the cloak. It was the best he could do, considering when he walked out the door after Abby and Neil, Abby commented with a glance towards Andrew. “He’s there, right?”

“Genius,” Andrew said, gesturing to Abby before swinging his hand to Neil. “Idiot.”

Neil ignored him. “Yes. How’d you know?”

“Renee also had a hot streak. She could control fire well.”

“Andrew does the same. I wouldn’t say he controls it, though,” Neil said, and just for that Andrew flicked an ember at him. Neil swatted it away, though seemed to realize that Andrew’s flames couldn’t even touch him. If they could, Drake would have been burnt to a crisp over a century ago. “He doesn’t like me very much.”

Abby laughed behind her hand as Neil tried his best to ignore Andrew. When it became clear no amount of fire-displays were going to distract Neil, Andrew took to following behind with his arms crossed, and glare focusing on every passerby like they had some vendetta against him. Neil kept up with Abby’s quick pace, leading the way through the city and closer to the country homes out near the forests. They broke away from the city, feet clapping on the stone walkway. She wore high-waisted trousers lined with felted fabrics for the winter air. Andrew’s anger kept him from feeling the cold.

They stopped at an iron gate, though Andrew stuck to the far corner of the lawn away from them, pretending he wasn’t at all a part of their group. Abby pushed the gate in and held it for Neil.

“Here we are. First stop. You want me to introduce you to them?”

“No—I’ll manage. I’m only here to listen to their story anyways,” he explained. “Andrew’s festering over in the corner there if you want to talk to him.”

Neil followed the walkway to the front porch. Andrew clenched his teeth and glowered after the guy before realizing that Abby really was coming for him. A strong desire to bend the iron fence posts ruptured inside of him, but he gathered the pieces back together and shoved them into a box within the abyss of his subconscious where impulses like that went to brood before springing up at unannounced moments. Aaron always badgered him about it, but it didn’t stop him from collecting impulses for when the moments arose.

“Andrew, right?” Abby said, coming to lean against the fencing not far from him. She looked at the ground near his feet. “I suppose it won’t be damning to mention to you that I’ve dealt with kids like you before. Well, not generally cursed demons, but spirits here and there.”

His eyebrow rose, but he showed no other sign of surprise. Bee was a bit obvious with her witchy-nature, but Abby looked… entirely innocent. She hardly seemed like the sort to dabble in magick, let alone spirits.

“It’s still frowned upon these days,” she explained. “My mother was a witch. She lost her left hand to witchcraft. Nothing like losing your entire body to a curse, granted, but some people from the city found out and she narrowly escaped. She was chained to a post on the shore before high-tide. Cut her own hand off to get out.”

Andrew leant against the fence, and it creaked behind him. Abby turned to him, and for a split second, their eyes met. In that moment, a shot of fear went through him and he realized that he really didn’t want to be seen by anyone, least of all a stranger he barely met.

“Renee talked to me through Allison,” she said, searching for something solid in the air Andrew occupied. She looked down again. “She said she couldn’t remember much from the ritual that caused this. I was wondering if you remembered anything. I’ve been trying to figure out what it was ever since Renee talked to me, but I haven’t had any luck.”

As if I’d tell anyone what I had to do to be dealt this shitty of a hand, he thought.

Abby prepared to speak again, and didn’t get farther than clearing her throat because Neil was on his way over with a piece of paper with a photo clipped to it.

“I got the name and photo of their missing kid. They didn’t see anything, but I told them I’d look out for their child,” he explained, waving the photo at them before passing it to Andrew. Andrew spared a look at it and accidentally burnt the edge of it. He handed it back with a half-hearted apology.

Neil folded it sharply, pinning Andrew with a glare. Abby took the photograph and examined it. A wistful expression came to her face, and she tugged a finger over her mouth as she passed the photo back. “Right, well, then I suppose we should keep moving then.”

She walked ahead, leaving Neil and Andrew to glare at one another. Neil gestured frantically to Abby, his thoughts screaming, Just try to be nice to her! while Andrew jabbed his fingers at the papers in Neil’s hand, thoughts screaming, You’re such a self-destructive idiot for taking this on! The main difference between them was the fact that Andrew heard every word in Neil’s silent fury, and Andrew kept his to himself.

Neil threw down his hands and started after Abby. Andrew stuck his tongue out at Neil’s back, but stopped short when he stared at the visually impeccable shape of Neil’s back. The armor made his shoulders broader than usual, but it just emphasized his narrow waist, and— Andrew put a hand over his forehead to check if he had a temperature. Of course he had a fucking temperature—he might as well have been made of lava at that point.

He supposed Neil was on the better-looking side of things. Those blue eyes really did him justice, though. Andrew never heard of a witcher with blue eyes. The legends always said golden like dragon’s eyes. Really, Andrew shouldn’t have even been staring at them often enough to know.

You’re being ridiculous. You can’t let anything happen, he told himself, dragging his hand down the side of his face.

The louder half of his brain screamed, You let him sleep in the same bed as you! How more pathetic can you get? YOU. The same guy who single-handedly destroyed an entire city out of spite.

“You’re being very docile today, Andrew,” Maria had said.

Andrew shook his head, and tugged at his horns to ground himself again. No floating away today, or ever.

Abby accompanied Neil to the door this time, and so, by default, Andrew followed. He felt his anger twist in his chest like something he’d never felt before, and it had a little something to do with just how many strangers in this town were like Drake. It wasn’t exactly his goddamn mission to prevent something like that from happening to anyone. Andrew was out and that was all that mattered. Why should he be worrying about anyone other than himself? These strangers couldn’t even touch him.

But they could hurt Neil.

“—I was on the other end of the field. My girl… was playing out on the track between the fields,” the man said, and cleared his throat as he rubbed a hand over his brow. “I was helping dig out the rocks and she was doing—I don’t know what. Jumping in puddles. It just rained that night.”

“How long were you two out there?” Neil asked.

“Two hours. She helped in the fields once in a while and then would go off to run around,” he explained. “And I turned away to wheel the cart and… this… It sounded like a burst of air, and all of the trees…”

“Like a wind came through,” Neil concluded, and the man nodded, twisting his hands around his shirt. “Did you hear anything else?”

“Her scream,” he said, shaking his head. “But when I looked back, it almost looked like something was missing. Like there was a tear through the horizon. It was just… blackness.”

Andrew knew the feeling. He knew it as a feeling—the pit of the arm bands. The great black abyss of what could only be described as hell considering he wouldn’t have gone to heaven in the afterlife even if he had the chance. It was a split in the fabric of the universe from which Andrew peered out through a dirty crystal ball and saw his surroundings. But what this man was describing wasn’t within the confines of a person’s mind. This was palpable.

He crossed his arms and listened to the inner workings of Neil’s mind, trying to piece together the puzzle. It took a moment before Neil spared a glance at Andrew, and realized that Andrew already had it put together.

“Could you show me where this happened?” Neil asked, and he sent a visual—accidentally—to Andrew of the world washed over in grey. Witcher senses.

The man glanced at Abby, who nodded encouragingly. He shut the door slowly behind him and locked it. He led them out back, through the open fence. The sky was just as clear as the day before, and colder still. It took several sparks to kick the flames into gear from where he walked far behind Neil’s group.

Nothing spectacular laid at the scene aside from red tracks leading to the woods. Andrew’s theory revolved around a pocket of existence only the demon could access, and if that were the case, did Andrew also have one? The only solution he could fathom was that the black void the farmer saw acted like the arm bands, only the demon could toss in victims as they wished. Could humans survive the abyss? Could witchers, for that matter?

The farmer left them to investigate, and Abby saw him off down a ways before backtracking to where Neil and Andrew were walking the trail back to the forest.

“Did you find anything?” she asked.

“Just tracks,” Neil confessed, and tried to catch Andrew’s eye and failed. Andrew kept his gaze elsewhere—on the horizon, mostly. “We’ll follow them as far as they go. It’s probably better that you stay back from here. I’ll meet you back in town?”

She agreed and said her farewells. Andrew side-stepped her, and she hesitated at the sensation his radiant heat gave off. “I’ll see you back at the inn, Andrew.”

Andrew kept his mouth shut and watched her walk off before Neil scoffed and said, “She’s kissing up to you.”

He reached into his coat pocket and produced the cigarette box. He shook one out, hand trembling in the cold as he lit it. When he said nothing, and Neil refused to move on, Andrew took the first drag before passing the cigarette to him. Neil lifted it between his fingers and put it to his lips.

They lingered out in the field a while longer until the cigarette was nothing more than a nub. Andrew didn’t mind the silence, and Neil seemed content not discussing the case. When all was said and done, Andrew dropped the blackened butt to the ground and rubbed it into the dirt with his boot.

“Let’s go,” he said.

Chapter Text

Neil took the lead beneath the trees. He kept his senses heightened, fading the colors so the track was more visible. He figured it helped Andrew cope without having to swap back and forth between color and black and white. They walked for an hour through the forest, and were it not for Neil’s certainty, he might have thought they were barking up the wrong tree. The track wasn’t human or animal, and more… scattered. Ghostly. It brushed against trees and branches, and every now and then the taller blades of grass caught flecks of red like blood on them. He rubbed his fingers over a leaf drenched in it.

“Feels like charcoal,” he said, though there wasn’t any color to it. He turned off his senses just to double-check. He turned to Andrew, who was more or less bored by this point. He no longer felt the need too stay grounded on their journey, and instead floated up over Neil’s head and swooped down to investigate the leaf.

“Wouldn’t be surprised,” Andrew said, and Neil waited for an expansion. He sighed. “Because my fingers feel like wood when they’re clawed. Blend that with fire and boom, you’ve got charcoal. Whoop-di-doo.”

“Can I see?” Neil asked, and realized quickly that was the wrong thing to ask. The flat look Andrew sent his way proved it. “Never mind.”

He turned and continued walking, flicking his witcher senses back on by squeezing his fingers between the spikes of his fox amulet. A moment later, Andrew stuck his hand out from above. Neil stuttered to a stop, staring at it, and then up to where Andrew was pouting and looking in the other direction.

Andrew’s fingers elongated to accommodate the nails. They curved and flattened at the ends, faded to a deep, charcoal black that faded near his second knuckle. Neil reached up and dragged a finger down Andrew’s nail. He could pierce someone’s heart with these. Andrew’s nails left behind a chalky texture on Neil’s skin.

A violent shudder racked through Andrew before Neil could go much further. He yanked his hand away.

“Alright—that’s enough,” he said, clutching his wrist as he clenched his hand into a fist. “Where to next?”

Neil turned his back to Andrew, aware then that Andrew’s bloodshot eyes were enveloped in a halo of blackened skin. He cleared his throat, and his vision in the process turned grey. Neil rubbed a hand through his hair as he searched the premises for leftover tracks.

The place they wandered to was covered in red.

“Shit,” Andrew hissed.

A whirr of wind passed through the trees. Any average person would have assumed it was just a breeze, but Neil knew better. He looked up, and over to where Andrew’s cloak stilled in the air. The forest fell silent in the split second Neil realized that he needed to know where the beast might have taken Allison. If the void really was what he thought it was—something akin to Andrew’s bracers—then he wouldn’t be able to access it if he killed the demon.

He smashed his bracers together and scraped one hand forward.

Andrew shouted, “Wait, no—!” but he burst into specks of fire. The sparks collected on Neil’s bracers just in time for him to catch sight of something red rushing at him through the trees. It left the branches swaying in its path, and Neil took off with a curse, lunging for the nearest boulder and kicking himself up to a ledge on the rocky terrane. Trees grew from the cracks, and he used one to swing across a break in the mountain.

He climbed until the wind ceased, and his feet landed heavy on the stone. He drew his silver sword, and uncorked a vial of oil from his belt. Panting, he doused it over the sword and slicked his gloved hand through it. He rubbed his fingers together, flicking his sword to the side as he searched the trees below. He couldn’t focus hard enough to summon his senses, and it was impossible to see what would be coming until it was too late.

He clasped onto his fox amulet so tightly, the spikes felt as though they were piercing through his leather gloves.

When the world turned grey, he only had a few seconds to process the figure in the trees settling onto its feet. Neil hesitated at the shape of it—human, but with horns twice the length of Andrew’s and the skin around its eyes permanently etched in deep lines of black. The red filter made it difficult for Neil to pick out much else, but as it moved, Neil moved with it, holding his sword up as it reached a hand overhead, and pulled an object from thin air.

Allison’s guild amulet.

“Looking for something,” it said, voice warped but still recognizable as a man. It felt like he was hearing it through a long, metal tube being battered on from the outside. Seeing Allison’s amulet sent a chill through his chest he couldn’t shake. “Pity you’re alone. I had a lot of fun with the other’s demon.”

“Where are they,” Neil hissed, teeth clenched. The image of the demon seemed to evaporate, flickering out of focus as its form shattered and drifted back together, darting up the scope of the rocks before coming to rest mere inches from Neil.

Neil staggered back, bracing his sword before cutting it through the apparition. It did nothing, as one might expect, considering the demon had no body to harm.

“Cute,” the demon said, a hand over the mark Neil left behind. The oil did some damage, and started to eat away at the puncture point. It didn’t last long. He’d need buckets of it if he planned on disintegrating the demon.

Nails cut into his cheek. The shock of it sent Neil’s vision slipping, unable to focus. He cursed, trying to tear out of the grasp, but the claws hooked. A voice carved its way across his mind and down his back.

“Neil Josten,” it hissed, the words merging and splitting until two discernible voices reached Neil’s ears. His blood ran cold. He felt a sharp, hot flash of air wash over in, and something akin to a smile smeared the blood on his cheek. “Recognize her voice?”

The shock of hearing her voice struck Neil like a stab to the gut. It’d been months since he heard it, but even raspy, disjointed, and caught around the demon’s voice, he could still recognize it. He was right. He was right.

He never even knew that Andrew was thinking the same until it was too late.

The pressure shifted to his neck, choking him off where his neck met his jaw. The demon’s nails pressed in, leaking hot blood down his neck. He grappled for his silver dagger, and cut it at the junction of the demon’s arm and shoulder—at least, he hoped he determined the location well enough. He sliced up, and a godawful sound ricocheted through the forest. Neil staggered away, free for the moment, and bolted down the side of the incline. His feet kicked off a rocky, moss-littered ledge before vaulting into the forest. He flipped his sword around, switching hands, and grabbed his amulet.

He processed the red form darting after him before the vision faded. He cursed, and clashed his hands together. He threw up one of Matt’s tricks—a golden barrier that rippled across him, and ruffled his hair like he got caught in the wind. It wasn’t likely to do much, but he prepared for impact anyways.

Not being able to see his opponent made the anticipation excruciating. He braced his sword in front of him, and felt it give when the demon tackled him, only to hit the barrier. A shock of gold ruptured between them, vibrating across the demon’s body. The force sent the demon soaring, tumbling to the ground. The blast cut through the air between them, and Neil acted fast the instant he saw it. The black void.

He reached in without thinking. He grabbed the first solid object he could find, and ripped it out of the void. It came in the form of a small girl covered in ash, who screamed and tumbled to the ground as Neil flung her away and went in again.

“Run!” he screamed at her, and she scrambled to her feet, booking it through the forest. “Keep going and don’t look back!”

She ducked around the trees and vanished into the underbrush. He grabbed the next hand that reached out to him, and yanked them through. They caught on the edge of the tear, and tumbled out onto the grass. He heaved them up and shoved them in the direction of where the girl ran. As he yelled at them to go, someone’s hand grappled for the edge of the tear, thrusting out frantically for Neil to grab them.

He recognized the glove.

“Allison!” he screamed, grabbing hold and preparing to heave her out. Her head emerged, light blonde, nearly white hair dusted over with ashes. She panted, looking up at him just before something forced her back, tearing her hand off the ledge.

“No!” she screamed. “Neil—run!”

Panic seized him, as did a clawed hand grabbing him by the back of his neck. He was thrust forward, headfirst into the void. He caught his hand on the solid edge of it, and grappled for Allison’s hand again. His insides felt like a ball of nerves churning up and threatening to crumble his resolve to get her out of there. “Oil! I need more oil—”

“Here—” She slapped a flask into his hand, and he uncapped it and splashed it over his neck where the demon had a hold on him. Free for the moment, he braced his feet on the ground and hauled his torso out of the abyss with Allison grasping onto his hands.

They tumbled out over the ground. The earth gave way, though, and Neil fell, screaming, with Allison beside him. His head crashed into the side of a rock, and his vision scattered. He groaned in the grass, hands over his eyes. His skull felt like it was about to explode, and the heat boiling around the cuts on his cheek was almost too much for this concussion to handle.

The canopy flickered overhead, nauseating him until Allison grabbed him by the hair and shook him fiercely. Now he really needed to vomit. “You fucking idiot,” she seethed, slamming her fists in the ground. “You IDIOT!”

“I got you out, didn’t I?” he said, coughing. He groaned, twisting onto his hands. “We need to move.”

“No—Oh, no—you started this bullshit,” she said, shoving him in the shoulder.

“Whoa, hey, I started nothing! I’m just doing what Matt said,” he cried. “You’re the one who wound up stuck in a demon’s pit!”

Allison screamed in frustration, clutching her hands to her hair. Flakes of ash fell off with it. Neil stared at her, eyes wide despite the pain. He grasped the side of his head, wincing where he felt a bump starting to form. It burned, and left behind a bloody patch on his fingers. Shit.

“We need to take care of it now,” she said.

“How? We’ll need a gallon of oil to destroy it with,” he said, grunting as he got to his feet. That fall did neither of them any good, considering Allison stood and stuttered to the side, left leg raised so she wouldn’t have to put pressure on it. She rubbed at her knee with yet another curse.

“This fight isn’t for us. We can’t see it for shit—other spirits can, though,” she said, and looked down at her hand. Despite Allison being perhaps the most flamboyant of all of the Foxes, she wasn’t exactly one to wear jewelry. When she pulled off her glove, though, a ring sat there. It was black metal, just like Neil’s bracers hidden beneath his gloves. “Matt gave me this before I left. Said it might come in handy.”

“Seriously? What the fuck—If he knew how to fight it, why’d he send us instead?” Neil whined, only to stop at the sound of the wind rushing by. They started running as fast as they could manage—what with Neil’s partial-concussion and Allison’s shit leg. Neil’s brain was two nanoseconds from combusting by the time they hit another dropoff. He skidding onto his back, scrambling for purchase, only to take off at a run at the bottom of the hill. Dirt kicked up behind in clouds.

Allison lunged down beside him, grabbing hold of a nearby tree branch. “Neil. We can’t keep running,” she hissed at him. “There’s people still in there—”

“Fuck, okay, just—fine, whatever,” he hissed, wishing he could stomp his foot like a child. Instead, he rubbed the exposed part of his bracers together and prepared for the inevitable bitching-out Andrew would likely send his way.

The sparks bolted out from where they collected on the bands. The instant they recollected, Andrew had Neil by the throat, yelling, “I fucking told you! I told you you needed me for this shit!”

“Allison’s idea, not mine—”

“You’ve already fucked up your perfectly okay face, you stubborn little shit,” Andrew snapped, storming off with his hands in his hair. It took a second for Neil to backtrack to his perfectly-okay-face and put a hand over the claw marks. Well. So much for that modeling career he never had planned.

While Neil frowned at the sensation of three deep indents in his cheek oozing blood, Andrew turned to glare at the chick responsible for all this bullshit. They wouldn’t be here if that blonde bitch hadn’t gotten herself trapped in a demon’s portal. Instead, he stopped short at the girl standing beside Allison. It took a moment for him to process that they were talking, but this girl looked intently at Allison and nodded along with the plan.

Her hair was… white. Pure white, like—

“A witcher,” Andrew said aloud, and the girl turned to look at him. Allison hesitated, looking back at where Neil was saying something like, “‘Okay face’?”

The girl, dressed in ancient armor, stared at Andrew though. She looked between Allison and Andrew before blurting out, “You’re—You can see me?”

“Another demon?” Allison asked, and laughed, cocking her hip to the side. “Wow, Neil, just thought you were talkin’ to yourself if I’m being honest.”

“Fuck off,” Neil snapped.

“What a bitch,” Andrew said. “Never mind. No longer interested.”

Andrew turned to head back to Neil, but the girl marched forward. She grabbed him by the hand. “No, wait—I’m Renee. We need to work together.”

Andrew stared at her hand touching his own. She looked desperately at him as both Allison and Neil stared on in confusion, unable to see the other’s demon. Renee had the golden, cat-like eyes of a witcher, only the whites were red, and her sharp black horns all the more prominent against her hair.

“I—” he started, but whatever he said (he really had no plan) was drowned out by that infernal howl of wind cutting through the trees. Carried with it was the hot stench of burning wood, and the sound of bark cracking.

Neil shouted at Andrew, but he couldn’t hear it beyond his own blood pounding. He couldn’t stop feeling the slits through Neil’s face, or seeing them when he looked at Neil. There was only blood, dampening his vision into a raw, angry red. He clenched his fists and turned to Renee with a firm nod.

To an untrained eye, the demon looked human, but to Renee and Andrew, it was more than that. It was a man so totally corrupted by the beasts of hell that it was more hell than man. Its horns were stretched high behind its head, inches away from merging into a sharp, unified point. It glided down the side of the ravine with a trail of flames blazing after it. The inferno sent Allison back, forcefully dragging Neil with her.

God-fucking-bless there’s one genius here, he thought.

Andrew’s hands went out, and almost simultaneously, so did Renee’s. He looked at her, and she winked at him before spreading her hands wide and tearing them apart through the air. Her ring reshaped, crystalizing in the flames into a material akin to lava rocks. Her shard resembled the one tearing from Andrew’s cuffs. His arced in the form of a scythe, and swept it fast in front of them. A blast like a gunshot ruptured from the ground, shooting the topsoil up. Rocks burst into pebbles, rocketing in the air before Andrew swept his foot out and sent them soaring with the speed of bullets.

Clouds of dust kicked out from the ravine floor where the rocks shattered. A blackened figure burst through the clouds, arms swung high, before crashing down before the crevice Andrew created. He leapt up to avoid the shake that toppled over nearby trees, and Renee jumped, and kicked off a falling branch on her way to crossing her arms and cutting them down with a scream.

A deep, red current struck the air, and Andrew felt it in pierce his lungs and suck the wind out of him. He grabbed hold of a nearby branch and swung up to the peak of a toppled gathering of rocks. Perched at the demon’s back, with Renee in the front, Andrew braced his hands out, hoping to the forces above them that she knew what he was planning.

Her arms went out. He could have laughed in relief, but instead he abandoned his scythe to cut his hand flat against the crook of his elbow. The scythe spun in the air, and stilled the instant Renee did the same.

Their arms went in the air as fire boiled a pit in the earth, one elbow forward. They arced their elbows around their heads before stilling, and scraping their nails up the underside of their extended forearm. Hands overhead, the fire extinguished with a plume of smoke, and sunk into a pentagram that began and ended at the anchor points of the chasm Andrew created—they same one the demon stood in. Its energy and its flames sucked into the earth and fueled the light of the pentagram.

The chant began. It’d been ages since Andrew even read the words on paper, let alone out loud. He’d only ever attempted summoning with Aaron and Nicky. Banishing was another story.

The foreign words built up around them, spiking the ground with their fervor and cutting into the rock and dirt. Light caught on the chest of the demon, clutching at its soul, and bringing it to its knees. Its form began to dissolve, catching ashes to the wind.

“Wait!” Renee shouted.

“No—keep going!”

“The other people! They’re still in there!” she screamed, and Andrew could have hit her upside the head with his scythe if he wasn’t so preoccupied.

He cursed, and changed the direction of the ritual. He spun his arm round his head and sliced it in front of him. He bit out a swear as the glow momentarily ceased. It kicked into gear, the pentagram shifting away from the burnt patches the previous one left behind. He grabbed his scythe and tore forwards to the edge of the pentagram.

The demon crumpled, its form disintegrating with every passing second. It tried to speak, but its voice was too warped for words.

“Don’t—!” Renee started as Andrew stopped on the edge. He panted, pointing his scythe at her.

“Hold it up! Don’t drop it!” he demanded. “It’ll hurt, but don’t let go!”

She stared at him, hair whipping as the wind spun out from the pentagram, and circled the broken tree limbs above. Andrew swing his scythe hard at the pentagram barrier with a shout. He hammered at it again until the hook latched. He tore it down, ripping through the fabric of the demon’s deteriorated soul. Renee didn’t so much as whimper, her stance broadening, and her hands firmly clasped over her head. Her sharpened fingers dug holes between her knuckles. Black blood dripped over the silver of her shoulder pads.

Andrew ripped the opening further, and tossed the scythe up. He caught it by the hook and reached the handle in. Careful so as not to break through the barrier, he held it still and waited to catch fish.

The first hand to grab hold was a boy, trembling, and covered in dry ash. Andrew yanked the kid out by the shirt and tossed him aside, followed by a woman with graying hair. He hooked his hand under her arm and hauled her out. She hit the ground coughing, clutching at her chest. He pulled through one other citizen, and nothing latched on after that. No other fish.

He stepped back and flung his scythe up to catch it by the handle. He hooked it on the belt of his jacket, cloak flinging about behind him as he made eye contact with Renee. She looked pained as she stared at the empty tear, and back at Andrew. Eventually, she nodded, and they closed the gap and cycled back to banishing the fucker back where it belonged.

Chapter Text

“Renee!” Allison shouted from where Neil had banished her to sit the fuck down and stay there until the deed was done. She tried to get up, but failed to put weight on her leg. Neil had his hands in his hair when Andrew came into view. Well, just his hair. The fight shattered the trunks of several trees, and so he worked on climbing over the collection of damages. When his face came into view, he stopped to scowl at Neil’s disappointment.

The color had yet to fade from Andrew’s face as he dropped down to the ground once more and brushed his clawed hands off on his cloak. He crossed his arms then, and stayed where he was as Renee ran ahead to inform Allison of what happened. Neil didn’t seem intent on moving, and so they took to staring at each other from across the field before hearing Renee say, “We got all the people out.”

Allison straightened and turned to Neil to tell him. Neil’s eyebrows shot up at that, and then back to the damage site. Allison moved as if to stand, but Renee slapped her hands onto Allison’s shoulders, and forced her back down.

“Did you find Seth?” Neil asked, glancing back at Andrew, who shook his head.

“Seth wasn’t there,” Renee translated for Allison, whose expressionless face was decidedly the most terrifying thing Neil had ever witnessed. She clenched her fists against the tree trunk, and tried to get up again, only to be stopped by a visibly worried Renee. “Don’t—”

“I need to see them,” she hissed. Neil held out a hand to help her, but she slapped it away in favor of storming to the wreckage with her one bum leg. Renee hurried after her, sharing a look with Andrew on the way. She stopped to rest her hand on Andrew’s arm, but he showed little evidence of having seen anything.

“We’ll take care of escorting them,” she whispered.

“We’ve still got those two guys running around the forest from Neil’s first attempt,” Andrew reminded them, and Neil turned away with a groan, throwing his hands up.

Allison turned back and jabbed a finger in Neil’s direction. She wasn’t in the greatest spirits, and Neil visibly flinched at the raw aggravation on her face. “Idiot. I’ll be escorting the people back. You go find the two runaways.”

“Fine. Alright,” Neil sighed. Andrew scoffed and didn’t stop smiling, even when Neil turned a glare on him.

Neil huffed and started ahead. He climbed over the tree trunks and slid to the other side where a group had gathered consisting of the individuals trapped in the demon’s portal. The damage was extensive, and as Neil walked over it, he paused at what seemed to be the epicenter. There was a crevice carved into the earth that seemed to split several feet down into darkness.

In a hurry, he reassured them that the witcher woman from the portal would escort them back to Yantra. He barely made it to the edge of the clearing when someone grabbed him by the hand and stilled him. He turned back, momentarily caught Andrew’s eye not far behind, before dropping to the small boy clutching at his hand.

“Are—you a ghost?” he asked. “You pulled me out and I didn’t see you.”

“I—” Neil started with a smile, shaking his head.

“Thank you,” the boy said, and Neil murmured a simple, “Your welcome,” before the boy pulled away and walked after the group—all dusty with black ash—heading towards Allison.

He watched them all gather as Allison limped into the clearing and smiled amicably at them all. Her sharp, amber eyes flickered to Neil, and that smile vanished. He should have figured—she wasn’t exactly one to smile unless to pacify civilian. She was good at that sort of thing. He scoffed and turned away, heading to the outskirts of the destruction. He stepped over it like it was nothing more than a branch here or there. When he glanced back in search of Andrew, he found the demon floating over it all, unbothered to climb.

Andrew shoved his hands in his pockets and, when the coast was clear, drifted closer to the ground until he was walking again beside Neil. His skin was pale once more.

It was impossible for Neil to have missed the vast majority of the fight, despite being far from the epicenter of it. The woods still smelt of smoke and flames, and the farther away they trekked towards the foothills, the larger the black clouds became. The fire was spreading.

Neil grasped hold of his amulet and urged the tracks to show through. He spotted them far in the distance, glowing red in the underbrush, and so they walked the long stretch to meet them. Neil said nothing as they merged onto the runners’ paths.

He thought about what would come after this, after they returned to Wymack and Abby’s inn. He had other things on his plate, like finding a way to break Andrew’s curse now that the task was done. They’d have to go to Matt for that, which meant another three or four day journey south… Truthfully, his ass still hurt from the ride here. Still, he didn’t want Andrew to suffer through this any longer than necessary. The guy probably wanted a break and Neil wasn’t exactly “making it easy” for him.

They caught up with the runaways, and Neil began to guide them back to the town. It would be a long walk, and he warned them of it, and it didn’t take long for exhaustion to pull them down. The sun began to set, and once the forest was clouded over in shadows, Neil cast a fire in his hand to keep light on their trail. They set their path in silence, and so the silence remained until light from town could be seen through the trees.

The little girl nearly took off running, but Neil held her by the shoulder. “We can’t be too careful,” he said, and so she stilled, hands clutched in front of her. The long walk across the fields seemed to wear on them all. Neil could really go for a hot (nonalcoholic) cider right about then.

The man with them, at his turn, stopped Neil with a hand on his arm. He shook Neil’s gloved hand firmly and said, “Thank you. For getting us out of there.”

“It’s nothing,” Neil said, too tired to even fake a smile. “Just get home safe and make my effort worth it.”

The man laughed and clapped Neil on the shoulder before walking off. He waved to the girl, who waved farewell before dropping her hand and turning to look up at Neil. Neil sighed, eyes catching on the fire building along Andrew’s arms not too far away. The girl wasn’t wearing enough for winter, and so the heat was welcome, though she couldn’t see its source.

“Let’s get you home,” Neil said. He tugged the piece of paper out from beneath his armor, and unfolded the photograph. Abby showed him the way that morning. “This way.”

Neil expected to be captured for a good few minutes as soon as they approached the cabin gates. The girl unlatched the gate by sticking her hand through the narrow slot and flicking it up. The hinges creaked, and she shushed Neil on their way to the steps before grabbing him by the hand. “They’re probably sleeping,” she whispered. “Pa likes to sleep early.”

Neil processed the action as adorable, but he said nothing and did nothing other than follow along. At the door, the girl tried the handle, and when sneaking in wasn’t an option, Neil offered to knock for her.

He rapped his knuckles on the wooden door and waited. The lights were off through the window, but after a moment, a soft, orange glow lulled. Andrew sat on the porch ledge, arms crossed, and waited as the door opened and the girl’s father came out. The girl latched onto the man’s waist and the man seemed to be too startled for words.

Neil insisted that he should be off, but the man offered him a glass of whatever he’d like, and his gratitude. After a moment of hesitation, Neil convinced himself that Wymack might have something, so he merely accepted the bag of coins for his efforts, and a hug from the girl. They waved from the porch until Neil shut the gate behind him. The father ushered the girl inside, and she began to regale him on the adventure she had in the pit of a demon’s stomach.

“How’s it feel, Mister Do-Gooder,” Andrew hummed from beside him.

“Exhausting,” he sighed. “I’m ready to sleep for a century.”

He smirked, and Andrew made an exasperated noise before drifting off overhead. Neil threw his head back and laughed, only to be pelted with a discarded branch from afar.

The inn was a casual ten minute walk from the girl’s house, and Allison and Renee had yet to return by then. The foyer was nearly empty, excluding a woman relaxing by the fire. The sound of Neil’s heavy boots and weaponry was noisy enough for Abby to hear from the backroom.

She hurried out from the hallway and halted behind the desk, eyes wide as Neil turned a tired face onto her and nodded. She breathed out in relief and ushered him around the desk. Her hand hesitated near his neck, stopping at where the dried blood cracked across his neck and cheek. “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine,” Neil said, and Abby just looked at him exasperatedly.

“Let’s get you cleaned up,” she said. “Where’s Allison?”

“She’s on her way with the others. We had to separate,” he explained, lumbering into the back.

Wymack was there, having heard Abby first. He already had a first aid kit out on the desk, and he unlatched the sides before lifting the lid. Abby turned Neil to one of the chairs and asked Wymack for a bowl of water.

“It’s likely already healed,” he told her, but when she pressed a finger to the skin around the claw marks, he had to resist the urge to hiss aloud. It felt like she’d slapped it.

“It’ll be infected by morning,” she said. “We need to clear the dirt out.”

“No, seriously, I’m a fast healer,” Neil insisted.

“Then I guess you won’t mind if I’m harsh on you,” she said, pointedly, and put her hands on her hips. She dared him to object with her eyebrows raised. “Good. Because I’ll be reopening some of the scabs to get the dirt out.”

Fuck, Neil whined internally, and grimaced as she came at him with a dampened swab and began clearing away the dried blood.

Wymack rested back against the desk and supplied Abby with the necessary tools. He crossed his arms as Abby’s tweezers picked away specks from the scabs and rubbed them off on a towel. They left behind streaks of red.

“How’s Allison?” Wymack asked.

“She twisted her ankle or something. She wasn’t putting weight on it when I left her,” he said, trying not to grimace. Abby had already scolded him once for doing so. “I noticed a few bruises on her face. Nothing that won’t heal by tomorrow morning.”

“We’ll deal with it when she gets back,” Wymack decided. “Abby’s a pretty good nurse.”

“Pretty good,” she mocked, and then looked Neil in the eye. “You’d know he broke his arm five years ago if I hadn’t realigned it.”

“Yikes,” Neil laughed. Wymack flicked his left forearm and shrugged.

Abby tilted his head up to investigate the deep marks beneath either side of his jaw. He turned his eyes to the ceiling while Abby rubbed off the dried blood and cleaned the cuts. They weren’t as filthy as the ones on his face, so it took less time to take care of it. “Alright. We can set up a bath for you and…”

“Andrew,” Neil finished. “That would be nice. Thank you.”

She gave him a pat on the knee before moving away and tossing the bloody cloth away. Wymack walked Neil to the foyer then with Andrew wandering after them. He reassured them that they’d bring food up to the room, and so Neil was left to assume that they’d be sharing with Allison and Renee.

The door to the inn opened then as Neil climbed the first step of the stairs. He turned, and was relieved to find Allison there, looking more or less like she needed an arm or two to carry her. She limped onto the foyer rug as Neil hurried over to help her. Wymack lifted up her left side while Neil took the right, and together, they escorted her to the backroom where Abby had the first aid kit ready.

While they disappeared, Andrew stuck to the steps and hopped onto the railing. He crossed his arms and eyed Renee from across the dimly lit foyer. She brushed her hands off on her trousers before stretching her arms up with a smile.

“Well, that was a productive day, wasn’t it?” she said, and Andrew scoffed. He smiled and shook his head, looking across the steps to the wall covered in photographs. He pushed a boot against one frame and tilted it. Renee climbed the steps to meet him, and ducked under his leg to get to the other side. She leant back against the wall, facing him. She had soft, copper skin and wide, mono-lid eyes that studied the way he watched her. “You don’t like me, do you?” she asked.

“I don’t like the fact that you can see me,” he said.

“Ah. Okay, that makes a little more sense now,” she said, grinning. “You’ve turned yourself off to the world.”

“Yeah, and it seems like you’ve done the same. Neil can’t see you,” he said, and raised an eyebrow at her. “Why’s that?”

She shrugged and said, “I don’t know. Allison said he’s a good guy, but I’m waiting to see. I haven’t trusted a single host and I don’t exactly plan to any time soon.”

“She seems pretty attached to you as it is,” he commented, and her smile never faltered.

“Makes it easier. And I’m realizing that I don’t mind her as much as you might mind Neil,” she said, and gestured vaguely to herself. “Who would have thought a witcher would be the better option for cursed souls. She’s not so bad.”

“Who says I mind Neil,” he remarked, and Renee pursed her lips. He looked away with a laugh, propping his other leg up against the wall. “Whatever. If you’re passive-aggressively asking me to show myself to Allison, it’s not going to happen.”

“I know you can do it, but—”

“I can, and I won’t,” he said decidedly, glaring at her. “Did you show yourself to the folks from the mountains?” She didn’t say, but the answer was clear. Wymack and Abby could see her. “For someone who claims to have trust issues, you sure are trusting.”

He swung his feet down and headed for up the stairs.

Renee followed after him, lowering her voice. “It’s not worth the hassle to be hostile with them,” she insisted, and Andrew stopped at the top of the stairs to glare down at her. “Trust me. I know what it’s like—”

“No. No, you seriously don’t,” he hissed, and he just knew she was going to keep at it. “Don’t talk to me about that. Not ever.”

She raised her hands in surrender. “Alright. Okay, no talking about your previous hosts. But can I tell you something about mine?” she said, and Andrew wanted to laugh. Hosts. As if she hadn’t been stuck to one wrist for long. When he said nothing, and only internalized the aggravation, she said, “My last host was a widowed grandmother of twelve. One of her grandchildren ‘hung himself’ in an imperial prison after being captured for… indescribable things. My ring was one of the few possessions the imperial guards returned to the family.”

They walked to the room together, Renee slightly ahead, her hand twisting around the chain on her neck. “I spent the better half of four years with her grandchild as he raped and slaughtered children on the side of working for the military. You don’t know how much I hate the imperial guards after all that, but it’s over. Before that I was on a ship with about a dozen sailors carting black market goods between the Skellige Isles. When the ship was attacked by imperials, I could have just spent eternity at the bottom of the sea, but my host was captured and tortured to death. You can imagine what sort of shit went on before all that, though. About… two years. Two years of that. Learned how to fight, though. Well, sort of. Before the pirates I spent a few months at a training camp for soldiers. Broke all my discipline habits to learn how to fight dirty on the ship. Vagabonds and all that…”

Andrew went to the window, producing a cigarette and lighting it as she talked. Even as he stared out the window, she continued, knowing that he was listening.

“Point being: I had my few years to relax before Allison. Stephanie—the widower—gave me a reason to stop looking over my shoulder. Granted, a grandmother is definitely less intimidating than just about anyone twenty years younger than her, but I’m convinced that there’s nothing after this. You might be able to get a good century out of Neil before succumbing to the pits of hell or The Void or what-have-you.”

He figured The Void was true, even if hell wasn’t, and after spending so long with Drake… an eternal abyss of nothingness sounded nice. Sure, his conscious would dissolve and merge with the rest of mankind until he was no longer an individual, but if he wasn’t himself then that’d be just fine. He sucked a deep breath in, and blew the smoke through the crack in the window.

“Do you think they’ll even be able to break the curse?” Andrew decided to ask, looking back at her. He tipped his head back against the wall, swallowing hard as she turned her eyes down to her hands. “What about Matt?”

“I don’t know, if I’m being completely honest,” she confessed. “Matt might destroy our artifacts now that our value’s been used up.”

“Wouldn’t that be the same as breaking the curse?” he asked, and she shook her head, leaning back on her elbows with a sigh. Eventually, she dropped back onto the bed and groaned.

“I don’t know. I don’t think so. For how great my memory’s gotten, I can’t remember the ritual for the life of me. Our souls might just linger and latch on to the nearest object. I don’t want to be a fucking wardrobe for the rest of my afterlife, you know what I mean?” she said, and eyed Andrew, who grinned and agreed.

“Neil’s been thinking about it a lot. Next stop is Matt’s front door to find the cure or whatever-the-fuck,” he said, tipping his cigarette like he was raising a glass to toast. Renee hoisted herself up and stared at Andrew as he smoked to the occasion. She opened her mouth to speak, but words failed, and she resorted to lying on her back and staring at the ceiling.

Andrew finished the rest of his cigarette and went on to the next, dwindling his supply down faster than he intended. He closed the empty box and set it aside. Halfway through the last one, the door to the room opened, and Allison stepped through with an arm slung over Neil’s shoulders. Neil held her by the wrist with his other arm around her waist, and didn’t look up until they were at the first bed. He lowered her down before catching his eyes on Renee.

Andrew didn’t think anything of it at first, but promptly realized that Neil really shouldn’t have been able to look at Renee so directly. Renee sat up with a grin and reached out to drag the blankets down for Allison.

“Nice to formally meet you, Neil,” she said, and stretched a hand out to him. “Renee Walker.”

Neil’s eyes glanced over her face and down to her uniform before settling on her gloved hand. “Neil Josten,” he said. “I—Wait, how can I see you?”

She laughed and explained what they had just discussed. Andrew blew smoke out the window, furrowing his brows as he overheard Renee say, “I trust you now. Don’t make me regret it.”

“I’ll try not to,” Neil laughed, straightening as Allison collapsed onto her side with an exhausted sigh.

She settled in, nestling her cheek against the pillow as she muttered, “Glad you two are buddies now. I’m going to sleep.”

Shortly after that, Abby stopped by with food, and Neil took a sandwich off the tray before heading out after her to bathe. He shut the door behind him, and Andrew kept his focus on finishing the cigarette instead of lingering on the fact that Neil hadn’t addressed him.

Chapter Text

Andrew spent the majority of the night on the windowsill. He had a quilt wrapped around him, and his cloak secured tightly around his throat. Without cigarettes to keep him company, he took to studying the occupied beds, and studying Neil’s dreams as they faded in and out of his consciousness. He wondered if focusing on them made Neil more likely to linger in one dream, knowing that he had an audience. There was something about treetops… and a cliff overlooking them. White apple blossoms, shedding their petals. They looked like fragmented smoke drifting to the ground where footsteps tread over them.

Neil shifted in his sleep, turning to his side. He had a habit of completely mutilating the pillow at night, twisting it into a knot under his head. He clutched at it, expressionless, eyes closed. Andrew felt a spike through his chest like a wooden stake. His average level of paranoia skyrocketed, and he immediately pushed himself out of Neil’s dream as best he could. He hated feeling chased. For too long he’d been unable to run, and that was still the case regardless of what Neil told him.

He rubbed at his chest to quell the sensation. It faded in time, but the nagging sensation was still there. He scowled at the windowpane and its lack of reflection. He pulled his finger over it, and though he felt it, the window showed no sign of having been touched. No fingerprints, especially not with the pads of his fingers in the state they were in. He looked at the reddish markings before hearing someone move off of the bed.

Renee’s hair looked blinding in the night, but as she moved closer to his window, the moonlight washed over the rest of her. She tightened the ties on her undershirt, bare legs showing only a smidgen of her undershorts beneath the shirt. She climbed onto the windowsill beside him.

“Can’t sleep?” she asked, quietly.

“Literally. I have… severe sleep paralysis and hallucinations when I do,” he whispered back. She winced, and apologized for mentioning it. He shook his head, flicking his finger against his bracers. He nodded towards Neil. “Doesn’t like to put me in the bracers.”

She stared at him for a moment before clearing her throat. “That’s probably for the better. If you’re suffering mentally, the artifacts don’t help. I’ve tried it. Just makes them worse the longer you spend time there.”

Andrew blinked, hoping his surprise wasn’t evident. Apparently it was. “How… long were you in there before Neil got you out?” she asked.

“A century,” he said, and was grateful that Renee remained neutral. Had she reacted with a gasp, the awful sensation in his stomach would have tripled. “I was on that shelf far longer than you were.”

“So it seems,” she hummed. She readjusted her position, frowning at the window. She tucked her hair behind her ear and turned back to him. “The way you feel—mentally, I mean—is only so connected to this world. You just need to break through it. It helps to act human, and eventually you’ll believe it. I’ve noticed you keep your feet on the ground. That’s a good start.”

“I try to,” he confessed. The way the words ended left the impression that there was more to it than just that. He didn’t expand upon it, though his enhanced memory couldn’t forget how, at first, he couldn’t stop floating. Drake made sure to ground him, though.

“It’ll be tough,” she said. “The first year I spent with Stephanie was… torture, I have to admit. Some habits are difficult to break. But she gave me the chance to grow out of it.”

“Look,” Andrew said sharply, pegging her with a deadly scowl. “You’re trying to sell me on this whole ‘new life, new you’ bullshit, I get it. Just stop. I don’t want to talk about the future.”

“Okay,” she said. “What about the present?”

“No.”

“The past then?”

“Not mine,” he said, and flicked a mocking smile her way before dropping it into another scowl.

Despite the hurt way Renee watched him, he refused to make eye contact with her again until she left the sill and returned to her bed. She climbed in beneath the covers, looked back at him, and nestled in behind the mound Allison’s shoulders created. Andrew tugged his quilt tighter, and curled his knees up to his chest.

When morning came, Andrew disappeared to find food so he wouldn’t have to talk to anyone. He rifled through Wymack’s alcohol and drank from the bottle as he searched the kitchen and snagged a few dinner rolls on his way out back. It was colder out than he anticipated, so he wound up back inside by the hearth chewing on bread. A few minutes after settling in, the backroom door opened, and Abby walked out dressed in a cozy, dress-jacket and scarf. He watched her exit the inn, and pass the window on her way to town.

Though he’d only been with Neil for a week (and several of his mornings occupied by sleep paralysis), he knew the man’s schedule, and registered it as Neil’s mind left his dreams behind.

Like he said: It was difficult to read a host’s mind. Andrew became spectacular at it just out of pure necessity. But reading Drake’s mind was a completely different story from Neil’s. He had to navigate his way around the “new language” from scratch. He didn’t exactly have to start at square one, but the severe difference made it seem so. Understanding Neil’s brain and how it worked felt like necessity, and his annoyance with Renee doubled it (mostly out of spite).

So what if Neil didn’t act, look, or sound like a horrible guy? That didn’t mean he wouldn’t change, or that he was excruciatingly good at hiding it.

He waited and listened as Neil realized Andrew wasn’t in the room. He looked up and listened as the room door opened and shut. In that same minute, Neil descended the stairs, and looked towards the desk, the front door, and then to the common room where Andrew watched from afar. Neil visibly relaxed and walked over.

“What, you know I can’t go anywhere,” Andrew huffed, and Neil collapsed onto a chair nearby with a frown.

“Yeah, well, I don’t know. I worry for unnecessary reasons,” he said, and Andrew attributed it to Neil’s plethora of paranoia-based symptoms. “I thought I heard you talking last night. Renee?”

Andrew huffed again, staring into the flames. Maybe if he stared long enough, he’d start meditating without even realizing it. Meditation was an excellent way to zone out.

“What’s she all about?” Neil asked. “Was she a witcher before?”

“She didn’t tell me about that,” he said. “She’s just… ‘found the light’ or some shit. I don’t really know. Practiced witchcraft at one point, though, that’s for sure.” He held back from mentioning his sleep paralysis, and how it’d go away if he spent more time in the real world. That would just make it sound like he wanted to spend more time with Neil. Ridiculous.

“You don’t like her,” Neil concluded.

“Her goodie-goodie attitude rubs me the wrong way,” he explained. “No surprise there.”

“She unnerves me,” Neil confessed. “I think it’s the way she looks at people.”

“Like she’s staring into their souls?” Andrew concluded, and Neil laughed. He had soft dimples on his cheeks that merged with his smile lines, and crinkled the scars that developed on his cheek overnight.

“Yeah, exactly like that,” he said. Andrew swallowed hard and went back to eating. “Apparently… Abby’s off to convinced the town that they should celebrate. Allison wants to stay for it. And Renee, I guess. Renee asked me to ask you if you’d want to participate.”

“What,” Andrew said dully, and grimaced. He stuck his tongue out like he tasted something foul. “Why me? It’s up to you.”

“I’m indifferent,” Neil said, and Andrew picked around to make sure he actually was. In fact, he found the telltale signs of someone who loathed public attention. That was exactly what this event would bring. “We’d leave this afternoon. We don’t have to stay for the full thing.”

“I don’t know. It’s up to you,” Andrew said. “I’m not the one everyone’s going to be staring at.”

“Renee said you’re purposefully not showing yourself to anyone,” Neil said, and Andrew rolled his eyes.

“Renee says a lot, doesn’t she?” he said sourly, chucking the last of his bread into the fire. “It takes effort to do that. I tried it once. Wasn’t meant for me.”

That was an understatement. He tried it several times in an attempt to convince a person or two to kill Drake for him. It seemed like a good idea at the time until the people started screaming bloody murder at the sight of his eyes and horns that he just killed them to shut them up. Last thing he needed was Drake knowing what he was up to. That plan never wound up working anyhow. He nearly convinced a mad woman to do it, but she didn’t get very far.

“Allison wants to meet you, though,” Neil insisted.

“No—she’s a bitch.”

“Well, yeah, but she still wants to talk to you,” he said.

“Whoop-di-doo! I’m still not going to do it,” Andrew said, exasperated. Neil was leant over his knees, and fiddled with the edge of his gloves. He looked up at Andrew, and Andrew could have killed himself again if it meant he wouldn’t have to deal with Neil’s puppy eyes. Nicky used to pull that on him, but it never worked. Neil, on the other hand, made him crack for reasons he could never admit to the jury. “Fuck off,” Andrew seethed, shoving to his feet.

He bolted for the stairs, and turned back around just to peg Neil with a glare before hurrying to the second floor. He clenched his fists on the walk down the hall, the room door approaching fast. He hesitated several paces away to clench his eyes shut, and remember what it was like to be human. He hated having eyes on him at all times, but being human came with that as a price.

Two deep breaths later, Andrew shoved through the door and held back on the bundle of anxiety that sprung to his chest the instant Allison bolted up from the bed at the sight of him.

Her eyes widened, and dropped down his figure before springing back up again with a cocky grin. She crossed her arms and tipped her hip to one side, the weight on her bad leg lessening. She whistled. “Well, I knew Neil was hiding something from me about you. That kid has no appreciation for the finer things in life.”

Andrew kicked the door shut behind him and all but snarled, looking from Renee’s shock to Allison’s smugness. “You have five minutes,” he hissed.

“Six. So I can appreciate all this for a minute,” Allison said, and looked at Andrew with a fond sigh. “Alright. Done. Now let me make something abundantly clear—”

She stepped up to him, and he remained where he was, scowl only increasing as she came within a foot of his personal space. He tipped his chin up to meet her eyes. She had a good few inches on him, even without her boots on.

“—If I catch wind of you ever having done anything to harm Neil—physically or emotionally—I will mount your horns above my hearth. That kid has too much to worry about as it is. The last thing he needs is a demon making his life any worse.”

“Sounds like you’re trying to convince me of something. Spit it out,” Andrew said through a sneer.

“He mentioned you two are headed to Matt next. If Neil wants you gone, don’t argue with him on it,” she said, and Andrew’s teeth clenched, jaw ticking. He narrowed his eyes, and felt the anger swell in his hands, threatening to burn the room to the ground.

“Allison,” Renee started, and hesitated when Allison spared a glance at her. “I don’t—We don’t know for certain Neil wants Andrew gone.”

“Going to Matt says enough,” she concluded.

“Sounds like you two are just peachy then. No curse-breaking for you?” Andrew cooed at Renee, who seemed hurt by the entire ordeal. “Whatever. Wasn’t like I wanted to spend any more time here than necessary.”

Andrew turned on his heels and swung the door open. He slammed it behind him and spent a solid minute seething in the corridor, fingers flickering in flames as he tried to push the anger down. It just made it more difficult to control.

He looked around at all the wooden walls, the wood flooring, the breakable glass. He clutched a hand to his hair as he headed for the stairs. So what if Neil wanted him gone? It wasn’t like he had plans on sucking up to the guy—Well…

At the foyer, Andrew went for the door, and burst through just as Abby was coming in. She yelped in surprise, and stumbled against the porch railing as Andrew darted past her and went for the stone streets. Distantly, he heard Neil apologize to Abby on his way after Andrew.

Andrew froze in the middle of the street. It was empty, all except for the three of them just outside Wymack’s inn. He let the flames blaze up his arms for a split second, just to expel the fury, before they faded. Slowly, he unclenched his fists. He would have preferred punching a wall, or using Neil’s weapons. It seemed Neil knew exactly what he was thinking, since he stayed far enough away that he could bolt if Andrew went for them.

“Allison’s a real bitch, isn’t she?” Neil said, and Andrew ducked his head, perhaps to keep from laughing. Andrew pushed a hand through his hair and turned back around, smiling and all.

“Yeah, she is. I’m over it,” he decided, and started back for the gate.

Abby was standing there, looking pale and startled. Her eyes trailed after Andrew as he passed her and went back inside. Over the threshold, he appeared to vanish from sight, leaving a very confused, and slightly disgruntled, Abby on the porch. She stared at the space Andrew once occupied, and looked back to where Neil was tiredly climbing the steps. He shrugged.

“The, um… the town’s getting together at noon in the park,” she told him, only to become distracted once again by the fact that she had just witnessed Andrew storm in and out of the foyer. She pointed after where Andrew disappeared. “Will he be all right?”

“I don’t know,” Neil confessed. “We’ll be leaving later this afternoon.”

“So you’ll be at the party?” Abby asked, grinning knowingly since Neil refused to answer. Instead, he walked ahead and held the door for her. She sauntered in with a thrilled, “I’ll take that as a yes.”

***

The gathering involved the majority of the town, including all of the individuals Neil and Andrew pulled out of the portal. They walked as a group from the inn since Wymack had to lock up the backroom and such, and Allison insisted on badgering Neil the entire way there. She hooked an arm around his neck, and gave him a tight squeeze. “I can’t believe it’s been months since I saw you last! I swear you’ve gotten fatter,” she said, and laughed like Andrew wasn’t burning holes in the back of her head with his lethal glowering.

Neil brushed her off, but couldn’t quite escape the headlock. “Now I remember why I was so glad when you left,” he muttered, and Allison gave him an obnoxious kiss on the temple before moving along with a wave of her hand.

“Aw, come on, I know you missed me. Matt’s not exactly the best company. How’s Dan been?”

“She’s fine. She was supposed to investigate your case but got roped up in Arnette,” Neil explained, and the tension in Andrew’s shoulders faded when Allison strayed to the side, away from Neil. “Matt left to follow her after updating me on this. I still don’t know why he didn’t come here himself.”

“Superstitious, I bet. He gets bad vibes from some cities out this way. Never asked why,” she said with a shrug. “But enough talk about work. Last thing I want to think about is that.”

“But I was thinking, if Dan and Matt are still in Arnette—”

“Nope, no way. I’m taking a mini vacation to the coast after this. Matt can complain all he wants, but a beachside cottage is waiting for me,” Allison said with a toss of her hair. Neil visibly wilted, but his mind was a flurry of aggravation. She never takes shit seriously, he thought, and Andrew reclined back in Neil’s bitterness like it was a warm, cozy blanket. At least he wasn’t the only one annoyed with Allison, but it did seem like he was the only one who seriously hated her guts.

Renee glanced back at him then, as Andrew walked over to Neil’s opposite side. He squinted at her, and pointed warningly at her. She smiled before being enveloped from behind by Allison hugging her and saying that the first thing they were going to do was drink their asses off and dance. Andrew could hear the music already, and the sound of fire crackling from the bonfire pit. The park was surrounded by brick buildings and tunnel walkways. They dipped into the shadows of a tunnel, and their boots all echoed like a cacophony of instruments blending with the music. Andrew dragged his hand across the brick before they emerged, attention forward, and focusing on the festivities just beginning to cycle.

Abby hurried off to greet people as they came in from all corners of the park. The park itself was a grassy hill with four massive trees marking the four corners where the tunnels emptied out. Andrew took to the stone pathway leading up to the peak of the hill where the trees branches faded and created an empty pocket where the bonfire smoke lifted through.

On the way there, he snuck behind an older gentleman lifting a cigar into the air. Andrew slipped a hand into his coat pocket and took one out for himself. When he turned back around, Neil was there, pretending like he hadn’t seen a thing.

As Andrew lit the cigar and preened at the fact that he looked like an elderly man who deserved a rocking chair, he stood beside Neil and observed Allison introducing Renee to the little girl he and Neil took home the night before. Renee crouched down, smiling eagerly as the girl reached up and clasped onto Renee’s horns. Renee gasped as if she could feel it, and the girl pulled away giggling. Andrew tugged at his own horn, and it caught Neil’s attention.

“Do they grow?” he asked.

“What? Oh, sometimes,” Andrew confessed. “I shed them once before. They got to be about a foot long.”

“Gods, that sounds uncomfortable,” Neil huffed, crossing his arms and looking off to the fire. They migrated towards it, mostly because Andrew was interested in warming up again.

“They were definitely longer the last time I was out. I guess they reset with a new host,” Andrew thought aloud, running a hand through his hair.

I must be the only other host, Neil thought, and Andrew’s expression fell. He stared at the fire and willed it to burn everything inside him down. He wished it was socially acceptable to walk into a bonfire at a party, but it was certainly not socially acceptable in any situation. It was getting easier and easier to pick out whole sentences from Neil’s mind, and Andrew wasn’t entirely sure he was on board with it.

There was a violinist playing off by one of the massive oaks, and the people around her, out on the stone pathways, were stomping their heels and clapping. Abby was there, attempting to get Wymack to dance, but the man wasn’t budging. She resorted to taking Renee by the hand and spinning her around. Despite some peoples’ hesitance towards the demon, they couldn’t deny she acted a whole lot like a human when put among them. Renee threw her head back laughing, kicking her feet in unison with Abby amidst the circle of people stomping and clapping as the pace picked up. They spun faster, harder, until Abby went spinning into a man’s arms before being flung back into the circle. She clasped a hand to her scarf to keep it from flying, and Renee started pulling the children from the portal out onto the rocks.

Looks like fun, Neil thought, though his frown didn’t say the same. Andrew pushed off the ground and floated over the bonfire. “Where are you going?” Neil asked.

“Nowhere,” he replied, and circled over to the dancing pairs. He caught his hands on Renee’s shoulders and kicked his legs up out of the way of people dancing.

Renee looked up at him, and their eyes met. “Favor?” she asked, reaching her hands up to clasp onto his.

“Get Neil to join,” he said.

“If I get Neil to join will you show yourself?” she asked. He shrugged, and she smiled. “Alright. Make room up there.”

He floated off, grabbing hold of a tree branch as she pushed into the air. Given the lack of notice in the crowd, he assumed she must have disappeared from public view. She kicked off of the tree and flipped back onto the walkway. Andrew pulled himself up onto the tree branch, feet swinging. He hooked his hands on a twig overhead, and watched Renee pass through the bonfire and grab Neil by the hands. That sensation returned to Andrew’s chest—like he was being chased—but it faded into the nerves of being out in the open, out in public, as Renee coaxed Neil to the groups of people gathering round the violinist.

Allison was perched against a store wall beside Wymack, and watched from her vigil as Renee hoisted Neil’s arm up and twirled beneath it. Neil’s face was flushed—embarrassed—as he admitted that he hadn’t danced in a while, and Renee reassured him that it was fine and that she’d take the lead. They adopted a street dance Andrew vividly remembered watching Nicky and Erik dance to during a street fair. He leant forward to prop his head up on his hand, stomach on the hefty oak tree branch, as he watched Renee stretch their arms wide, bringing their chests in, before pushing out, and in again, swapping which shoulders they touched. Neil spun her out with the expertise of someone who seriously had danced before, and was good at it at that.

Andrew saw Erik out there, on the under road fair streets, pulling Nicky to his chest as they swayed and pushed apart again. Nicky smiled like he’d never smiled before, and Andrew decided that he’d never have something like that. Ever.

Renee looked up at him, and shook a finger. He sighed, letting a hand drop off the branch as Neil looked up at him and laughed. Barrel: aimed—target: acquired—shot: fired. Goner. Andrew closed his eyes and muttered, “Fuck,” under his breath before finishing his half of the deal.

Renee kicked her legs out fast, hips swinging. She dropped down firmly, and gestured to Neil, who replicated the movement and scuffed his heel on the rocks as a final touch before pointing to her, hand extended. She took it and they swapped places, Renee swinging off her feet with an excited shriek. They danced back-to-back to something no one seemed to know, and they hardly did, but even chaotic it looked good.

Andrew found himself smiling until he caught a kid pointing up at him, and that just ruined it. He swung off his branch and landed beside the tree trunk, away from the violinist on his way away from the dancing, and away from where his heart felt human again. He pushed the disgusting, unfamiliar feeling away, only to have it resurface in a spike of surprise when he turned and found Renee chasing after him.

She kicked off her feet and swung around him, hand trailing along his shoulders before landing fluidly, cutting him off entirely. “Come dance with us!” she said.

“You’re clearly drunk, and I’m clearly not going to do that,” Andrew said.

“What? No, I don’t drink,” she said, and when Andrew pegged her with a withering glare, she cleared her throat. “Much.”

“No. I am not going to—” He stopped, because he could feel Neil watching them. Neil’s hopefulness was just as tantalizing as it was stupid. “Fine,” he seethed at Renee before turning on his heels and heading back to the dancers. He likely didn’t look like a willing subject, but Renee was adamant on changing that.

Andrew stormed up to Neil, arms crossed. He stopped to meet Neil’s neutral stare and asked, “Since when did you learn to dance?”

“You pick up things living on the streets,” he said with a casual shrug. To make money. “Swing dancing especially.”

Andrew nodded, and looked away as if the topic suddenly disinterested him. He shifted awkwardly, dropping his hands.

“Do you… know how to dance?” Neil asked.

“Yeah. I’m not an idiot like you,” Andrew hissed.

Renee approached them then, and gave Andrew a nudge on the shoulder, bumping him closer to Neil. “Dancing requires a partner…” she sang, and Neil instantly threw his hands up in surrender. Andrew didn’t move, aside from turning a glare onto Renee, who spun back in Allison’s direction with an eager grin.

“Well,” Andrew snapped at Neil, who had his eyebrows raised.

“I’m keeping my promise: No touching,” he said, and if that wasn’t the hottest thing ever, Andrew didn’t know what was.

The only reason Andrew knew how to dance was because of Nicky and Erik. When drunk, Andrew was far more willing to do shit like dancing, but he hadn’t done it since then. Thank the gods for his impeccable memory, though, because it made the start a little less rocky than originally anticipated.

Andrew grabbed Neil by the wrist and turned towards the crowd. “Just—fucking get over here,” Andrew said. “I’m leading.”

“Okay,” Neil said. “I’ve never—whoa!”

Andrew took Neil by the waist and spun him, swinging his arm out and sending Neil coasting back and forwards again. Andrew’s feet fell into the steps fast, and soon he was grinning at the thrill of surprise running through Neil. The pace was fast, and they didn’t slow down after Neil overcame his shock to spin beneath Andrew’s extended arm. He twirled back, their opposite hands spreading wide as they kicked out their feet in synchrony and took to competing nearby dancers for fastest goddamn swing dance known to humankind.

One thing Andrew liked about swing dancing was that it wasn’t personal. Sure, there were close-quarters every now and then, but for the most part, they were moving too fast to even look each other in the eye and process what was happening. Neil’s hands were covered by his sword gloves, and that safeguard was enough.

The crowd clapped, and Andrew and Neil’s hands went over their heads to do the same. The violinist pulled the last chord and stopped to bow for the cheers. Neil was panting, grinning as he clapped his hands once more before turning back to face Andrew, who was once more thrust into the shock of reading something that wasn’t on Neil’s face.

He’s an amazing dance partner.

Andrew’s insides twisted, as did his brain, and all proper comebacks refused to surface amidst the turmoil. Instead, he tried to laugh and say, “Fuck off,” but instead when he said it, it just sounded cruel.

The horror of having said it sent Andrew hurrying away, and Neil standing there, dumbfounded.

Chapter Text

They left Yantra shortly after that.

Neil did his best to ignore what had happened by occupying his thoughts with other things, like what Allison would be doing, or how she’d get on with Renee, who, more or less, seemed like the perfect distraction from everything to do with Seth’s disappearance. Seth was a completely other matter that required a long while of deep thinking to speculate. If Seth wasn’t in the portal, then where was he? Was it pure coincidence, and did he happen to cross-swords with some other mythical beast? The odds were slim, but he sure as hell knew Allison was likely thinking about it, too.

Abby had left them with provisions for the trip—taken from Wymack’s things, of course, which seemed to be a habit of just about everyone associated with the inn (including Andrew). Wymack saw the exchange and said nothing, which Neil found a bit comical, but he was just grateful to have food on hand. Abby even slipped a bottle of liquor into Fox’s saddlebag, and gave Andrew a wink. Andrew grudgingly stayed visible until they were out of Yantra.

Andrew was just as stoic as ever perched on Fox’s saddle, and Neil wasn’t quite sure what to make of it. He never knew what to make of Andrew, so he supposed this time wasn’t any different than the others. Still, he had to stop worrying about it. He probably did something wrong. He wasn’t good at this sort of thing, whatever it was that Andrew went through before. He wasn’t equipped to deal with anyone’s trauma other than his own, and he knew that if asked, he wouldn’t want to talk about it.

So he just didn’t ask.

It didn’t take long for the stretching silence to effect him, and he worried what Andrew would pick up. Just stop thinking about it, he told himself. What could have possibly taken Seth if it wasn’t a demon?

No matter how much he tried to focus on it, he couldn’t get past five minutes of it before losing his mind. Maybe he came on too strong. He shouldn’t even be coming on at all! What was he, a hormonal teenager? According to Matt he was—twenty-years-old basically made Neil an infant compared to Matt’s ancient ass. And who knew what happened to Andrew before. Who even knew if Andrew was gay! How was Neil supposed to know? Allison always said he had the worst intuition when it came to shit like that, but he couldn’t help it! His mother was a hard-ass when it came to shit like that. If he so much as looked at a girl the wrong way back in the day, she clocked him upside the head without a second thought. Granted, he could see where she had the right idea there, but that didn’t stop him from resenting the fact that he was the least romantically-adequate individual on the fucking planet.

After twenty miles, when the horses began to tire, they walked the remaining five miles to a town halfway between Yantra and Arnette. Neil kept to one side of Roach while Andrew stuck to the other. The instant Neil was on his feet, out of view from Andrew, Neil put his head on Roach’s neck and closed his eyes. He just needed to sleep it off. He’d be able to do that at the next inn. Five miles away.

And so, they walked.

It took a good hour before they were close enough to see the village through the trees, and by then Neil came to a flimsy conclusion. Andrew and he were stuck together. Not playing nice wasn’t an option, especially given his current moral standing. Anything beyond “playing nice” didn’t pertain to Neil because it had nothing to do with his work as a witcher. He was starting to equate his survival with Andrew’s, and that just wouldn’t do at all.

Tired from traveling, and tired from thinking too much, he waited until he was forced to slow and say something near the hostel. He looked at it and decided that it was obvious enough, and so the silence remained even after he passed the horses on to the stablehand, and Andrew followed him in through the front door.

“Two beds, please,” Neil said to the hostess, who then exchanged his coins for a key, and escorted him up the stairs. This hostel was a lot more like a home than a place of business, so he wasn’t entirely surprised to find the room covered in grandmotherly furniture and quilts.

He thanked her as she left, and held the door until Andrew walked in. He locked it behind them and asked, “You still have that pack of cigars?”

Andrew produced it wordlessly, and Neil took one out and lit it with a snap of his fingers. He cracked open the window and reclined back on the padded bench.

“You’re being childish,” Andrew said, arms crossed. Neil raised an eyebrow at him. “And you certainly can’t be that thick-skulled.”

“Wow, what warranted this?” Neil said dully, propping the cigar on his lip.

“You know, Neil,” Andrew said, voice clipped and stretching thin. “Your unfathomable idiocy has really blown me away, you know? Enough to really hate you right now.”

Neil gave him a crooked, sideways look before turning to face the window. He pulled the cigar away and blew smoke out the window. “Thanks. Well, if I really am a child I might as well just put this out there: I really hate that you root around in my head.”

“So it seems we have something in common. Is that what makes you act like a crotchety old man twenty-four seven? Because it’s certainly what makes me act like—” Andrew said, flinging his hand out. “Because gosh, ever thought that I can’t turn it off? Sorry for invading your personal space. Not like I have much of that.”

“In case you haven’t noticed, this doesn’t just effect your personal space,” Neil remarked. “Preach to the choir, why don’t you, if you’re willing to complain about it to me.”

Andrew, for all his lack of expression, suddenly looked as though he was seconds away from rupturing. Neil looked him in the eye though, and remained that way until he raised his hand up to smoke and was reminded of the cuffs on his hands. He barely even felt them now. When his attention shifted, so did Andrew’s, and it sent a prick of annoyance through Neil’s chest when he realized even minute things like remembering the bracers was something Andrew could translate.

“Just do it,” Andrew said, teeth clenched.

“No,” Neil said without hesitation, but it felt more like habit than an actual act of will. He winced, closing his eyes and pressing his forehead over them. “Taking you out of the equation just—It isn’t the answer.”

“Says the guy constantly thinking about how to break the curse,” Andrew said, stepping back. “Matt has all the answers! Let’s just see what Matt has to say about this—maybe finally I can get that demon to stop cursing at me constantly if I just pitch him into The Void!”

He turned on his heels and headed for the door as Neil stared after him, wondering just when did he fall asleep and wind up dreaming about an argument he couldn’t win. Andrew concluded with a valiant bow. “I’ll leave you to plotting my funeral. Besides, it’s for the greater good, some people might say.”

Andrew swung the door open and left with a mocking salute.

Neil blinked, and felt as though he had suddenly emerged from an intense hallucination. Did that conversation actually take place? He couldn’t be certain if he didn’t investigate it further, and so he stood up and assured himself that he was alive and moving, and blew the smoke out of his lungs as he strode to the door and looked both ways down the hall before discovering Andrew preparing to take a leap out the second story window just a few paces away. Neil closed the gap and tugged Andrew back by his cloak.

“I’m sorry,” Neil said. “I didn’t—I don’t know what I’m doing.”

Andrew tugged his cloak out of Neil’s grasp, but stayed standing, staring vacantly up at Neil. “Clearly,” he said. “Between the two of us, I don’t think you ever knew what you were doing.”

Neil took that with an uneven shrug. “I have a good century or two to figure out what I’m supposed to do,” he said. “Never thought I’d live that long until Matt enlightened me as to what I am. So there’s that.”

“You never knew you were a witcher,” Andrew concluded, and Neil gestured vaguely to his face, and his severe lack of witcher qualities. His own father only knew a fraction of what he was, but now that just made him infinitely more terrifying in Neil’s eyes. His father went through life knowing the consequences of acting out were far less significant than they were as a regular human. Torture was nothing to them—physically, anyways. And since his father didn’t have the mental or emotional capacity to be effected like Neil was… well…

Andrew turned back to the room, and Neil trailed after him. He plucked the cigar out of Neil’s hands and took a long, slow drag of it before Neil said anything more on the subject.

“I’m not exactly the greatest card you could have gotten,” he said, and Andrew’s eyes flitted towards him at that. “Maybe Matt knows a way to break the curse and still leave you in this realm.”

“Boring,” Andrew said. “That doesn’t sound like any fun, does it? I’d rather just let The Void take me if that’s the case.”

“Okay,” Neil concluded, and reached for another smoke. Andrew passed it over wordlessly. “Likely better than my shit show anyways. I know you don’t like me.”

“And who said that? I’ll punch them for it,” Andrew said, and emphasized it by stretching his hand out, claws and all, and curled it into a fist.

“It’s true, isn’t it?” Neil said, and Andrew stared at him for as long as Neil could maintain eye contact. Eventually, as the cigar dwindled, Neil looked down to snuff it out on the nightstand tray, sitting on the edge of the bed..

“‘Like’ is a strong word, Neil. Use it wisely,” Andrew said, and his voice was so much closer than before Neil turned away. He looked back and found Andrew leaning into him. The action brought Andrew’s curved, sharpened nail to Neil’s cheek, falling in line with the scars.

Neil’s breath caught in his throat, his heart stuttering in his chest. Andrew, who seemed to know Neil’s mind better than he did, took Neil’s incomprehensibility as the sign to move forward.

Andrew’s lips, however human, were something Neil never experienced in this plane of existence or any other for that matter. He never knew the sensation of kissing, and determined that he was glad he spent the last twenty years being afraid of whatever commitment came with it. This was completely and utterly worth the wait.

His hands moved up on their own, and stopped short of Andrew’s cloak as he leaned over Neil, knee to the bed, the other propped between Neil’s legs. The weight of Andrew’s lips lessened, and Neil chased after it, only to stop short when Andrew tipped his head to the side, just far away enough for Neil to know to stop. He translated his sore lips as an ache for more, and clutched to Andrew’s cloak tighter.

“I’m not doing this with you right now,” Andrew said, hands clasped over Neil’s bracers. His grip tightened, and Neil realized he was trying to pull Neil’s hands off his cloak.

He loosened his grip. He opened his mouth, but no words came out the first, second, or third time. Andrew reached for the cigar Neil snuffed out, and checked to see if it was salvageable. He lit it even though there likely wasn’t more than a breath or two left. Neil tightened his jaw to keep from saying something stupid, like how much he wanted Andrew to continue with whatever track they were on.

The cigar smoke was thicker and heavier than the cheap cigarettes Andrew stole before. It had a hint of flavor to it that lingered in the room even after Andrew chucked the useless butt of it out the window.

“Get some sleep. I’m waking you up at the ass-crack of dawn so we can get moving,” Andrew said, and with that, roughly dislodged the quilt off the empty bed and spun it around himself like a shawl.

Neil didn’t move. Nothing seriously stuck to his mind, so he wasn’t all that surprised to find Andrew staring at him when he didn’t move. Nothing to process. Neil let out a shuddering breath and tipped over onto the bed. It took a severe amount of willpower to keep from touching his hands to his lips after he took off his gloves and boots.

Satisfied that Neil wasn’t getting up, Andrew retreated to the other side of the bed. Wrapped up in all the extra blankets, he nestled into position where Neil’s back pressed up against his, and neither one of them would have to address the others’ lips until morning.

They left early, eating the fruit Abby packed for them, and went on their way with Roach and Fox in the direction of Arnette. Andrew reclined back on Fox, arms crossed behind his head against her mane. Neil figured Fox was really only carrying the weight of the saddlebags, Andrew not included, but then Neil got to thinking. Andrew left temporary imprints on the bed where he weighed down on the mattress, and he could feasibly push objects, unable to pass through them like ordinary ghosts. So, then, did Andrew weigh anything?

“Yes, I’m as fat as a cow,” Andrew droned, examining one of his nails.

“I’m just speculating…” Neil pouted, turning to look at the hills beyond the broken, worn down stone hedges. There did happen to be cows out at the time, grazing beneath the sunlight. The horses out in the pasture were fortified with heavy blankets bucked beneath their necks. Soon, the road began to decline, and the horizon merged with the oceanfront far off, flanked on either end by peninsulas of cities and towns. Novigrad was visible—all its red rooftops increased in vibrancy the closer they came to the coast.

Neil paused at the peak of the hill just before the major slope curving north. He stared out at Arnette. It’d take another hour to arrive, and it looked peaceful from afar. He knew better than to think it as beautiful as Novigrad.

“Wait—” Andrew started, as if Neil wasn’t already stopped in the middle of the road. He glanced back at where Andrew stared at the horizon, eyes flickering across it. He pointed off to Novigrad. “Is that—?”

Neil waited for him to finish, but he never expanded. Instead, he propped his extended hand on his chin, and donned a puzzled expression.

“I don’t recognize the town down there,” he said at last, pointing to Arnette.

“Population increase in the city,” Neil explained. “People who couldn’t fit in Novigrad built Arnette. Outcasts, mostly. People in poverty.”

Neil knew better than to ask why Andrew looked so startled by the discovery. It was easy enough to come to the conclusion that perhaps they were nearing Andrew’s hometown, wherever it was.

The clouds passed low over the water, stretched thin into transparent white tufts. Neil dismounted at the bottom of the hill, rolling hills behind him. Scattered houses dotted the hillsides, and higher up, farm silos and cows grazing in the fields. The chill turned the grass grey, though, and he could see it beginning to effect Andrew as well. The demon was getting better at hiding it, but eventually, even he couldn’t hide the frequent intervals of shivering. That morning Neil recalled seeing Andrew stand at the foot of the bed, hand clutched around the quilt, as though debating stealing that as well.

At the gravel path leading up to the center of Arnette, Neil stopped a woman on the road and asked if she’d seen any witchers nearby. She propped her bag on her shoulder and gave a shrug. “Maybe. It was a few days ago. I’d ask the tavern—s’where I last saw ‘em.”

“Could you direct me to it?” he asked, and she turned him around to look off down the street. She pointed off to the crooked road diverging to the left, and curved her hand in the direction of where he’d head from there. He thanked her and pulled Roach by the reigns.

At the tavern, Andrew stuck outside with the horses while Neil went in to ask around. Talk about Dan and Matt was easier to come by there, and the regulars even knew them by name. Neil asked where they were staying, and one of the men followed him outside, hand on his shoulder, as he described the direction of the family Dan and Matt were staying with. They’d have to cross the bridge and investigate the larger houses just within the shadow of Novigrad’s walls.

Neil kept his eyes ahead of him, mostly due to the fact that if he lingered on Andrew for a little too long, he might not stop. He wished the mind-thing went both ways. Or it went no way at all—he’d be fine with that, too.

“No way at all, thank you,” Andrew chimed in with a firm shake of his head.

“But wouldn’t it be cool if we could, like… have conversations without talking out loud,” Neil said, pointing to his temple.

“We don’t have conversations usually,” Andrew muttered, staring ahead with heavy-lidded eyes.

“We’d probably have more conversations if I could see the inside of your head,” Neil said with a cheery smile when Andrew turned a scathing look to him. “You know I’m right.”

Andrew spurred Fox a little faster, fading ahead with a quipped, “My level of hatred for you increases with your verbal word count.”

If Andrew hadn’t glanced over his shoulder with a glare, Neil wouldn’t have found it at all funny, but he did, and Neil threw his head back laughing.

The bridge began and ended with the Imperial Guard. Neil was used to their cutting attitude with witchers, and prepared for it as they approached. He was too focused on getting out his paperwork from Roach’s saddlebag that he hadn’t even realized that Andrew stopped at the base of the hill leading up to the bridge. He looked back and found Andrew refusing to take a step further, hands pressed firmly to Fox’s saddle horn.

A guard was approaching Neil. He raised his hand for the paperwork, and Neil glanced once more back at Andrew before handing the paperwork over. The guard seemed annoyed with his hesitance. “Sorry. That’s my horse over there,” Neil said, pointing off to Fox, and Andrew, who shook his head sharply. “I just need to get her—”

“No. Stay on your horse, sir. I’ll fetch her for you,” the guard said after examining the paper. He rolled it back up and passed it back. “You can pay the toll up there.”

Neil opened his mouth to object, but knew where that’d get him. The last thing he wanted to do was be sent to jail (again) for disrespecting an imperial officer. He followed the guard with his eyes, looking back to where Andrew had abandoned Fox and all but ran to the steep cliff heading to the ocean straight the bridge crossed over. Neil nearly called after him, but Andrew gave him a firm salute before ducking out of view. 

What the fuck… Neil thought, bewildered beyond words.

The guard placed Fox’s reigns in Neil’s hand. He’d been too distracted by Andrew to notice that the guard was back again and escorting him to the toll. He passed over the crowns and, as he crossed the bridge in peace, peered over the side in search of Andrew. Alas, there was no sign of him—not until Neil passed the other collection of guards punctuating the end of the bridge. As he went by, he caught the sound of one of the guards whispering to another, pointing to Neil’s silver sword: “That’s three in the past week!” He glanced back at them all, and wasn’t surprised to see several hostile faces among them.

They never liked me one bit before I knew I was a witcher. Things don’t change, he thought.

An instant later, his bracers spiked white-hot before a burst of ashes exploded in front of Fox. The poor girl hardly liked Andrew to begin with, and being so close to the explosion sent her naying beside Roach. Neil coaxed her to calm down, tugging on the reigns until she butted up against Roach’s head and shook her mane out.

“Oh, Neil, pleasant surprise,” Andrew said, and pointed to Fox. “I can take care of that.”

Neil gestured discretely back to the guards, eyebrow raised in question. Andrew waved his hand dismissively and said, “Oh, them? I’d call them old friends but it’s been a good century—good riddance.”

“Andrew…”

Andrew turned on his heels and gestured dramatically to the Novigrad wall. “Home Sweet Home!” he sang, and started off down the road, passing beneath the wall’s shadow, only to turn back and flip off the guard as Neil followed after him. Neil glanced back at the guard to make sure Andrew wasn’t visible, and considering the fact that they weren’t being chased by swords, chances were Andrew was as invisible as ever.

Away from the guards, the new tension in Andrew’s shoulders relaxed, and things were as back to normal as they could be (given the fact that Andrew practically vaulted himself into the straight and reappeared when shit had passed). Neil dismounted Roach to walk at the same pace as Andrew down the road. The buildings stretched higher above them, porches strewn with clothes hung out to dry. Frost had collected on the rooftops overnight, and it shed in soft white flakes now and again to give the illusion that there were clouds at all.

At the foretold intersection of three streets, Neil stopped by a group of kids sitting out on a porch bundled up with a fluffy quilt around all of their shoulders. He asked if they’d seen any witchers around. They all pointed to the corner building, wedged between two narrow streets, and began talking all at once. “We’ve been waiting for them to come by again! Most exciting thing to happen this month by far.”

“Did they talk to you guys about where they were going?” he asked, and the girl on the end shook her head.

“No. We just keep an eye on the place to see them come and go. They left yesterday evening. They aren’t usually gone for more than a day,” she said.

“Do people always treat your kind like celebrities?” Andrew asked, and Neil resisted the urge to roll his eyes.

The boy beside the girl pointed to Neil’s sheathe. “That looks like one of their swords,” he said.

“That’s because it is,” Neil said, and reached back to unsheathe it. Instantly, the shink of metal was accompanied by an amazed gasp from the teenagers, and they were lunging off the porch to see it close up.

He flipped the sword around to show them the pommel—decorated with a carved, metal attachment on the end shaped like his fox pendant. One of the kids pointed to his face and said, “You don’t look like a witcher. What happened to your face?”

He pointed to the scars, and she nodded. “A demon did this yesterday.”

“Yesterday? But it’s already healed!”

“Did you kill it?”

“No, my friend took care of it,” he said, and glanced over at Andrew, who continued on looking disinterested in the conversation. He spared only one look at Neil.

“Ask me to show myself out loud. I want to know how they react to you talking to nothing,” Andrew teased. Neil sheathed the sword as soon as one of the kids tried dragging their finger across the blade.

Please? Neil thought.

“I fucking hate that word,” Andrew groaned, and walked away before Neil could try another tactic to convince him.

Neil sat on the porch with the kids and unwound his amulet for them to pass around. They asked about his previous mission, and though he was shit at storytelling (he had a bad habit of underplaying just about everything) they seemed amazed by anything he said. Telling locals about shit like this was something Matt drilled into him early on when he first started out three years ago. It was a pain at first, but it helped his anxiety over being the central figure in a conversation. It was one of the ways Dan tried improving the image of the Foxes and witchers in general. Make friends with the locals, not enemies.

Or else everyone would act like the Imperial Guards around him. Attention from the authorities was worse than a few innocent kids asking questions.

Andrew was completely done with the teenager situation, and took to the horses whether they liked it or not. Roach was used to the attention of monsters, and merely eyed Andrew and stood stick-straight when he approached. Fox, on the other hand, only managed to stay still due to the fact that Andrew still had her by the reigns. Evidently, animals were better than people, and Neil agreed.

About ten minutes from then, one of the kids shouted to alert the others, pointing down the road. Neil turned and found Dan’s white horse—the most obvious among them—followed closely by Matt’s black horse. Neil took his necklace back and tied it on his way to his feet. He said farewell to the group, and they all gathered on the porch to watch their entertainment for that day: three witchers in one area.

Dan, as soon as she caught sight of Neil walking out into the open, galloped ahead with an eager, “Neil!” and a laugh as she swung off of her horse as it sped past. She hit the ground running, and slamming into Neil with a thrilled cry. She flung her arms around his neck, and the momentum sent them swinging.

Neil staggered, laughing, and holding on for dear life until Dan settled beside him, grin bright. Her tight, white curls were a tangled mess around her face, dampened and dirty from a long day at work. Matt was no better, but his smile was less enthusiastic as he dismounted after he pulled his horse to a stop beside Roach.

“Is Allison with you?” Dan asked, tugging Neil’s attention back.

“Uh, no—she’s fine, though,” he said, and Matt all but sighed, “Thank gods.”

Dan put a hand to her forehead, relief flushing over her. She reclined back on her heels, hand on her hip. “Well, that’s good to hear. Is she still in Yantra?”

“No. She said she’s heading to the coast with Renee,” Neil explained, and at the confusion on Dan’s face, Neil pointed to Matt. “The demon Matt gave her.”

Dan whipped around to stare at Matt, who suddenly looked caged. “You did what?!” Dan shrieked, and snatched her glove off to whip Matt with it. Matt recoiled and ducked behind Roach, which meant that Andrew had to side-step him and tug Fox away. Dan shook her glove after Matt before turning back around to Neil and asking, “Is she okay? Demon aside?”

Neil knew what weighed in the question, and as much as he didn’t want to carry it, someone had to deliver the news. “I don’t know. Seth wasn’t involved with the demon kidnapping all those people.”

“He wasn’t?” Matt asked from over his horse’s saddle. Dan turned to glare at him, but he was too interested in the case to be held back. “Are you certain?”

“Yes,” Neil said, and he hoped it was the case. He glanced over at Andrew, who remained stoic amidst the horses.

Matt circled around his horse, preparing to drill Neil for more, but Dan waved the glove at him as a silent threat. “Let’s get settled and talk about it over some food, alright?” she suggested, and Matt opened his mouth to object, only to clamp it shut when she gestured discretely to the kids on the porch still staring at them in awe. As they fought through expressions and small gestures, Neil looked to Andrew.

Andrew held his hand tight to Fox’s reigns, and showed no other sign of being .5 seconds away from punching a hole through Matt’s skull. Still, Neil could see the minute tension in Andrew’s brow as he stared at Matt and contemplated the best way to kill a man. Neil must have spent a split second too long watching Andrew watch Matt, because when he turned back, Matt looked .5 seconds away from losing his shit.

“He’s out?” Matt said.

“Wow, and suddenly I’m a dog or something,” Andrew said, and Dan’s reaction, and Matt’s pallid complexion, made it obvious just how visible Andrew was now.

Dan screamed, hand to her heart. She gasped in alarm, settling as soon as she processed what, exactly, was happening. Andrew crossed his arms, eyes pinned on Matt. Matt’s hand was on his hip, clasped on the pommel of his sword.

“Hello again, Matthew,” Andrew said, abandoning Fox to take a step nearer. He drummed his black, sharpened claws over his bicep. “Miss me?”

“Neil—” Matt started, taking a step back from Andrew. He put his arm out to Dan, who got the hint. Her hand went to her waist.

A burst of flames curled up from Andrew’s arms, sending his cloak whipping to the side. At that point, Neil was preparing to call it quits—they started one too many forest-fires already—and Dan looked panicked enough as it was. The instant Andrew’s eyes turned pure red, surrounded by black, Neil struck his bracers together and sent Andrew bursting into sparks. Dan shrieked again, flinging her hands up as if the fire would come barreling towards her. Instead, they collected on Neil’s wrists and sizzled out.

The heat remained, though. It flared up and seared his arm, but he was used to hiding pain and managed a stoic look as he walked forward and grabbed hold of Fox and Roach’s reigns. He turned to keep moving, and hesitated at the sight of the teenagers on the porch, their jaws in their laps. If Neil’s wrists weren’t turning to ash at that moment, he might have smiled.

He glanced back at Matt and Dan, who were looking between themselves and the spot where Andrew burst into sparks. “Let’s go,” Neil said. “Unless… you want me to make a scene. I don’t like keeping him in the bracers anyways.”

Dan kicked into gear. She grabbed the white horse’s reigns and walked ahead to lead Neil to the public stables, farther down the road and out of view. Matt followed farther behind and didn’t catch up until Neil handed Roach’s reigns to a stablehand. He followed after the kid with Fox close behind, and looked back to find Matt hurrying after him, leaving his horse with Dan.

“Neil,” he started, jogging to catch up. He slowed at the open stable door where Fox would go. Neil rubbed a hand over his wrist where Andrew seethed. “You know why I gave you him, don’t you?”

“Yeah, and it worked. It still doesn’t excuse the fact that you’ve been collecting demons as it is,” Neil said. The hurt of being lied to settled on his chest, sinking its claws in. “What purpose do you have for them? Do you know what it’s like, sitting on a shelf for a century?”

Matt hesitated, hand clutching to the door’s bars. He looked in at the hay-strewn ground and back at Neil. This new, peculiar look sent that pain in Neil’s chest twisting. Why was Matt looking at him like that?

“You wouldn’t have come here if you didn’t want to know how to break the curse,” Matt said, and Neil raised an eyebrow at him. “Right? That’s what you want?”

“Well, I guess. I haven’t really decided yet,” he confessed, but he wasn’t sure if it was for him to hear, or Andrew. His wrists were still pulsing, but it was mostly the aftermath of Andrew’s flareup when Matt came by.

Matt nodded to Neil’s wrists, eyes then meeting Neil’s. “I don’t collect demons for fun, you know. A shelf-life isn’t exactly the best way to spend your days, but it’s better than the alternative. You could say I’ve been protecting them from shit that’s happened in the past. I know you and Allison are harmless, but other people… not so much.”

“I don’t understand.” He did understand. He just didn’t know what to say. His jaw tightened, thinking of his father, with a demon like Andrew. As if his father wasn’t awful enough.

Matt seemed to realize it, and offered a sad smile. “I just need you to know that breaking the curse won’t give him another shelf-life. And I don’t want you making decisions for his wellbeing. He’s already had his life—you still have a ways to go. I thought wrong about you and Allison. Sometimes it’s hard to imagine the two of you being empathetic.”

“Who said I’m empathetic?” Neil said, grinning, only to hiss. Andrew just pinched the skin on his arm. Matt laughed and gave Neil a clap on the shoulder.

“Give me your map. I’ll mark where you’re supposed to go,” Matt said, and as Neil retrieved it from Fox’s saddlebag, Matt continued, “I’ll also need to write instructions down for you. Dan knows them better than me, so we can wait until we get inside.”

“Instructions?”

“Black magic did this. You’ll need to teach yourself a few things about it in order to break it,” he explained, pressing the map flat up against the wood paneling. He tugged a knife out of the strap across his chest and pinned it south of The Keep, formally known as Kaer Morhen. It was where Neil spent the better part of these past three years training as he underwent the witcher mutations. He wouldn’t have this strength or stamina without it, or Matt, Dan, and Allison’s vigorous tests. He always assumed he had so much more to learn than what they equipped him with at The Keep.

“The cure is back home?” Neil mused aloud. “Why didn’t you ever do it yourself?”

“I wanted them each to find a potential resting place. You can’t break the curse without being a part of it. If I took them on myself with the end game being this, then they wouldn’t get another chance,” he said, rolling up the map. “I don’t need a demon of my own.”

He handed it back, and Neil stared at the hole now peaking through the back of the map. He tightened his grip on it and watched Matt walk off. When he wasn’t sore from practices, or passed out from exhaustion, he spent all of his free time roaming the trails around The Keep, and testing his magicks out in the forests. Kaer Morhen was stationed amidst calm summers and even calmer winters, which he yearned for after spending so much time riding Roach through the brink of winter. He missed home.

Matt walked off to meet with Dan. Neil dragged a thumb over the end of the arm bracers before tugging off his gloves and sticking them in the back pocket of his trousers. He wound his cloak closer before tipping the stablehand and heading out after his mentors.

Seeing them together felt… surreal. Months seemed to pass like years in those days, but regardless of time, they never seemed to age or appear any different from the last time they crossed paths.

At the entrance to the house, Dan knocked on the door before trying the handle. They waltzed in as she announced, “Hello! It’s just us!” and the owner greeted them, voice carrying from another room. Dan and Matt slipped off their boots, and so Neil did the same. Once the door closed behind them, Dan turned to touch a hand to Neil’s cheek, dragging her thumb down the cuts.

“Battle scar?” she teased, and he rolled his eyes. “You’re starting a collection, buddy.”

As if I didn’t already have one, he thought, walking up the steps with her. Matt left to find food somewhere in the house, which gave them a moment to chat alone.

“What’s his name?” Dan asked at the top of the stairs. Neil stopped to regard her, eyebrow raised in confusion. She pointed to the bracers.

“Oh. Andrew,” he said, raising both arms up. “Would you like to meet him? No promises on him being visible, though.”

“He doesn’t seem to like Matt very much,” Dan hummed, glancing down the stairs. She ducked to a whisper. “I think he’s nervous about having you keep Andrew out.”

“Wow, what gave you that impression,” Neil said sarcastically. Dan pulled him into a separate room—a bedroom of sorts, attached to a small sitting area. She shut the door behind them. “Seriously—What’s so bad about having Andrew around? I mean, Renee’s still with Allison—”

“No, it’s not that. Well, sort of,” she said, suddenly anxious. “Matt’s showed me the artifacts before—the bracer, the ring, the chess piece. It sounds like the longer they’re in the bracers, the more unstable they become outside of the bracers. It’s like… it’s like marinating chicken.”

Neil made a disgusted face and walked away, wondering if Andrew just heard Dan call him a marinated chicken.

“The marinara sauce is the magick source they pull from,” she explained hastily, sounding more annoyed than anything. “Too much magick can corrupt creatures. Like drowners, where human corpses zombify after death. They touched the other side and came back corrupted with magick. But with demons like… Andrew and Renee… it’s more complicated. Passing them on to another person is either a serious commitment, or a death sentence for them.”

“Matt probably looked at this as a death sentence instead of a commitment,” Neil said, thinking back to Matt’s surprise upon hearing that Allison was taking Renee to the coast. “That’s ridiculous. They used to be people.”

“Yes, but what if Andrew untapped all the magick he’s been festering in,” Dan explained.

“He could barely start a fire when he got out the first time. I don’t think we need to worry about that,” Neil said. An instant later, the bracers shocked him. “I’m just being honest,” he muttered, mostly to Andrew as he rubbed the aching sensation away.

“Your demon could seriously hurt someone if you don’t keep him in check,” Dan insisted. “If you’re about to make this a commitment—”

“I don’t know! I haven’t decided yet,” he insisted, flinging a hand up in annoyance. He turned away, pretending the bookshelves interested him more than the conversation. “Gods. I get that you’re worried or whatever, and I know you two are just testing me like always—”

“We aren’t—”

“No, Dan, you are. I’ve been at this for three years. Three years! That’s nothing! As if you seriously think I’m a capable witcher by now!” he cried, turning back with a glare. Dan’s shoulders slumped, and just then, the bedroom door opened.

Matt peered in, uncertain, and looked around as if in search of Andrew’s ghost. Dan sighed. “He’s not out,” she said, and Matt visibly relaxed. “I was just telling Neil.”

“You’d think you would have given me a little more of an instruction kit for this,” Neil snapped at him. “You didn’t think any of this was important did you? The only factor you took into account was killing Andrew and Renee afterwards.”

“Whoa, hey, I wouldn’t call it killing since they’re already dead,” Matt said, hands raised in surrender. Neil felt like taking his white flag and burning it. Instead, he took to clenching his fists, jaw tight, glowering at Matt from across the room.

“They’re still people—”

“That’s naïve and you know it,” Matt said.

“We aren’t monsters, Matt. So what if they practiced black magick? They aren’t monsters any more than we are if we start treating them like they’re expendable weapons,” Neil said, voice sharp. Dan looked like she wanted to intervene, but Neil was already plotting his next move. He stepped up to Matt, backing him away from the door. “What about that third demon you have?”

“Neil—” Dan started.

“What’re you planning on doing with them?” Neil went on, jabbing Matt in the chest. “Are they back at Kaer Morhen?”

Matt’s expression fell, amber eyes darkening. “Neil—no,” he said, but it was too late.

Neil backed up to the door and bolted out. He raced to the stairs and jumped over the railing, landing fluidly on the first floor and mere feet from the owner, who screamed bloody-murder as Neil booked it to the door. An instant later, Matt’s feet hit the stairs running, shouting after Neil. Neil snatched his boots and ran out in his socks, sprinting as fast as he knew he could from those days he used to run the trails around Kaer Morhen. He never lost his breath, never once took a wrong step, and before long, he was at the stables, swinging open Roach’s door and whistling for him to get moving.

The stablehands looked on in confusion, but thankfully, the one recognized him from before and stopped the others from calling for the officers. Neil fetched Fox and coaxed her out into the open air. Roach trotted after him, and picked up speed as Neil grabbed hold of the saddle horn and swept himself off the ground. He bolted past Matt, who stopped just outside the stable when Neil flew by.

“Neil! Wait!” Matt shouted. He waved his arms to no avail, and Dan jogged up, looking far more frazzled than the way she arrived that day.

When Neil flew by the teenagers’ house, they got to their feet hooting and hollering. The dust Roach and Fox kicked up clouded their view of him until it faded and revealed that he was already on the toll bridge, making his way to Kaer Morhen.

Chapter Text

Neil didn’t summon Andrew again until they were out of Arnette and riding fast back in the direction of Yantra. He spawned just far enough ahead on the road to grab Fox’s saddle horn and haul himself up as she rode past. He stretched his arms up and cracked his back. “Well, nothing like front-row seating to a divorce,” he said.

He could practically feel Neil gritting his teeth. “Yikes, bad subject?” Andrew said.

It took several tries for Neil to find his voice, or even the words. “I’ve never fought with them like that before.”

“Well, there’s a first time for everything,” he said. “So what the hell and where the hell even is Kaer Morhen?”

“East of Yantra. In the mountains—again,” Neil said. “It should be warmer there, even in snow weather.”

“Oh goodie. You know how I love the snow,” Andrew said, and flashed a fake smile at Neil before scowling. “Seriously. I thought I was the hothead here. What the fuck was up with that?”

Neil slapped a hand over his face and groaned. “I wasn’t thinking.”

“You weren’t thinking?” Andrew said, and he laughed out loud. “Yeah, well, that sounds about right. Nothing new there.”

Neil’s heart was still humming fast—Andrew could feel it like wings fluttering inside his chest. Or perhaps that was just Andrew shivering; he wasn’t quite sure. It didn’t take long at all for the shivering to become apparent, and with Fox as skittish as she was, he refrained from lighting a fire despite how tempting it was. Instead, he focused on what was on both their minds: Whether or not Andrew’s magick was stronger because of his century-long jail sentence.

“I didn’t feel any different getting rid of the demon,” Andrew confessed aloud. “I didn’t have to use all that much magick to begin with.”

“So what you’re saying is that that was nothing,” Neil said, and it was more of a statement than a question. “Have you done… ‘bigger things’ before?”

Andrew pretended to think on it, but he already had several occasions in mind. “Yes. I destroyed Assengard.”

Neil hesitated. Andrew continued riding until he realized that Neil was no longer beside him, and pulled Fox to a halt. He looked back to find Neil staring at him with obvious alarm. “You did what?” he said.

“I was angry. Destroyed Assengard,” he said. “I’m sure Renee’s done something along those lines.”

Neil continued to stare at him before spurring Roach forward. He came up beside Andrew and shook his head. “I don’t believe you. You didn’t do that—there was an earthquake.”

“It’s not that weird. Stop looking at me like that. I won’t do anything unless provoked,” he said, and on second thought, added, “So maybe I am a bit like a dog…”

The statement did not amuse Neil one bit.

“Matt will catch up to us at this rate,” he said, glancing behind them. They were too far into the forest to accurately see what laid beyond the twists and turns in the dirt road. The path was worn, and dug into the earth so that the bushes seemed to wick up the sides of the trail. Andrew looked up at the canopy, and smelled rain despite the lightly cloudy afternoon.

About a mile later, they heard the telltale signs of rain droplets scattering over leaves, and the steady drizzle, blocked by the canopy, soon broke through. The temperature dropped with the rain, and despite all of Renee’s worrying, Andrew found himself wishing Neil would just put him in the bracers and call it a night. Maybe then he wouldn’t have to sit through freezing rain.

They kept moving through the rain until it became too difficult to see past the torrents of it. They settled with their backs against the massive, redwood roots, backs against the wind and protected behind the tree trunks. In their pocket of dry earth, Neil fashioned a fire and busied himself with drying out twigs from around the area. Roach looked wretched in the rain—mane flattened, saddlebags drenched. Andrew sniffled.

“Oh, no, don’t do that,” Neil whined. “I don’t want to get sick.”

“You’re a fucking witcher. Don’t you have a mutation for that?”

“Well, yeah, for normal stuff. I can’t imagine what demons are able to catch,” he said, looking far too innocent for his own good. Andrew worried about his own heart humming too fast at the sight of Neil’s cheeky grin. Andrew set his jaw tight and looked away with a roll of his eyes. He settled for staring at the sway of the ferns disrupted by the rain. Anything was better than dwelling on his own infatuation with Neil.

Okay, no, not infatuation, he thought sharply. As Allison would call it—his appreciation for the finer things in life.

He wanted to pry. The desperation to do so was almost as tempting as kissing the fuck out of Neil right here, right now, amidst the gross, soggy pine needles. He clenched his fingers together and played his shudder off as a reaction to the cold. It did him no good because a moment later, Neil was tugging off his jacket.

“Fuck off, Neil,” Andrew muttered, shying away.

“I’m warm blooded, you’re cold blooded.”

“That’s not how this works.”

“Yeah, well, I’m always a little too hot anyways so it’s no big deal,” he said, and Andrew was too busy agreeing to the “hot” part to bother fending off the extra jacket because damn, that was hot too. Toasty, even.

Neil hesitated. He stayed true to his word, but that didn’t mean lingering a few inches too close wasn’t in the cards. Andrew pegged him with what he hoped was a withering stare, but instead, it just came off as an excuse to debate what color Neil’s eyes resembled. He didn’t know of many blue flowers, but that was all he could think of because his brain short circuited and convinced him that the sky wasn’t blue in comparison to Neil’s eyes.

“I’m sorry,” Neil said, and saying it crumbled his neutral expression. He put a hand to his face and groaned. “Sorry for thinking that. I’m just—”

“I wasn’t paying attention,” Andrew said.

“Still, I just—I don’t want you to feel obligated to do anything because of what happens inside my head,” he insisted, and Andrew cursed himself. Did he seriously just miss Neil thinking dirty? Granted, Andrew wasn’t exactly thrilled about having shared a brain with a compulsive-dirty-thinker, but Neil was another story.

“I missed it—Think it again,” Andrew demanded.

Neil groaned into his hand, and when Andrew shoved his shoulder, Neil shoved him back. He tipped his head back against the bark, laughing, cheeks pink. “No. No, I’m just being ridiculous,” he insisted, waving his hands dismissively. “I’ll think of puppies instead.”

“That sounds far less exciting,” Andrew said.

“Don’t encourage me.”

“Let me take a wild guess then. Let’s see…” he said with a flourish, circling his hand into the air before pinning Neil on the chest with a firm point. He dragged a sharp nail up past the chord of Neil’s amulet, following the motion of Neil swallowing hard, eyes pinned on Andrew’s steady red irises. Andrew dragged his nails up the column of Neil’s throat, settling at the marks that demon left beneath his jaw.

Andrew waited, catching Neil’s breath as it left him. Neil’s stupid sense of hope was drenched in eagerness despite how he tried to hold it down. Andrew’s grin was both genuine and malevolent. He could torture Neil like this all day.

“Bullseye,” he said.

Neil opened his mouth—to deny the obviousness of how turned on he was. He even had a thorough, pre-made essay on the fact that Andrew didn’t have to do this—but Andrew was sick and tired of the excuses. He’d be gone before he knew it, and this would be nothing but a blink-of-the-eye occurrence. Neil would go on to become an even bigger idiot with even better looks, and Andrew would curse the day he didn’t at least give that a shot, right?

Andrew sealed his mouth over Neil’s, pulling Neil in with a firm tug of his hand. His fingers were still latched onto Neil’s jaw, holding him still as he familiarized himself with the taste and feel of Neil’s mouth. Neil’s momentary hesitance faded, only to spring back full force when he reached for Andrew’s hair, and was pinned back by the wrist. Andrew pulled back far enough to bite out, “No touching.”

Neil nodded fast, and leant in again to meet Andrew’s lips again. Andrew’s bruising force was nothing like this—like Neil’s blatant ignorance in the realm of making out. His ignorance had no limits, and Andrew realized that he was completely okay with that, especially if it meant letting Neil kiss him like that again. He was soft and still, lingering with little motion before pulling back to open his eyes and ensure Andrew’s approval.

Andrew’s hand tightened around Neil’s wrist, leaning up against the bark as he slotted a knee between Neil’s legs and pressed his lips back to Neil’s. Neil’s jacket slipped off his shoulders, which gave him more motion, but made him susceptible to the—

Current of water dropping from the canopy.

A splash of icy cold rainwater dropped over them. Andrew gasped, reeling back with a horrified shiver. Neil laughed, still pinned to the tree. “You okay?” he asked, but Andrew was too busy experiencing a brain freeze across his entire body.

“No. It feels like someone shoved me head first into an avalanche going straight into the ocean,” he said, eyes shut. He groaned, tipping to the side to try and grab Neil’s jacket. Instead, Neil got to it first, and used one hand to toss it around Andrew’s shoulders. Andrew lowered his head to Neil’s chest and groaned again.

Neil let his knee fall to the side, and accepted the fact that Andrew wasn’t moving anytime soon.

It didn’t take long for the burst of rain to pass, but by then it was dark. Neil yawned, raised arm going limp. Andrew still had it pinned against the tree. “You can let go of my wrist now,” he said, but Andrew merely grunted. Neil huffed a laugh, shaking his head and turning his eyes up to the canopy. Fox leaned her head down from over one raised root and pressed it to Neil’s lifted knee. “I need to feed the horses,” he told Andrew, who refused to move.

Fox walked off to join Roach. She went with a little bolt on her steps, skittish and all nerves. She bumped up against Roach’s side, who tossed his head with a huff. Neil found it peculiar—Fox was only ever skittish when Andrew was involved, but Andrew wasn’t even moving—

“Get up,” Neil said, reaching back for his sword.

The moment Andrew was on his feet with Neil following suit, they heard it. Neil hesitated, hand against the tree. His arm had fallen asleep, and he shook it out as he listened for it again, trying to differentiate the sound from the rain. It sounded like a series of clicks accompanied by… gargling. It echoed amongst the trees. He recognized the sound from the swamps around the Trail around Kaer Morhen. He uncorked a vial of oil and rubbed it over his sword, casting a visual of fire to Andrew. Andrew nodded, and drew a stream of flames from between his outstretched hands. The instant the spark lit, a plume of light illuminated the area around them. The shadows flickered off to the left, ferns flinging to and fro. Disturbance.

“Their skin blisters fast if exposed to fire,” Neil explained, picturing the first time Matt walked him to Kaer Morhen. They had encountered one on its lonesome—harmless. They were more dangerous in packs, and by the sound of the echoes, there had to be more than three out there.

Neil caught his blade through the thick of Andrew’s fire before swinging it at the sound approaching from behind him. He spun fast, cutting his sword through the gangly arm of the blue-skinned monster. It shrieked, throat bubbling with water. It opened its wide maw and emitted a horrific clicking sound. He dislodged his sword and dislodged his steel sword, piercing it through the beast’s mouth in one swift motion.

He kicked his boot against its bloated stomach and sent its tender skin bursting over the tree roots. Blue ooze gushed over the ferns, slicking up his sword. He shook it off before pointing towards the horses.

Roach and Fox hurried down the hill to the road, only to screech to a roaring halt at the sound of clicks coming down the gravel way. Andrew slid down the hill, tearing through ferns and underbrush. He cast a spray of fire out at the beasts approaching fast. There were two of them, and they all burst into black boils under the intense heat. They faded in the dark, shattering upon impact. Andrew stared at the ash they left behind before looking around for others. Neil figured there were three, but the hairs were still standing on the back of his neck. Fox reared her head until Neil calmed her, holding her reigns down.

“I think that was the last of them. We should be fine now,” Neil said.

“No. Listen—” Andrew raised a finger to his lips, turning back to look at the tree they’d settled under.

A breeze came through, rustling the canopy. It never quite reached them, because the sound became akin to a thunderous roar of a rainstorm coming in again. Andrew bristled at the sound of clicks mimicking the rainfall.

“Go!” Andrew hissed, shoving his flames back so that he could smack Fox’s rear end. She went off in a tizzy, bolting down the road. “I’ll cut them off. Just keep going—I’ll teleport.”

“But—”

“I’m fucking serious, Neil! Don’t waste your energy on this shit,” Andrew snapped, all but forcing Neil to Roach’s side. The instant Neil was mounted, Andrew hit Roach’s back end and readied readied the fire in his hands to swell up around him.

He cut flames out from either side of him, scorching the earth and sending the underbrush ablaze. A swarm of black shadows reared up over the hill, catching blue in the light. They all emitted gargling shrieks at the flames before Andrew swept his foot forward and cast the fire ahead. It tore through the underbrush, sending a cloud of smoke to the canopy. It smelled of wet earth and burnt frogs, but it didn’t linger.

Andrew’s form shattered into sparks. Before he could completely vanish, though, he caught sight of a dozen more of those things approaching fast, and gaining speed through the trees.

When the embers assembled once more in a burst of light, Andrew collapsed, slanted, onto Fox’s saddle. His hands were still burning, and wound up searing the saddle horn. He hissed and shook his hands out before turning to look back at Neil, and beyond him through the dark.

Andrew’s eyes were clear at night, and so it wasn’t difficult to tell that they were now being pursued. It wouldn’t be long before they outran the beasts, though. His fire began to dissipate as they rounded the curve in the trail, and branched off and out of the mucky woods.

***

They didn’t sleep that night, mostly out of Neil’s sheer will to keep moving and not look back. Andrew could taste Neil’s paranoia on his tongue and in his gut where Neil worried over whether or not Matt would catch up with them. They were being chased, and that much was obvious after spending a minute or two in Neil’s brain.

Neil spent the majority of the journey mentally filing through the rooms Matt occupied. Andrew could only remember the wooden surface, and the occasional sound of voices entering the room. He could vaguely picture the chess piece sat on Renee’s opposite side.

By morning, they were on the cusp of the mountains, walking amongst the foothills and arriving at the base of the switchback trail that would carry them up to the mountain pass to Kaer Morhen. Neil’s exhaustion was starting to push on Andrew’s mind like an impending headache.

The sound of water roaring came with the approach to the Trails, and Andrew picked up a few details about the landscape as they wandered onwards. Neil’s words were starting to be accompanied by images—faint, foggy memories buried under the dust of years gone by. Specifically, as Neil looked out to the edge of the waterfalls in the distance, Andrew registered an image of Matt. “Stay in the valley. Don’t go beyond the waterfalls.”

What’s over there, I wonder, he mused, but he wasn’t eager to find out for himself. Just the sound of the freezing water on the cusp of winter had him shivering, but he ignored it in favor of realizing that his teeth were no longer clattering. There was just a constant, burning sensation wherever the fabric was thinnest—his neck, his legs, et cetera.

They reached the edge of the valley Matt described to Neil long ago, and Andrew felt warmth spread across his mind—something akin to admiration. Nostalgia. It was a strong sensation for someone who only spent three years there and already considered it somewhat of a childhood home.

The Keep was stationed amidst a peak, surrounded by thick waves of rolling evergreens. Andrew had never seen such a thing. He had never truly been to the mountains before now, and could hardly imagine living there. He couldn’t quite imagine living anywhere, especially with Drake constantly being restationed, and Neil always on the run from something.

“Home sweet home,” Neil said dully, spurring Roach along. “We’ll make it before nightfall.”

“Is that a promise? Because I’m looking forward to a fire and hot cocoa,” Andrew chimed in, sarcastically even though it was true.

As they traveled through familiar territory, Andrew tapped into Neil’s mind further so that pockets of familiarity blossomed within him. The sound of shoes crunching through the dirt was vivid enough for Andrew to assume someone was following them. He glanced over his shoulder to ensure they weren’t. It was just Neil remembering the days he used to run through here during training. The bare trees overhead rustled with the wind in a chorus of hundreds of other evenings Neil spent out here on his own.

A crow cawed from a branch over their heads before flying away with the murder heading east. Andrew followed them with his eyes before he was introduced to a familiar voice echoing in his brain. “—been looking for you for hours, idiot. Dan’s worried sick.”

“I got lost,” Neil’s voice sounded in his head. They turned down a fork in the road, and Andrew’s attention scattered at the sight of the wooden sign hammered into the ground. A ghost of Allison stood there, looking pissed beyond repair.

“Got lost? You’re a fucking witcher—use your senses or—”

The image faded the farther they went.

“This way,” Neil said aloud. He didn’t even have to tug his reigns to the left because Roach was already enroute. Fox followed out of habit.

The instant they arrived at Kaehr Morhen, Neil was swarmed by people living there year-round, and trainees who recognized him from months earlier. Before he could be swept away, however, Neil turned back to Andrew as they approached the stables. “Try and find the shelf Matt put you and the others on. I’ll meet up with you as soon as I can.”

“Aye, aye, sir,” Andrew said, swinging a leg off Fox’s saddle.

The instant they were free of their horses in the vacant stable (all except for the horses, that is), the sound of cascading footsteps thundered from the far side. Neil started towards it, hearing the sound of kids whispering frantically to one another, “Are you sure you saw someone come in?” “What if it’s an invader?” “No, it’s not an invader—Master Danielle took care of that—”

Neil ducked against the wall beside the stairs, a sly grin on his face as the kids showed themselves, searching for the intruder. It was then that Neil bolted forward, saying, “I hear you talking about me—!”

One of the three kids screamed and ran. The other two gasped in recognition, lunging at him with thrilled shouts. Neil took the smallest one up, tucked under his arm like a bale of hay. He walked them up the stairs as they asked a dozen questions all at once. Their voices faded as Andrew considered where to start first in the Keep.

He traveled the many corridors as far as he could stray from Neil’s location. The Keep was a dense, solid structure formed from bricks the height of Andrew’s torso. All the doors were secured like everything inside of it was worth protecting—wrought iron hinges and double locks, and rubber skirts on the inside so occupants could stuff it into the bottom crack and ensure no one could listen in.

I can’t imagine getting myself locked into one of these rooms, he thought, but it was promptly followed by, Of course I can imagine it. It’s happened before. Just not here.

Andrew hurried down a short set of stairs that collided with several corridors spilling down into an atrium. The vaulted, domed ceiling echoed the sound of people chattering and laughing away. Neil was with them, and Andrew hesitated in the center of the atrium to listen for it. The last time Andrew heard Neil mingle with other people like this was back at Novigrad, talking to the teenagers on the porch. Even then he knew it was a facade, and the obvious falsity had Andrew snickering as he turned down a different track, walking up a tunneled stairwell to gods know where.

Andrew walked through corridor after room after locked hallway door. He tugged at the metal bars of one such gate and huffed in frustration. He considered crashing through it, but thought better of it. It wasn’t that he cared or anything, but Neil would get pissed if he started tearing through walls just to find the spot he was kept in all these years. So, as he walked away from yet another barred hallway, he thought, That’s not my gate to destroy.

Eventually, Andrew walked too far and felt his form disintegrate into ash and embers. When he recollected once more, scattered vision reassembling, he was in a wide open stairwell with steps branching off over head to various floors. Neil was asking a man if he could borrow the keys to Matt’s quarters.

“He said it was fine. I just need to pick up something,” Neil said, and a moment later, the man unlatched a key from a hefty, clanking ring and set it in Neil’s awaiting glove. He clutched onto it. “Thank you.”

“No problem. If you’re hungry, I can ask the kitchen to whip something up.”

“That’d be great. I’ll be down in a bit,” Neil promised, already walking away. He glanced at Andrew, and nodded discretely to the staircase cutting up to the third floor. Andrew fell in line beside him, folding his arms over his chest. “Anything?” he asked quietly.

“Well, considering I came back with nothing, I’d say it was a bust,” he said, and Neil rolled his eyes at the sarcasm. “A lot of places are blocked off, though. I’m willing to bet he’d hide a demon behind there. In case someone went looking for an extra chess piece to play with.”

“He keeps his office locked, too. My guess is that he’d keep you guys close—last thing he wants is for one of you three to go missing, only to find out weeks later when he decides to check back,” Neil said, and Andrew had to admit, he was impressed with the logic.

At the top of the staircase was a narrow inlet amongst all the stone bricks. A heavy wooden door stood before them, and Neil took his newest key and worked the lock open. He pushed it slowly, so the creak groaned through the dark room. With the light fading outside, the place was drenched in inky darkness. Andrew sparked a flame and searched for the nearest lamp. He ignited it while Neil walked across the room and lit candles along the way.

Andrew shut the door as Neil turned round and furrowed his brows at the sheer amount of shelves in the room. There was a glass cabinet raised up to the loft overhead, and inlets all along the stairs climbing up the far side of the office. Neil crossed behind Matt’s desk, looking away from the wide open archways onto the balcony. Andrew stuck to the foyer inlet, trying desperately to expand that narrow foggy tunnel he looked through all this years.

“Does it feel familiar?” Neil asked, and after a decided moment, Andrew shook his head. “Dammit. Well, we don’t have much time. Matt’s probably already on his way. Dan probably distracted him for a good few minutes. They likely had to pack, so that gave us time. Matt doesn’t believe in riding through the night, either, so we have that on him—”

As Neil ranted on, Andrew traced along the edges of the shelves. There was a red book near him back then, but all he found were leather-bound editions, and gnarled journals from witchers’ pasts.

Eventually, he found his way to Neil, who had ceased ranting to study Andrew. He was anticipating a moment of clarity. For Andrew to look at something on the wall and suddenly realize that this was it. This was the room he spent a century in.

Andrew shook his head firmly.

“I’m sorry,” Neil said.

“What the fuck are you apologizing for?” Andrew said, almost laughing. He scoffed and looked towards the archways.

“I don’t know. I just feel sorry a lot.” His eyes were on the ground when Andrew looked back. He was short enough to see that Neil was struggling to keep his eyes away from Andrew, the hesitant but persistent need to explain himself on the tip on Neil’s tongue. It was impossible for him to put words to it, though, but Andrew could feel it. It gnawed away at the tarnish and the dust and the mold over Andrew’s insides that Drake encouraged.

Andrew leant forward and pinned Neil to Matt’s desk with an agonizing kiss. He knew from before that Neil wasn’t like this—he wasn’t desperate and angry like Andrew was for feeling like this—but he couldn’t stop the force he used to catch Neil’s hands as he attempted to raise them to Andrew’s hair. He forced them down against the desk, letting the key scatter.

Neil’s response was decisive, and Andrew could feel and remember how Neil anticipated it since the last time but refused to dwell on it, not with Andrew always listening. Neil parted his mouth, tongue meeting Andrew’s as he let Andrew push him back, climbing onto the desk.

Andrew scattered the desk’s contents with their joined hands. He pinned Neil’s arms over his head, cutting them apart to let Neil breath. Andrew only panted at the sensation of his heart hammering in his chest, humming loud in his ears as he searched Neil’s eyes for reluctance and found none.

“Tell me no,” Andrew demanded.

Neil shifted, chest rising up to meet Andrew’s. He leaned in close, licking his lips as his eyes darted between Andrew’s sharp red irises. “I’ll tell you something, and it’s not no,” he said, and Andrew felt it. His heart stopping. It left his seemingly nonexistent, benign lungs breathless. He didn’t feel alive, not like Renee claimed they could be, but it was something. “Are you okay with it?”

Andrew didn’t verbalize it. Instead, he pushed Neil down with one freed hand and kissed him like this was it. This was his last chance. Kaer Morhen was their final destination before Andrew would be banished from Neil’s life for good. If Neil was saying yes, then holy hot fuck was Andrew going to take advantage of that.

Chapter Text

Neil’s clenched hands ached, but he wouldn’t realize it until after Andrew let him go. For now, his attention was focused solely on the desperation to shed his armor. He tried to say something around Andrew’s mouth, but fighting back the needy sounds took too much effort as soon as he opened his mouth. Eventually, though, Andrew moved on, leaving a hot, wet trail down Neil’s neck.

Andrew tasted the salt of Neil’s sweat before laying a kiss to that oh-so sweet armor dusted from the exertion of spending days out on the road. He looked up past his brow to where Neil had his head tilted back, panting hard. He watched the motion of Neil’s Adam’s apple as he swallowed hard.

“I’m gonna let you go to take care of this—” Andrew leant back as far as he could, hand still gripping Neil’s wrists together. He tugged on the edge of Neil’s leather chest plate straps, pulling Neil’s torso off the desk. “No touching.”

“No touching,” Neil promised, and fuck it if his voice didn’t already sound wrecked. Andrew unclasped his hand from around Neil’s, a smile tugging at his lips. This would be fun.

Neil sat up, slowly, eyes following Andrew’s every step of the way. Andrew’s foot touched the ground, slotting up between Neil’s legs as he shifted to sit on the edge of the desk. Andrew tugged on the first belt buckle tightened into place beneath either of Neil’s arms. It held the front and back piece of his armor together. He flicked it out of the loop and tugged on it hard, loosening the chest plate and successfully pulling Neil towards him.

“Off,” he hissed, and Neil complied.

Neil dislodged his shoulder pads and lifted them up, taking the chest plate armor with it. He tossed it on the floor, letting the metal clank against the tiles. Andrew went for the strings on his shirt next, but Neil cut in front of him, laying a hand over it. “Shirt stays on,” he said.

“I’ve seen it all,” Andrew said. He laid a hand flat over Neil’s stomach, fingers catching onto the ridges of the massive scar along his torso. “I don’t care.”

Neil let out a shuddering breath. He wanted to argue, but he knew Andrew was right. The scars didn’t matter to Andrew. Exposed or covered, Andrew could tell they were there, and feel them every time Neil thought about it. He didn’t want to think about them any more than necessary, and so he let Andrew tug the laces on his undershirt loose and convince him that all those marks were normal. He used to think that, even if he came close enough to a romantic relationship to consider it, his partner would care too much about the scars. Their brow would pucker at the sight of them every time his shirt came off.

The moment his skin was free, Andrew’s lips found the hollow of Neil’s throat. He ducked his tongue down to Neil’s collarbone and laved it down the ridge of a scar trailing over his sternum. He felt the heat of Neil’s skin like it paralleled his own. The salty taste of it traveled between Neil’s toned pecs and to where his abdomen shuddered at the touch of another person’s lips going where no one else had gone before.

Neil’s nails bit into his palms as he steadied himself on the edge of the desk. When Andrew reached the hem of his trousers, it came as both a relief and a surprise. Surprised that he could ever get this far with anyone.

“Still okay?” Andrew asked. Neil swallowed hard and hoped it didn’t register as hesitance. It sounded like Andrew’s voice had shifted, merged with something otherworldly. It hinted at the punctuation of each word, and Neil fought down the urge to ask Andrew to say his name, just so he could know what it sounded like.

“Yes,” he managed to say instead. “Definitely.”

Andrew’s smile spread wider as he undid Neil’s belt. “You like the sound of my voice,” he commented, and Neil could have melted right then and there. The force of Andrew’s tug nearly had him on his knees. His hips shifted forward, met with Andrew’s. “That right, Neil?”

“Does…” Neil had to clear his throat, but it didn’t much help the sound of his own voice. “Does your voice always sound like that when you’re…”

“Turned on?” he asked, turning his stare up to Neil’s. “I wouldn’t know. I don’t get turned on very easily. You’ve clearly screwed me over before we’ve even started. Shit. Looking at this through the bathtub water just is not the same.”

Neil slapped Andrew’s hands away from his undergarments as his trousers fell to his ankles. The waistband snapped back into place.

Andrew’s hands paused instantly, enlightening Neil to the actual state of them. His claws were back, hooked, and clenched into fists as Neil dragged his eyes back up to Andrew’s. Andrew’s gaze was transfixed on the scar along Neil’s sternum.

“Tell me no,” he demanded again, his warped voice turning scratchy. He looked Neil in the eye.

“I won’t. Not unless you seriously want me to,” Neil said. “I won’t make you do this.”

“You’re not making me do anything,” Andrew hissed, claws latching around Neil’s wrists. He carried one of their joined hands up to Neil’s chin, raising a clawed finger up to scratch along his jawline. “Want me to say any last words? This voice will be gone before you.”

Andrew already knew what to say, if Neil’s mind had anything to do with it. He grinned, pushing Neil’s hand to his bare chest before lowering to his knees between Neil’s legs. He pulled Neil’s undergarments free and laid a kiss to the soft, tender skin of Neil’s hipbone. He splayed a hand over the scar on Neil’s stomach, knowing that his fingers couldn’t forget who he was touching, and who he was about to blow.

“Neil,” he said, before swallowing the name down with Neil’s cock.

***

Suffice to say that Neil didn’t make it down in time for food.

Matt’s desk was an absolute shitshow, and there wasn’t much Neil wanted to do about that. Not after Matt’s shitty excuse for collecting demons like Andrew. The only thing he could thank Matt for in that regard was that it led to him feeling like this.

Neil had never felt that way before. He never came close to it. Masterbating wasn’t exactly something on his mind when he and his mother were on the run, and life with his father was pure survival. That wasn’t on his mind much at all. Sex was a luxury he couldn’t afford to fall victim to. But now?

“Fuck,” he gasped, panting as he slid to the ground beside Andrew. He looked over at Andrew, who rubbed the back of his hand over his mouth before glancing at Neil’s awed expression. They stared at one another for a while as Neil struggled to process what had just happened. Once he did process it, though, he was drawn to the fact that Andrew was still fully clothed. He pointed to Andrew’s trousers, only to have his hand slapped away.

“Leave it,” Andrew snapped, sounding perfectly normal and just like every other day. Bitter and indifferent.

“Okay,” Neil said.

Andrew pulled his knees up and draped his arms over them. Neil tipped his head back against Matt’s desk and sighed. He swallowed and cleared his throat. After a moment, he tipped his head to the side, and leant it against Andrew’s shoulder, the two of them staring out into the dark as the cold of night settled in. Neil could start to feel it clinging to his exposed skin despite having put his trousers back on.

“It’s getting cold. We should probably head down,” Neil suggested.

Andrew hummed, but they both fell quiet again. Motionless. It wasn’t until a minute later that he felt Andrew tense, straightening up. “What? What is it?” Neil asked.

“I don’t feel it,” he said, voice a mere whisper. He slapped a hand onto Neil’s bare stomach, and it would have hurt had Neil not already been sporting enough muscle to deflect it. Andrew dragged his fingers over Neil’s goosebumps before scrambling to his feet.

He hurried past the archways and columns, leaning out over the railing into the crisp, pre-winter air. A gust of wind carried flakes of snow in, and so Neil worked on shutting several of the archway doors before reaching Andrew. The wind carried Andrew’s blonde curls back, away from his face, before he turned around to stare at Neil.

“Why don’t I feel the cold?” he demanded, an edge of offense on his voice.

“I don’t know,” Neil confessed with a shrug. “It still probably isn’t good for you to be out there. Maybe it’s, like, a reverse cold.”

“What, like, the demon flu?” Andrew said, unconvinced. He raised an eyebrow at Neil before scoffing and nudging past. “Yeah, if your cum infected me with some anti-cold virus, then I say keep at it.”

“Andrew,” Neil hissed, embarrassed. He shut the doors sharply after Andrew waltzed in, as if someone outside could hear him. He pressed a hand to his heated cheeks before turning back around. He was confronted with Andrew chucking Neil’s undershirt at him. He caught it by the sleeve and slipped it over his shoulders, covering his torso fast before Andrew could chuck his armor at him.

“Get dressed. I’m gonna have another look around,” he said, and started for the stairs leading up to the second floor. Neil scowled after him, but it didn’t last, not when his bones still felt like semi-frozen water. The winter chill didn’t help much with the sensation.

Andrew walked up the steps and pushed past the gate at the top. Rows of books and trinkets filled the walls. One thing he admired about witchers happened to be their vast desire for knowledge. It meant that centuries of literature were saved and stored in their keeps. It also meant that black magick books would be easier to find here than anywhere else—even his little hideout in the abandoned warehouse.

He pulled out one such book and studied its cover before turning to the contents page. The ink was worn but readable. Healing treatments. Physical therapy. Wound care. On the shelf beside it was a stack of field copies of the same novel, and so he took one for safe keeping.

The two rows he faced seemed to be of the same vein, but variations. Transmutation magick. Illusionary magick. Elemental magick. He picked up that last one to see if it was something that could explain the powers he did have as a demon. He didn’t find much. The rituals just didn’t pertain to him.

“Black magick,” Neil commented, the hinge on the gate creaking. Andrew spared a glance back at him before returning to the books. He pointed to the field book.

“Mortals require rituals for just about everything when it comes to black magick. I’m able to do just about everything in this elemental book without rituals and sacrifices,” he said, sliding the book back onto the case. He turned away and started down the length of bookshelves. “It makes me think that I could practice the magick I learned when I was alive without the extra hassle. So that healing book might come in handy.”

“Good idea,” Neil said, sliding the book back. “Only, I’m not a huge fan of black magick.”

“Well tough shit,” Andrew said, turning his eyes up to the ceiling. Vases and statues lined the tops of all the cases, accompanied by scattered books. He let himself float up to see the surface covered in dust, and no sign of familiarity up there.

“Look,” Neil said. Andrew floated down beside him, at an archway cut out amongst the bookshelves. Neil tried the handle and it didn’t budge. “Maybe his bedroom? I’ve never been to his room before.”

“Seems feasible. Keep an eye on us even when he’s sleeping,” Andrew said, nodding his chin towards the lock. “Want me to—”

“No, I can pick locks,” Neil said, ducking down beside the handle. He pulled out two slender pieces of metal topped with wooden handles he used to twist them inside the lock. He fiddled with the mechanics for a moment before twisting both as if imitating a key. The bolt came undone. “Gotchya. Alright, don’t touch anything. We already ruined his desk and as pissed as I am at Matt, I don’t want to fuck anything up.”

“Too late,” Andrew snickered, grin widening when Neil turned to glare at him. He bowed dramatically. “After you.”

As Andrew crossed the threshold, something primal inside of him had him hesitating and backing away. He grabbed Neil by the armband, refusing to let him take another step in, not with his bracers. He knew it was irrational, but the sensation felt too real to just be a memory from his time with Drake.

Neil looked at him in shock, and then back at the room. “Is something wrong?” he asked.

“No. Shut up,” Andrew hissed, biting his teeth together.

“Is this the room?” Neil asked. If Andrew said yes, then Neil would go inside and take the bracers with him. He’d put Andrew back on the shelf, left to smolder in the darkness forever instead of just a temporary century. If he said no, then they’d never find the chess piece demon.

Andrew shook his head.

He felt a jolt on Neil’s mind, and closed his eyes against it. He fucking hated that. He couldn’t even lie without his host knowing. It wasn’t as strong for Drake and could be ignored more often than not, but not when Neil was so adamant about a proper answer. About knowing where the demon was.

“What’s wrong with the room then?” Neil said, giving a tug on his arm. Andrew didn’t budge. “You don’t have to go in if you don’t want to. I’ll just take a look around.”

“No. Not with the bracers on,” Andrew hissed, voice sharpened to an edge that had Neil nodding hesitantly, going along with whatever Andrew wanted. “Stay here. Don’t fucking go in there.”

“Alright. I won’t,” Neil promised, almost exasperatedly. He stepped away from the threshold, cautious of Andrew’s risen temper. His claws were out, clasped around his wrist, and it took everything in Andrew’s power to pry his own hand off of it. He clenched his hands into fists, straightening his back. Like this, he was invisible. He was invisible. He couldn’t be hurt, not physically, anyways. Not like Neil could.

He stepped over the threshold, ignoring how all of his instincts told him to turn back. Instead, he followed it, tracking it like a goddamn compass. By the time he reached the cabinet on the far side of Matt and Dan’s bed, he couldn’t keep his hand steady as he reached for the handle.

The handle rattled as he clasped onto it. He pried the doors open, breaking the lock in the process. At eye level, he was met with roles of papers tied at the waists, and ink wells stored just above a collection of boots and sandals. Andrew pried his eyes up, and settled on the binding of a red book, and the black queen chess piece sitting idly beside it. It didn’t look innocent in the slightest, and Andrew loathed the sensation it gave him when he picked it up.

“Did you find anything?” Neil asked from outside the door.

“No.” Andrew closed his eyes and sighed. “I mean yes. Hold your fucking horses.”

“I’m just asking,” Neil whined, leaning around the edge of the doorframe. Andrew glared at him during the walk back to the threshold. He held the chess piece back from Neil’s reaching hand. Thankfully, Neil followed his orders—don’t step in the room.

“They’re dangerous,” he said. “Worse than me. I think something happened before they even became this.”

“You aren’t dangerous,” Neil said, and earned a dull look in response. “I’m serious. I’m not afraid of you or whoever is in there. Just hand it over.”

Andrew pocketed it.

“Andrew,” Neil whined, and chased after him when Andrew left the room entirely and headed for the stairs. “That’s not fair—”

“No, you know what’s not fair?” Andrew snapped, whipping back around to sneer at Neil. “Not getting to decide who the hell picks you up off that fucking shelf. Or who even puts you there. Just let me see what I can gather from them before handing them over to you. And I know we can’t hurt you or whatever, but do you seriously want to take on someone else’s shitshow for the sake of proving something to Matt?”

Neil’s fight vanished from him during the course of Andrew’s lecture, and he ended with his jaw set tight and a pained look in his eyes. Andrew scoffed at him and shoved past the gate, hurrying down to the first floor and escaping to the stairwell. The chess piece weighed a thousand pounds, and it wasn’t long before he felt actually exhausted. His speeding heart felt real, and not just some placebo effect to get him believing he was human. This was human exhaustion.

“Shit,” he huffed, taking the chess piece out. He stared at it in his palm scarred by red dots on his fingertips. He felt clammy, and something slick started to gather on his forehead and neck, his underarms.

When Neil caught up, Andrew was sitting on the steps, head in his hands, trying to fight off a migraine. Andrew’s visions scattered every time he opened his eyes, and his limbs were lead swimming through water. Or, more accurately, sinking in the water.

Neil looked down at him from several steps ahead before reaching forward for the chess piece.

“Maybe demons aren’t meant to hold onto other artifacts,” Neil commented. “Are you feeling alright?”

Andrew’s tongue turned to cotton. He opened his mouth but no words escaped him. He was just starting to get his head back when Neil started to hear the whispers. Something was swarming his head, and for an instant, Neil wondered if it was Andrew. Did Andrew feel like this constantly, connected to Neil?

He couldn’t decipher any of it. It came to him in another language, warped and submerged in what sounded like the echoes of waves crashing on the shores of his mindscape. He swore it was emanating from the chess piece, and raised it up to his ear to listen.

One clear phrase broke through, petrified and piercing, “I CAN’T!”

A shock split across the side of Neil’s face, and he would have dropped the chess piece had it still been in his hands. It scorched his cheek worse than any zap Andrew gave him, and his vision blacked out. In the next moment, he was struggling to stay standing on the stairwell, clutching at the railing. His cheek throbbed, and he slapped a hand over it, searching for hot liquid. There was no blood.

Despite how nauseous Andrew was, Andrew looked up and wished he could throttle Neil for being such an idiot witcher. A black spot now marred Neil’s cheekbone, just to the side of his blue, catlike eyes. Neil’s pupils were blown out, the skin around the mark an irritated red. Neil slumped to the steps, panting, clutching at his face.

“What did it do? Am I bleeding?” he asked, trying desperately to find the source of the pain. He pulled his clean fingers away from the tattoo of a… queen’s piece.

“You fucking idiot,” Andrew seethed, struggling to stand. He only got as far as clutching onto the railing, still towering over Neil. “Don’t you fucking dare summon the demon here. We need to leave. Now.”

Andrew grabbed Neil sharply by the hand, forcing him to his feet. Neil winced, slumping forward with a groan. He put his hands to his knees, panting, quelling the nausea that swept through him temporarily. The tattoo throbbed so profusely that it felt like something was constantly pounding on it from the inside of his skull. When he dwelled on it, he sunk into the sensation of his skins stretching in the shape of a human hand demanding out.

Andrew heaved Neil forward and hefted one of Neil’s arms over his shoulder. Every step to Matt’s patio overlooking the valley was excruciating, and it took everything for Neil to keep it inside before letting the demon free.

Sparks flashed before his eyes, black dots swarming his vision. He slumped against the stone ledge, gasping, hand clutched over the tattoo. Andrew cut in front of him, scraping his hands down his armbands and summoning the pair of obsidian scythes. He held one out in front of Neil as the embers condensed, the light blinding them both in the otherwise hollow night.

The instant they took form, whatever force keeping them standing collapsed. The man fell forward, dropping to his knees, a human hand clutching at his chest. Neil stared on, registering the chess piece tattoo on the man’s sharp, pale cheekbone before the man leant forward, black hair falling over his eyes.

“No—No, this isn’t right—” he rasped, running his hands over his chest and shoulders before raising up to his hair. He clutched at the stubs of his horns, looking sharply up to Andrew.

They stared one another down—Andrew, eyes calculated and stance ready to attack, and the demon, red, dragon-like eyes wide with horror, hands still hooked on his horns. They were sharper than Andrew’s, with ridges intended to cut. When he at last pulled his hands away, inky black blood came with them.

“What’s your name?” Neil asked, and instantly the man’s eyes darted to him. His panic flickered between something akin to trepidation and antipathy.

The instant the second came into view and stuck, twisting his expression into loathing, Neil tensed. The man darted to his feet, lunging at Neil with a scream.

Andrew cut his scythe up and used the handle to ram it into the demon’s chest. He hooked it around the demon’s throat and twisted him back, catching his arm and pinning it behind his back. The blade dug into the man’s neck, and it was all Neil could do to keep from staring at the currents of black oozing from the slits.

“YOU TOOK ME! YOU STOLE ME FROM HIM!” the demon screamed, legs kicking, claws tearing his fingers apart with the ferocity he summoned them with. He clawed at Andrew’s blade and writhed, steam hissing from between his teeth. “He’ll kill you! He’ll kill you to get me back—I fucking swear it. I’ll bring him your head, witcher—”

“Yeah, good luck with that,” Andrew said, hardly out of breath.

“I CAN’T BE HERE! Let me go!” the demon screeched, the raw anger turning his skin around his eyes black.

Andrew kicked the demons legs out from under him, and swiped his blade across the man’s throat. He went down, gasps gargling until Andrew shoved the man’s head forward against the stone tiles. “Your name, if it’s not too much trouble.”

All the demon did was sputter, cursing at Neil every chance he could manage a word. The open gaps in his throat began to heal not long after.

Neil shared a look with Andrew. Andrew’s expression hadn’t changed much at all, but the tension in his jaw told Neil that this was just as much of a disaster as Neil thought.

The man put his hands in his hair, clutching at it from where he was bent over the floor with Andrew’s foot on his back. He hissed repeating phrases under his breath along the lines of, “I can’t be here—He’ll kill you—He’ll find me—”

“Who is he?” Neil asked, crouching in front of the demon.

The man looked up. His tearful, red irises flitted between Neil’s. He looked away for a split second, rubbing a hand over his eyes. Andrew let him up, and as the demon sat back on his heels, he rubbed a hand over his throat. “You aren’t the same. You aren’t the witcher who wronged my master,” the man said.

“No, I’m not,” Neil confessed. “That would be my mentor, Matthew Boyd. Who did he take you from?”

“No—I can’t tell you—” he started, only to stop short at the touch of Andrew’s scythe to his tattoo. Andrew dug the tip of the blade into it.

“Then tell us your name,” Andrew demanded.

“Kevin,” he answered, ducking away from the blade. “Kevin Day.”

“Neil Josten,” Neil said, pointing to himself, and then at Andrew. “This is Andrew.”

Kevin glanced at Neil’s extended hand—at the bracers. His eyes fell to Andrew’s bracers. He cupped a hand over the tattoo, eyeing the one on Neil’s cheek. “I can’t be here. He’ll find—”

He hesitated, clawed fingers digging into the skin around his tattoo. “No,” he gasped, getting to his feet. Andrew only let him go because he was pacing away, taking his tantrum elsewhere. He grabbed at his hair, his horns, screaming, “NO! I can’t feel him. Where is he—”

Neil glanced at Andrew and pointed to himself with a raised eyebrow. Andrew shrugged. The question Neil raised in his mind caused Kevin to stutter, and turn back to stare at Neil.

“That isn’t—” he started, only to stop upon realizing that whatever he managed to pick up, however garbled and diluted it was, was coming from Neil. “That’s your voice.”

“Is it… usually someone else’s voice?” Neil asked. Kevin swallowed hard, pale skin draining of all color. The idea solidified in Neil’s mind. Whoever had Kevin before Matt was Kevin’s previous host—his master.

“He’s still alive,” Kevin rasped, and the way he said it suggested Neil and Andrew should be far more terrified of the statement. “He’s immortal.”

“Then how did Matt get the chess piece, genius,” Andrew said.

Kevin sneered at him, throwing his arms down. “We were in the middle of the ritual. Your idiot mentor interrupted it and took the artifact.”

“Let’s go back to the immortal part, just for a minute,” Neil suggested. “Immortal doesn’t mean invincible. Matt could have killed him when he took you.”

“But he didn’t. Master Riko cannot die, do you understand me?” Kevin seethed, stepping up to them. He jabbed a finger at Neil. “And he will come for you if he hasn’t come for Matthew Boyd already. He will do anything to retrieve me. I am his, not yours.”

“Whoa, geez, okay,” Andrew said with a sarcastic wave of his hand.

“He won’t be pleased to hear someone else has marked me,” Kevin said, all woe as he dragged down the skin of his cheeks and stared vacantly out into the forests. “I’m sullied. I’m impure—I can’t help him like this—”

“Fucking Hell…” Andrew huffed, pacing away from the scene. Kevin put his forehead to the stone ledge, fists clenched on the bricks.

“I don’t know of any immortals,” Neil confessed.

“You’ve only been a witcher for three fucking years,” Andrew reminded him. “As if you’d meet an immortal in that time.”

“Only three years?” Kevin said, drawing their attention back to his decrepit state. Kevin slumped further down the stone ledge. “We’re all going to die…”

“No, we won’t,” Neil insisted. “Who’s to say your… master even knows you’re at the Keep? And Matt’s never acted like he’s in danger whenever he leaves the Keep. You don’t know if Matt killed the guy after taking the chess piece.”

Kevin slumped further until his ass was on the bricks, a hand still latched onto the ledge. “This is awful. If he gets his hands on you—”

“He won’t. Because you’re going to help us avoid that,” Andrew said, and ignored the shock on Kevin’s face when he turned to Neil. “The ritual isn’t usually done on your own. Whoever you perform the ritual with will likely be the host. In my case, I wasn’t even intended to be the one turned but things went wrong. You were right about servitude—traditionally demons were used as protection for the wearer after years of training and experience with black magick. I never had a mentor to train me, but Kevin likely did.”

“I’ve spent my entire life preparing for this,” Kevin said, staring vacantly at the ground. “And now I’m not even useful for him.”

“Your entire life,” Neil repeated, only to be reprimanded with a deadly scowl.

Kevin rose, the bitterness in his expression showing in his voice as he sneered, “Yes, my entire life. You’re just a novice witcher, so you wouldn’t have a basic understanding of purpose, would you?”

“How much are you willing to bet that I can kill a demon with my bare claws,” Andrew seethed, scythes vanishing in favor of his inky black nails.

Neil snapped a hand in front of Andrew to stop him. Kevin was hardly fazed by it. “Listen: We’re in a keep full of excellent witchers. We can stay here where your protection is secure, or we can go ahead with the plan Andrew and I had before.”

Andrew would have grimaced if his expression wasn’t so sour already. He waited and listened to Neil’s mind, wondering how easy it would be to discover an inkling of apprehension, but everything was focused on Kevin now. Kevin, who was listening to the sound of The Void in Neil’s mind.

“Kill us?” Kevin reiterated, glancing only momentarily at Andrew.

“Yes,” Neil said, swallowing hard. “Andrew’s already had a host before me, but… it sounds like this is it for you.”

So kill me and keep Kevin, Andrew thought, though he knew it was just the small demonic part of him that still existed from living in Drake’s mind for so long.

Kevin started shaking his head, frantically. “No, no, my master is expecting me—I can’t abandon him,” he said, but after his meltdown, the thoughts of being sullied plagued him. He leant back against the ledge, devastated. “There has to be a way to free me. Get the artifact back.”

“There isn’t,” Neil said with a shake of his head. “Only by death of the host.”

Kevin continued to stare into the distance, jaw clamped shut and eyes unwavering. Neil was perfectly aware that he likely just put himself on Kevin’s hit list, but everything Andrew said was true, then he didn’t need to worry about Kevin as a threat.

At least, as far as he knew.

Chapter Text

“I have to keep moving. Sorry I couldn’t stick around longer,” Neil said with a smile as a kitchen staff member handed him a bag filled with food.

“Not to worry, Neil.”

“It was nice seeing everyone, though. I’m sure Matt and Dan will be back before you know it,” he said, and accepted the side-hug before moving on to the kitchen archway where Andrew waited, seething, glaring at Kevin.

Neil walked past them with only a brief glance in Kevin’s direction. Kevin simmered in his own distaste of the situation, and of being in a witcher’s keep. It didn’t help that he had already made an enemy of Andrew. Neil walked silently in front of them as Kevin cleared his throat.

“You were there before me. When did Matt take you?” he asked Andrew.

“A century. Give or take,” Andrew said. He glimpsed at Kevin. He wasn’t sure Kevin could get any paler, but that comment certainly did the trick. “Yeah, I’ve already gotten that look from someone.”

“A century. And you’re—” Kevin started, looking Andrew up and down and then turning to stare at the back of Neil’s head. He cleared his throat. “It isn’t advisable to stay in your artifact for so long.”

“Yeah, well, it happened.”

“I’m surprised you’re as calm as you are. It could have caused lasting damage to your psyche, or even your ability to control your magick,” Kevin explained. “A few days inside the artifact is fine, perhaps even weeks or months, but… Anyone would go mad.”

“Trust me when I say your entrance was far more dramatic than mine,” Andrew huffed. “But I already assumed you were mad before being turned.”

Kevin clenched his fists at his sides and seethed, “You’re a mutt, you know that? Just some hybrid, mediocre sorcerer without proper training. I was raised amongst the single best sorcerers in the world. I am a weapon made for them—not some amateur witcher and his bitch.”

Andrew laughed, and it sent a chill down Neil’s spine. When he turned back around, Andrew had grabbed Kevin by the collar of his shirt and slammed him into the nearest pillar. It disoriented Kevin long enough for Andrew to wind him back, grab him by the hair, and slam it against the stone.

“Hey! Knock it off—” Neil started, but the damage was already done. A crack split up the column from where Kevin’s head dented it in.

Andrew pegged Kevin with a threatening glare. They stared at one another, unmoving, until Neil tugged on Andrew’s cloak. “We need to keep moving. Training starts an hour after dawn.”

Andrew’s grip on Kevin’s hair tightened before loosening. He shoved Kevin away and knocked his shoulder against Neil’s as he stormed past.

Kevin recovered from the blow before long, shuddering as he passed Neil down the hallway. Neil followed after them, disheartened by the state of his life now. Though, he preferred this shitshow over any other one he had three years prior. Due to the newest recruit, though, both Andrew and Neil were entirely focused on Kevin as they gathered Fox and Roach, and hunted for a free steed in the stables for Kevin. Kevin sneered at Neil as soon as he passed the reigns over.

“You’re kidding, right?” Kevin said, and scoffed when he realized that Neil wasn’t. “Just put me in the artifact. Gods, you don’t even know how to be a host.”

“Annoying, I know,” Andrew said as he mounted Fox and spurred her ahead. “I’ll be waiting for you to quit being a little shit and get on the damn horse.”

“I don’t care how you were raised to believe life as a demon would be,” Neil started, pulling Kevin’s attention back to him. “I’m going to treat you like a human. That’s what you were before Matt found you. As far as I’m concerned, nothing has changed.”

“Everything has changed,” Kevin snapped, fists clenched. “If you could see what I’m capable of—”

“Do it,” Andrew teased from outside the stables. “Light a fire. We’ll see how it goes.”

Neil clenched his teeth together to keep from reprimanding them both. He had no reason to suspect that demons acted like children.

Kevin’s nostrils flared, steam emitting from between his teeth. His horse neighed, trying to tug away from Neil. “I was raised by the immortals of the New World. Their reign will devour everything and anything that stands in their way, including all of these so-called excellent witchers at Kaehr Morhen.”

Kevin flung his hand out in a vague gesture towards the Keep, and then addressed Neil’s surprise. “Yes, I know where I am. I know where all the witcher clans are. If my master is to succeed with his plans for the New World, then the destruction of all witcher mutations starts and ends with me.”

“Bor-ring,” Andrew yawned.

Kevin bristled, steam flaring up between his teeth. Neil wouldn’t past him to start breathing fire, and so he took a cautious step away. “If I could destroy Kaehr Morhen now, I would, but all it would take for Neil to stop me would be to put me in the artifact. I’m useless like this.”

“I don’t see why you need to kill a bunch of witchers to destroy the world,” Neil said. “Unless… your master isn’t as strong as you’re leading on.”

“An army of a hundred witchers could do as much damage,” Kevin said sharply. “Getting rid of them would make the process easier. Of course he can’t single-handedly eliminate the witcher population. That is what me and the rest of the artifacts are for.”

Neil wasn’t thinking it, but Andrew knew what Neil so desperately wanted to do then. Despite Matthew’s wrongdoings against them, he and Dan were still in charge of this clan of witchers. He wanted to alert them. Alerting them would mean giving in, though. It would mean that Neil regretted taking Kevin on and being swept into this huge mess.

Who knows what’s waiting for us beyond Kaehr Morhen.

“Matt, Dan, and Allison put up a protection spell,” Neil thought aloud, walking Roach out of the stables. “Only those with witcher mutations could pass through. Matt couldn’t let me in until I was a a few days into the process.”

“They could be nearby,” Andrew said. “What does Matt’s map say?”

Neil pulled it out. He had the track to the ritual spot nearly memorized. “We don’t have the ritual,” he reminded Andrew.

“Yeah, but we have an expert,” Andrew said, nudging a thumb in Kevin’s direction.

“I am not helping you kill me off,” Kevin snapped. “I will not set foot there, nor will I tell you how to exorcise us from the artifacts.”

“Exorcise,” Neil repeated, turning back to Andrew. “Do you know anything about that?”

“A little,” he confessed with a nonchalant shrug. “Never had anything to practice on, though. Why?”

“If we dug up the exorcist books from Matt and Dan’s collection, we might be able to find something. I only know how to exorcise certain spirits, not… demons, necessarily. Especially not from objects,” Neil explained. He reached into Roach’s saddlebag and pulled the map free. He snapped it open and folded it out against the stable wall. “The ritual spot isn’t far. Not even half a day’s travels. I’ve run past it before, so it’s in the territory of the protection barrier.”

“I told you—I’m not setting foot in there,” Kevin snapped reaching over Neil’s shoulder to grab the map. Andrew slammed his fist down on Kevin’s elbow, knocking him out of the way.

Kevin shook his arm out and scowled bitterly at Andrew, who returned the favor.

“If Neil wants us gone, then we don’t have a say in it. It’s his life, not ours. Not anymore,” Andrew said. “And I can plainly see that this isn’t just a second life for you—”

“Second life?” Kevin laughed pityingly. “Perhaps for you this is a third, but from what I understand, your previous host only had you. Only ever knew it was just you. He was human. Of course he wouldn’t know any better.”

Andrew looked no different from every other stoic occasion, but Fox was in a tizzy. She tried to run off, but Neil caught her by the reigns. “I’d watch your mouth, lapdog,” Andrew said, his frown pulling into a smile. “I’d love to tear it off your face. It wouldn’t be a shame at all, really.”

“Kill me and I’ll come back. You know enough about that, don’t you?” Kevin said. “I know you don’t have experience in this, so I’ll say it slowly: Neil’s mind is open to me, and anything rooting around in it. I can see every little detail.”

Andrew’s claws were out, and one punch to Kevin’s throat sent them spearing up through the junction of Kevin’s jaw and neck. His blood was drumming in his ears, deafening him to Neil demanding that he stop. He scraped his free hand along the back of Kevin’s neck, not even hesitating around the density of Kevin’s spine as he severed it and tore his head off with a satisfying crunch.

He chucked Kevin’s head away from the stables, but it burst into ash before it could hit the ground.

He caught Neil by the edge of his chest plate, spreading black blood across the metal. He pressed a sharpened, inky black finger to Kevin’s tattoo, careful not to break skin. The embers collected on the artifact before fading in with the rest of Neil’s now pale skin.

“Do not summon him again,” Andrew hissed, knowing his threat sounded far more convincing than the reality of his situation.

Neil nodded wordlessly, and remained frozen in the entryway to the stables even as Andrew walked to the edge of the yard where the brick fencing broke away. Andrew crossed his arms and waited by the start of the switchback trail heading to the valley. Dawn was breaking, painting the sky yellow on the horizon.

Neil pressed a hand to his throbbing tattoo. It was so much easier to tell what Kevin was feeling. Every prick, every burn—they all had words to them that resonated with what he wanted. Kevin was familiar with this life, even if he had never truly experienced it before. He couldn’t feel Andrew’s frustration the way he could with Kevin, but perhaps that was just his empathy speaking, and how difficult it was to deconstruct Andrew’s facades.

When Neil looked up to Andrew then, he opened his mouth to speak, but no words came out. He didn’t know what he wanted to say, and figured that was for the better. Anything he said now would be unanticipated and unknown to Andrew until it was vocalized.

“You said it was my decision,” Neil said.

Andrew half-turned back to the stable, but thought better. He stood, staring at the training equipment in the courtyard as Neil abandoned Fox’s reigns and left Roach to walk to Andrew’s side. He ignored the gore still drenching Andrew’s hands. “You said that if I wanted you gone, you’d do it.”

“It’s not my decision to make,” Andrew said through clenched teeth. “I’ve already had my life—”

“That’s what Matt said,” Neil interrupted. It only took a moment for him to wonder further. About when Andrew succumbed to this decision. “What did Allison tell you.”

“What are you talking about,” Andrew hissed, red eyes darting over to meet Neil’s. “She didn’t say anything.”

“You’re lying.”

“I don’t care.”

“Don’t care about what—me or Allison?” Neil said. “If you’re going to lie to me, at least convince me that I’m not worth the truth.”

“Considering how often you lie, I don’t see why it matters now,” Andrew said, lifting his chin to face the clouds overhead.

“The difference is that you know when I lie. I can’t tell with you.”

“Well, you’re awfully good at figuring it out. Takes a liar to catch a lie,” he said. His eyes flitted over to Neil, who scowled down at him. “It’s not my call.”

“It is if I care about what you want,” Neil said, blue eyes unwavering. Andrew waited for Neil to give, to show a sign that he truly didn’t care. That this was just one of his humanizing acts. “The last thing I want to do is force you to stay with me.”

“You aren’t forcing me to do anything.”

“Gods, Andrew,” Neil cried in frustration, throwing his arms up. He paced away from Andrew, hand in his hair. “You do realize how close I was to forcing you into The Void?!”

Andrew shrugged uselessly. “It’s either you or The Void. They’re both pretty good options.”

Neil turned back to stare at Andrew, who refused to give any notion of having said such a thing. Neil wondered if he misheard Andrew.

“Want me to say it again? Sometimes I forget I’m with an idiot witcher,” Andrew said, and Neil put a hand to his face and willed himself not to smile like the idiot Andrew thought he was.

“No, you don’t have to say it again. It’s permanently seared into my memory,” Neil promised, laughing.

“Good. Then what’s the new plan,” he said, turning fully to Neil.

Neil… had nothing to offer. He never expected Andrew to actually want to follow him around wherever he went. What was there to do aside from wonder about the impending doom he didn’t quite believe, but would now be constantly reminded of at the thought of Kevin? Had he just painted a second target on his back?

“Alright, I’m gonna stop you right there,” Andrew said, waving a hand at him. He laid his palm on Neil’s chest with certainty, giving him a light shove before pulling Neil back. “If this is going to work, I need to know what that first target is for. I can’t help you much if I don’t know what’s going on.”

“You don’t need to know what’s going on,” Neil insisted, panic swelling at the thought of saying anything out loud. Matt didn’t even know. He only ever became close enough to Dan for him to confess that someone was after him. Kaehr Morhen seemed like the perfect place to fall off the grid.

But he went back to the real world. He couldn’t stay at the Keep forever.

Andrew shoved him back and turned away, arms up in frustration. “This isn’t helping anyone, not even you. Attempting to lie to me won’t do a thing. Is it your father?”

No, Neil thought desperately, but it felt more like a warning for Andrew to stop talking about it. It just gave him away.

“I can’t talk about this, Andrew,” Neil insisted, shaking his head. “Don’t make me.”

“Fine, I won’t. But know that if shit happens and I’m not prepared for it—? That’s on you, not me,” Andrew snapped. “I can’t protect you if you’re not willing to give me some transparency here.”

Neil’s anger flared, burning white hot within the pit of his stomach where he started to feel nauseous from the poison of resentment. “So you want to know every detail of my childhood, is that it?” Neil snapped. “I can’t say I know much about you, either. I don’t need to know about your past host—whoever they were, they’re dead, and they aren’t coming back. I’ve told you practically everything about my time here going through mutations!”

“That’s not the same,” Andrew snapped.

“It is because Kaehr Morhen made me. I’m trying to forget who I was before this. Don’t dig it up.”

“And how do you suppose I care for my childhood? Do you think it was any easier than my last lifetime?” Andrew hissed. “My parents were killed in the war. Missionaries picked up my brother and I. I lived with a god-loving lunatic and his charity-case of a wife and their gay son who they disowned with my brother and I. So yeah, I didn’t exactly have a proper roof to live under the last few months of my life. They took us back in just before… you know.”

“You had a brother?” Neil said.

Andrew rolled his eyes. “So that’s what you pick up from that?”

“I just… think it’s interesting. I’ve never had siblings,” he confessed. He glanced out at the sunrise and back to the brick buildings behind them. Voices sounded from one of the balconies, murmuring in the wind. His auburn hair fell forward into his eyes until he pushed it back and started walking back to the stables. “I’m sure my mother wished she didn’t have a kid to worry about. Living on the road and all. I don’t think we would have made it as far as we did if there was another kid to take into account.”

“What was the destination?” Andrew asked.

“Anywhere. Anywhere but my father,” he said, reaching out for Roach’s reigns. He combed his gloved fingers through Roach’s mane. “That’s who’s after me. Last I heard he was in an Imperial prison.”

“Do you know the name of it? The prison?” Andrew asked.

“Toussaint,” Neil replied as he walked Roach and the other horses back into the stables. “I imagine it wasn’t a prison when you were around.”

“It doesn’t ring any bells,” he confessed. “Though, it sounds a bit familiar…”

“Was it quarantined?” Neil asked, and to this, Andrew looked up sharply, recognition flitting across his expression. “It used to be an island infected with leprosy. After everyone on the island died and the buildings decayed, the Imperial army refurbished it into a prison. The Ducal Guard run it now.”

“What was he in for?” Andrew asked, but his question fell to the wind. A set of doors overhead opened, and Neil looked up as a man leaned over the edge of the porch and waved down to them.

Neil waved back with a false smile and greeted him. “You helping with training today, Josten?” the man asked, and Neil said he might. The distraction washed their conversation away, and left Andrew simmering in frustration. So much for getting a straight answer. Despite how he tried, it was impossible for Andrew to pry into that dark corner of Neil’s mind. Either it was beyond his own comprehension, or so far buried beneath Andrew’s expertise.

But he knew someone who could did that far.

There’s no way I could tolerate another second around that pompous, self-righteous ass, Andrew thought, slapping his palm to his forehead as Neil walked off across the training yard to meet with one of the students.

Kevin was right, though. Andrew was a mutt in comparison. He wasn’t raised for the soul purpose of obtaining eternal life at the righthand of a goddamn immortal being. He had all of the skills and abilities of a demonic guardian, but without the upbringing was just an imposter.

But it wasn’t Andrew who was supposed to be the demonic guardian. It was never supposed to be him.

***

Erik Klose was supposed to be drafted.

That was what started this. Andrew couldn’t forget that detail, because it was all Nicky could talk about the months leading up to Erik’s examination. As far as anyone knew, Erik was as healthy as they came—no medical issues, never any broken bones. The man never even contracted chicken pox for gods’ sake! Andrew used to have scars from them, but now his skin was flawless. Not a mark on him, no matter how many times Drake drove knives through his skin, or however many times Andrew did it to himself.

Aaron often found Nicky awake at night, scouring the books in their possession. Nicky started walking out of Bee’s store with them, out in broad daylight, carrying them from one point of the city to the other. It seemed Nicky made it his soul mission to find a way to disqualify Erik from the military.

“What if I were to temporarily, like… blind him or something?” Nicky offered in the candlelight, tapping a pencil to his chin. He pouted his lips. “No, too risky. I’d trust Bee to do it before me.”

“And Bee would tell you that you’re beeing an idiot,” Andrew said, slumped in his makeshift cot across the room. He laughed to himself. “Bee-ing.”

“So what if Nicky wants to temporarily blind Erik?” Aaron said. “That’s not our business.”

Nicky clutched the book to his chest, looking worriedly at the both of them. “Would it… be your business if I asked for your help doing it?”

“Yes,” Andrew said immediately. “I’m not doing it. Think of something better to waste my time with.”

Nicky deflated. He scratched his pencil to his mess of overgrown black curls, and frowned down at the books he had laying out. He penciled something into his notebook and went on reading, still scratching at his hair. Without his mother to nag them about it, Nicky, as well as Andrew and Aaron, may or may not have bathed in over a week. Bee always offered to let them use her house, but Aaron insisted they were intruding, and so they just never stuck around long enough for Bee to offer them dinner.

They made the warehouse their home, but kept their shenanigans to the rooms where the windows were bricked up or boarded, or just nonexistent. A significant portion of their magick was reserved to keeping their hideout safe and undetected. Andrew had progressed enough in his illusionary magick to project a realistic barrier over the broken door to their hideout. From the alley, it looked like nothing more than an extension of the brick wall. Learning how to create permanent fixtures of illusions was, perhaps, the largest step any of them had made. Aaron and Nicky struggled to keep illusions up like they did fire on a wick. There was nothing sustaining it after Aaron and Nicky forgot to keep channeling magick into it.

Andrew stretched his arms high over his head and clasped onto the rope connecting his hammock to the wall. He stared at the ceiling where a hole wore through from mildew and moisture. When they first started sleeping there for days on end, Andrew had patched it up with a block of wood, but the gap was still unnerving. The ceiling was caving in, and so when rainwater gathered around the wooden plank, it dribbled around his cot.

He pursed his lips, eyes narrowed. Eventually, he sat up and swung his legs onto the floor.

He marched over to Nicky and plopped down beside him, taking up one of the books. He checked the spine before flipping to the table of contents, aware that Nicky was staring at him in alarm.

“What are you doing?” Nicky said.

“Helping,” Andrew replied, and flitted an annoyed look at Nicky. That shut him up, but couldn’t mask Nicky’s smile.

It took several trips to Bee’s for Aaron and Nicky to distract her long enough for Andrew to slip into her office unnoticed. If they were going to take this seriously, they needed something more substantial than “temporary”, and they couldn’t risk Erik being drafted regardless of what they did. If it came to that, they needed to protect Erik so that he’d come back from the war in one piece. Just seeing Nicky’s eyes water at the thought was enough motivation. Andrew just wanted to shut Nicky up about it—or so he thought.

He eased his lock picks into the keyhole, working his way around the tumblers until he found the end. “Ah-ha,” he hummed, twisting the lock open. He was cautious as he slipped in through a crack in the door, and slowly shut it behind him, gradually lifting the door handle until it was back to the way it was. He leant away from it before spinning around with a sweep of his arms. “Well, Bee, let’s see what secrets you have hidden here,” he said to himself, and began scouring the room.

Bee’s office wasn’t nearly as neat and tidy as the rest of her shop. The shop was her cover—no one would suspect she was anything more than a horticulturist until they set foot in her study, and the office attached to it. Her study was filled with books on alchemy and healing magick, but Andrew was certain she kept her office locked because of the dangers that laid beyond it. She would do anything to keep them out of trouble, wouldn’t she?

Andrew snickered at the thought as he lifted a stack of papers from a table and peered beneath them, like examining the secrets she might sweep beneath a rug. Nothing. He filtered through the drawers of her desk, pushing aside books on plants and medicines. Useless, useless, useless, he thought as he shoved the drawer closed and went on to the next.

He tugged on the handle. It didn’t budge.

Well, he thought, bending down in front of it. What are you hiding…

After a bit of fiddling with the lock picks, he pulls the drawer out and peers in to see its contents. He reaches in and removes its singular occupant—a heavy book marred with burns, and a symbol scorched into the hardback cover.

He raised it up and brushed his hand over the marking. It left behind a chalky residue on his fingers, but when he looked, nothing was there. Frowning, he flattened the book out and searched for dust on the surface. There was nothing.

He shut the drawer and locked it. He pushed the book into his satchel. It barely fit, but it would have to do if he planned on hiding its disappearance from Bee.

Chapter Text

If people noticed Neil’s tattoo, no one said anything. At least, not until Dan and Matt arrived at the scene, furious, sore from riding all day, and tired from the travel and emotional turmoil Neil put them through.

They were in the training field watching a silver-haired girl practice on the balance beams of varying heights and lengths. She prowled down the row of them, twisting and cutting the air with her wooden sword. Andrew pegged her as no older than twelve, but she had the grace of an ancient warrior. No soldier Andrew observed from the military could compare to this child.

He sat away from the commotion of the girl’s mentors, past the group of children being instructed with diagrams in the sand. He perched on a stone ledge, content to watch from afar. He expected Neil to speak out with the mentors as they critique’d the girl’s form, but Neil seemed adamant on simply listening. Andrew nearly forgot how much of an idiot Neil still was. He couldn’t believe he forgot.

The thunder of hooves called his attention to the gated entrance. He looked towards the trail, and found a furious Dan storming past the gate with a sweep of her hands. The blast sent the gate swinging back against the brick wall. She jumped from her horse, not pausing for a second as Matt rode up behind her.

“Neil!” she shouted, crossing the fields. Andrew was on his feet.

Neil flinched, backing away from his mentors as they all stared in astonishment at Dan. Matt was no better, following after the trail Dan blazed amongst the people training. Neil held his hands up in surrender, but the instant Dan was close enough, she grabbed him by the chin and turned his head to the side, putting the tattoo on display.

“Fuck,” Matt hissed, hand over his face.

Andrew cut his hand up from where he stood no more than a few paces away. Dan’s hand immediately clenched, ripped away from Neil’s face. She yanked her hand free, staring in alarm at Neil, and then around in search of Andrew. Andrew dropped his hand and promptly ignored the incredulous look Neil gave him.

“Put him away,” Matt demanded.

“No,” Neil said, and didn’t move an inch when Matt stormed at him. He halted beside Dan, seemingly aware of Andrew’s presence nearby, waiting to strike should he attack.

“Neil. I’m warning you—” Matt snapped.

“Do as he says,” Dan demanded.

Neil blinked his wide, blue eyes at them and shook his head. He looked like a child being scolded by his parents, unsure whether to stand with his own intuition or theirs. He clutched a hand to his bracer and looked down at it. “It’s just Andrew. I… I had to—”

—put the other away.

Neil couldn’t say it aloud. Dan released a deep breath of air, looking up to Matt, who was just as on edge as he was when Neil first confessed to leaving Andrew out of the bracers. He was two seconds away from throttling Neil for being an idiot, but he knew if he did, he’d have bigger problems than just dealing with Neil’s trust issues.

Eventually, Matt threw his arms down and paced away with a curse. He pushed his hands through his hair and down the back of his neck.

“You found the chess piece,” Dan commented.

Neil released a shaky sigh. “Yeah. I did,” he said, glancing sparingly at Andrew. “He doesn’t get on well with Andrew.”

“Yeah, I’m not surprised,” Matt said with a sour laugh. He glared at Neil from over Dan’s shoulder. Dan rubbed a hand over her brow as Matt went on. “You are not to leave the territory. Do you understand me?”

“Yes. I get that now,” Neil sighed, eyes to the sky. “Anything else?”

“Yes. As a matter of fact there is,” Matt snapped, jabbing a finger at him. He was too furious to say anything for a moment until he managed to bite out through clenched teeth. “Not allowed in my office again.”

“Alright. Deal.”

“Wait, no, that means he has more bad shit in there,” Andrew said, and all Neil could do was roll his eyes. He could feel Kevin pulsing in fury. He resisted the urge to slap his own face to make Kevin stop making it feel like snakes were under his skin.

Dan looked around the yard to where a dozen familiar faces watched the scene unfold. She stepped away from Neil and held a hand out to Matt. “We should take this somewhere private. Don’t want to alarm anyone,” she whispered, tugging Matt by the hand. She nearly reached for Neil, only to remember the sensation of her hand crushing. Andrew slipped in beside Neil and watched them begin walking towards the steps leading up to the balcony.

“Neil,” Andrew started.

“Intimidating them won’t do anything,” Neil said, mouth barely moving. He turned away from the training yard, away from curious eyes. “If you don’t touch them, I’ll make sure they won’t do anything to you. Alright?”

Andrew scoffed, arms crossed. “I won’t lay a claw on them unless they step out of line. That line being a foot in front of you.” He swiped a hand in front of them that marked Dan and Matt’s limits, and the starting line to Neil’s infinite annoyance with Andrew in that moment.

“I noticed you stopped Dan without touching her,” Neil said instead, and he could tell Andrew was amused by the abrupt conversation change.

Andrew smiled up at the keep and then off to the training fields as they slowed near the balcony railing. “It’s a lot like possession. When I was human it took a lot out of me. Controlling someone doesn’t use physical magick—telekinesis, levitation. It takes place entirely right here.” He reached up to Neil’s forehead, pressing his thumb beneath the fringe of Neil’s auburn hair. Neil watched Andrew’s eyes drift from Neil’s hair to his eyes before pulling his hand away. “When I was human, I tried it once. Pushed me over the edge.”

“And what edge is that?”

“Consciousness. I was knocked out for two days recovering energy,” he explained. He stepped away, slipping his hands into the pockets of his black jacket.

“Neil!” Dan called out from the next level up. Neil glanced at her before looking back at Andrew, who stared dimly at Neil, eyes unnervingly still.

“You should go after them,” Andrew said. “I need a smoke.”

“Alright. I’ll see you later,” Neil promised. It was a promise he couldn’t break, no matter the case.

***

It didn’t take a genius to figure out just how aggravated Matt was about the entire ordeal, which was a blessing because Andrew considered Neil to be an idiot from the start. That didn’t matter so much as Dan’s own frustration, but Neil could tell her anger was borne from a deep sense of fear for what Neil had just cracked open by bringing Kevin into this.

Thankfully, though, the journey gave Matt and Dan some time to come up with a plan, however loose it was. That night they relayed the ultimatum to Neil: Either he stay in the confines of Kaer Morhen, or agree to perform the ritual on Kevin against the demon’s will.

The instant it was suggested, and perhaps several moments before, Neil’s tattoo began pulsing. Kevin’s desperation was palpable, and it burned in a way that made it feel as though boiling water was spilling down the side of his face. He clasped a hand over it to shut Kevin up, but it did little to quell the hellfire Kevin was raising.

“We aren’t ready to deal with the man who created Kevin’s artifact,” Dan explained, pacing down the length of the table.

They were in a dilapidated dining hall in the older section of the keep. It was long since cleared out and vacant of anything important, and so all that was left was a rotting table collecting dust. Matt leant against a collapsed column and stared at Neil as though at any moment, Kevin could erupt without warning. Neil wondered if Kevin’s superior knowledge of this could give him an advantage over Neil that would ruin all of this. So far, though, Kevin couldn’t free himself from the tattoo, and not by any lack of effort trying.

Dan turned back to Neil, eyes tired. She gave a sharp shake of her head before saying anything more. “We’ve tried. We’ve contacted the other clans before but none of them are willing to face the fact that we’re going against an actual threat here. They assume it’s something we can take care of on our own, or risk them turning their backs on us doing so.”

“So you’ve known about this threat and done nothing since?” Neil asked.

“We’ve done as much as we can without meeting face-to-face with their leader—a young Riko Moriyama,” she said, and spat the name as if it were a sin to say it aloud. “He’s a descendent of an ancient line of necromancers. Every successor of the line goes through a ceremony with the passing leader to obtain their magick source. In a sense, Riko is more of a threat than any of his previous lives, and everyone after him will be even more of an issue. We should have nipped this in the bud ages ago, but it didn’t come to light until the past two centuries. Matt and I only learned about it a few years before our mentor passed.”

Matt straightened, stepping across the hall with his arms crossed. He looked to the floor. “That, and the deal with harvesting demons and trapping them in artifacts,” he said. “In ancient lineages, artifacts were a mark of merit or status and were often placed in wills for the next of kin. There’s evidence of royal families imparting dozens of demons to their graves. We’ve tried finding evidence of them, but we came up empty every time.”

“You mean to tell me you’ve been grave-digging around royal burial sites and never thought to mention it?” Neil said, and Matt gave him a droll stare.

“More or less,” he confessed. “That’s been my own personal project. I’m afraid most artifacts have been taken before I could even get there. Ancient demon artifacts are likely in the possession of people like Riko Moriyama.”

“All of his demons are thoroughbred, so to speak,” Dan argued. “He wouldn’t start grave-digging, no matter how much of a necrophiliac he is.”

“Okay, ew,” Neil said, half-gagging at the thought.

“Truthfully, I didn’t know he was still hunting artifacts until this whole situation cropped up,” Dan confessed with a roll of her eyes. She glowered at Matt. “Might have been nice for you to mention it.”

“You do realize demons have a shelf-life,” Neil said to them. “Both Renee and Kevin attest to it, and Dan as well. Andrew should not have been left on a shelf for a century.”

“Andrew was a threat before that sentence,” Matt insisted, making a cutting gesture with his arm. “If you had any spiritual inclination you could have sensed it in a heartbeat. He stopped being responsive ages ago. His aura just vanished after half a century, so if anything, he’s probably stunted his magick. How much can one demon hold?”

“He destroyed Assengard!” Neil shouted. “And you mean to tell me that a demon like Andrew has a cap on magick?!”

Neil’s voice reverberated across the room, echoing down the empty, broken corridors splitting away from the dining hall where Dan and Matt stood, horrified. Dan stared at Matt then, and pointed accusingly at Neil. “You gave him the thing that destroyed Assengard? You do remember what that was like, don’t you?”

“Yes, I saw it,” Matt hissed at her. “How was I supposed to know that—”

“You were there?” Neil asked, astonished.

“After,” he said, quipped. He couldn’t seem to look at Neil without focusing his eyes on the tattoo. “There was talk about supernatural forces causing the eruption. I was there to investigate the matter. Never found anything significant.”

Neil nodded quietly. He would forever be amazed by the fact that Matt and Dan had been around long enough to have existed in the same timeframe as Andrew. They could have seen Andrew as a human for all Neil knew. The chances were unfathomable, but he hoped.

Dan murmured something to Matt, who shook his head and whispered his answer back. Neil’s jaws parted in a yawn, and his eyelids grew heavy the longer he spent on his feet. He rubbed at the heavy skin beneath his eyes, warm from exhaustion, and confessed that he needed to catch up on sleep.

“That sounds like a good idea. Sleep on it, and we’ll think of what the hell to do next,” Dan said. The order filled him with dread. He didn’t want to contemplate Kevin’s death any more than he did with Andrew. Still, the threat Kevin posed was gruesome enough to worry the two best witchers in the world. Neil wasn’t qualified enough to be making decisions of this magnitude.

He walked off, bootsteps resonating with the empty, crumbling corridors. He ducked beneath a fallen column where it crashed into the opposite wall, scattering chunks of bricks the size of Neil’s torso. He hopped over one on his way to the exit—the bridge that separated the old keep from the new.

He stopped on the bridge to look out at the mountains. It’d been several months since he saw midday grace the valley, and he loved every moment of it. If only the situation weren’t so dire.

Dragging his hand across the railing, Neil arrived at the entryway to the keep and started for his bedroom. At least, he hoped it was still his bedroom. He couldn’t be certain whether or not Dan had repurposed it since he left. Still, he figured he might as well try.

The door was shut when he approached, and the interior just as spotless as when Neil last left it. He never had anything to occupy the space, and so it stayed the same as before. He unlatched his chest plate and lifted it over his shoulders, grunting with the effort. His muscles were tight and sore, tense against his neck. He massaged it as best he could before shucking off his boots and doing away with his belt of holsters. His swords fell to the side as he collapsed face-first onto the freshly-washed quilts.

He nestled up to the pillows and burrowed under the blankets. With his arms around a pillow, and the tattoo suffocated against them, Neil could almost imagine he had no artifacts at all.

He fell asleep to the sensation, and continued sleeping well into the evening and early morning. Neil didn’t even stir when Andrew walked out of bounds in order to teleport to Neil’s location. Andrew settled atop one of the empty trunks in the room and took to watching Neil sleep for several minutes before growing tired of it. How could anyone spend an entire night staring at someone sleep? He wouldn’t cut it as a stalker, that much was certain.

Eventually, Andrew moved on and went in and out of the rooms down Neil’s hall—some occupied, others vacant. He picked through their belongings little by little before surfacing a few gems. There was a knife he quite liked, carved out of a rich, black stone and polished to a fine point. It was hidden amongst several others, but he kept that one, and slipped it into the belt around his waist before covering it with his tan cloak and moving along.

There was a book on witcher sorcery he found interesting, and so he confiscated that and sat reading in the corridor outside Neil’s room for another hour. He learned more about the traps Neil could set, and the ignition techniques formulated by witchers. They were excluded from the vast majority of magick users—they didn’t pull from rituals and spells. Magick was innate for them—always at the ready. It was an incredible miracle that Neil never knew he had those abilities until recently. Any number of things prior to three years ago could have triggered it, and now Neil was able to light a flame without a second thought.

It took me weeks to accomplish that much when I was human, he thought. And anything more than that months, even years of practice.

He felt unnervingly comfortable in that drafty corridor. So much so that it was causing discomfort. His guard was down. What if the defense Matt and Dan created broke? What if Neil was unsafe here just as much as anywhere else? It didn’t help that the constant nagging of no longer being cold was still hovering over him, persistent. He rubbed at his arm and stood, thinking that perhaps this was just a glitch of sorts in his system. Maybe he just wasn’t feeling the cold anymore, but it was still there, waiting to strike the moment he was back to normal.

Andrew slipped back into Neil’s room and found the man still passed out on the bed. He turned back to the door and shut it as quietly as he could manage, a hand laid flat over the dark wood. He studied the edge of the bracer, just as black as the blade he took from one of the trainees’ rooms.

He went to the bed and pressed a knee onto the mattress. Neil didn’t move an inch, and so he lifted the blankets and crawled beneath them, into the warmth he could feel gathering from Neil’s body heat.

It took an immense amount of control to stop himself from wrapping an arm around Neil, so he instead tugged his arm to the side, twisting so that his back pressed up against Neil’s. He hugged his arms to his chest and willed himself to stop thinking like that. He couldn’t be so forward with Neil, despite everything Neil’s mind told him. He couldn’t take this any faster than—well, perhaps it was his limitations he was accommodating, not Neil’s. Neil was too receptive to this. How could Neil take this so smoothly when Andrew was stuck—

The mattress shifted. The blankets lifted up over Andrew as Neil turned onto his back, and then settled with his nose pressed between Andrew’s shoulder blades. Andrew sucked in a deep breath, clutching onto the bracers tightly as he felt the metal of Neil’s wrist fall to his waist. Neil shifted his hand up, and Andrew didn’t have to think twice about lifting his arm up to accommodate Neil’s hand now laying flat over his chest.

“You’re warm,” Neil whispered. Andrew closed his eyes to the sound of Neil’s hoarse, sleepy voice. It was caught in a mid-whisper. “I was so cold earlier.”

“How the tables have turned,” Andrew said back, feigning boredom. Neil chuckled, his breath ghosting over the woolen fabric of Andrew’s cloak. “Go back to sleep.”

“Aye, aye…” Neil yawned. He pushed his forehead against Andrew’s back, and relaxed his arm. Andrew laid his hand over Neil’s wrist and hooked his fingers around the bracers.

Yes.

This was fine.

Chapter Text

Andrew refused to go on a run that early morning, and given the circumstances, Neil begrudgingly accepted the fact that it was more feasible to keep Andrew in the bracers for that whole event. So, while Andrew laid curled up around the pillow where Neil used to sleep, Neil readied himself for a run before striking the bracers together. Andrew’s sparks collected on the black metal, and faded from view as Neil pushed through his bedroom door and headed to the training yard.

He walked the length of the yard to a balcony stairwell. It curved around the corner of the keep, and deposited him to an archway in the brick. The main entrance was shut and he didn’t want to bother with the details of locking it, so he took to the narrow passage that cut down the side of the tower and past the rocky cliff the keep was built on. The stairwell’s dense blackness was only subdued by a flare of fire rising from Neil’s hand as he jogged down the steps, and emerged into the dim, morning light filtered through the canopy, and overshadowed by the mountainous terrane.

Neil spent every morning after that familiarizing himself with the land he memorized months ago. It was difficult keeping up with running while traveling, but he missed the raw intensity of high-altitude air burning his lungs. Andrew might call him a masochist for his love of running, because gods knew Andrew hadn’t run a day in his life for pleasure, but Neil didn’t care. He didn’t care if he was just about the only person he knew who loved cardio workouts, because for an hour every morning, he was able to forget the world because of it.

Those days back at Kaer Morhen were strenuous, but rewarding. He was with the trainees more and more often. There were only a handful of them—three girls and a younger boy. It was more than what the keep was used to housing these days, and the new faces were exciting to just about everyone at the keep besides Neil. Neil wasn’t there long enough to understand the “draught” they had for decades. New witchers weren’t easy to come by, especially with other clans on the hunt for them.

When Neil wasn’t helping or participating in training, he was with Andrew, and shoving his inner turmoil beneath the pressure of ensuring they were both prepared to handle what Dan and Matt refused to acknowledge until Neil came to a decision. Keeping Kevin alive meant dealing with necromancers. Neil never encountered one before, but he heard plenty of legends about them, and read plenty of books about their craft since first arriving at Kaehr Morhen. Necromancy was banned throughout all sovereignties in the area. Neil wasn’t even sure where the practice could even be legal, aside from the obvious anarchy of a no-man’s land. There was only one such area Neil was aware of, but even then he couldn’t quite describe it without doubting himself. Who even knew if such areas existed?

Regardless, understanding the practice was a key to understanding Riko Moriyama himself, and the day after Matt and Dan confronted him, Neil resigned to the fact that Kevin would be of no help.

“Whatever I say won’t matter in the grand scheme of things,” Kevin insisted, pacing the long, weathered table in the abandoned keep. Neil stood at the head of the table, hands on his hips, still sweaty from his run. He and Andrew had brought most everything from the library on necromancy to the abandoned hall, and Andrew sat in front of one such volume with his feet up on the table, lidded red eyes following Kevin as he paced.

“I’m under the impression that your grand scheme of things is far different from our grand scheme of things,” Neil said, and paused upon the withering stare Andrew sent him. “My grand scheme of things.”

“No, you don’t get it,” Kevin said, frantically. His hands shook as he raised them, holding Neil’s gaze with as much purpose as he could muster. “Whatever I say won’t help because you and the rest of your witcher guild are doomed the second Master Riko discovers a way through Boyd’s barrier. You, yourself, are incapable of facing this inevitable danger with or without the help of your frivolous book collection.”

“It’s not frivolous,” Neil said with a sigh.

“It is. It’s all outdated,” Kevin said, flipping the cover up from one of the novels and holding it up. “This? All this—? It’s been collected by sorcerers outside of the Moriyama lineage. The Moriyamas have kept their knowledge to the cult since they diverged from the modern art of necromancy.”

“What did they diverge to, exactly?” Neil asked.

“To the Underworld,” Kevin said, tossing the book down. He shook his head, hands dropping to his sides. “Beyond just raising the dead. They aren’t interested in souls, Neil, and neither should you be. This is all child’s play and you know it.”

Kevin pointed sharply to Andrew, who stared on impassively. Kevin dropped his hand before collapsing into a chair. His wide, red eyes drifted to the table surface before flitting to Neil and back again. “I can’t help you,” he said at last.

Neil rubbed a hand past his damp forehead and through his hair. He left it in haphazard spikes as he looked down at the table. So this wasn’t even necromancy they were dealing with—big whoop. There were other sections in the library that could help them with this, right? Granted, reading wasn’t exactly his favorite pastime, but he knew Dan might be able to help him with this.

Kevin returned to his artifact after insisting that it was pointless to keep him out, and that he’d rather exist there than anywhere else. Neil complied, only because Andrew seemed far less willing to talk with Kevin out and about, and because he’d be dealing with Dan later on. The last thing he wanted was to put the entire keep in jeopardy by letting Kevin loose. The fact that Kevin didn’t react to Neil’s accusations made it true: That Kevin would deal some of the damage his master yearned to inflict on Kaer Morhen.

Later that day, Neil and Andrew were following Dan around the library, tossing ideas back and forth. “—Kevin mentioned something about a ‘New World’,” Neil said.

“The apocalyptic subtext was pretty heavy-handed if you ask me,” Andrew said. “A bit melodramatic too, but I think just about everything that comes out of that shithead’s mouth is gonna be on that same page.”

Dan reached over to drag a ladder down the row. “Well… if we’re talking about impending apocalypses, we have a few volumes on The End Of The World predictions,” she said. She climbed a few rungs before reaching for one such novel. She flipped through it. “Though, if you ask me, most of them are oral legends written inaccurately, or fictional stories told by minstrels for entertainment. But despite how fluffy minstrels can be with their story-telling, it’s hard to remember fake news. It’s easier to sprinkle in lies with the truth.”

She passed the book to Neil, who flipped through the pages. Some were accompanied by detailed ink illustrations scratched into the heavy parchment. He stopped to stare at a rendition of a famous painting—a woman swathed in blood-stained fabric, reaching to the sky as demons emerged from the water, scraping their claws down her legs and arms, tearing her clothes.  Andrew leaned over to look and raised an eyebrow.

“Not accurate at all,” Neil commented before snapping the book shut.

Andrew carried the books up to the floor where they passed over the bridge to the abandoned keep. As he did so, Neil traveled slower behind, occupied by Dan accompanying him. She crossed her arms as they watched Andrew retreat up the stairs before saying anything at all. “Killing Kevin won’t stop the Moriyamas.”

“I know,” Neil confessed. “I’ve thought about that. At best we’ll just be delaying the inevitable. Kevin said that regardless of what I do, I’m no help in the matter.”

Dan laid a hand on his shoulder. “I’m sorry, Neil.”

“Is there anything you have about the hosts? Maybe something from Matt’s mentor?” he asked, and Dan said that she’d see what she could find. She couldn’t promise anything, though, since most of what Matt knew was passed down orally. Knowledge of the Moriyamas seemed to spread in secret, and Matt was no different.

Dan came back with her hands empty the next day. She’d waited for him at the balcony in the morning as he returned from a run. One hopeful look up rewarded him with a slow shake of her head. He slumped in disappointment, hunched over his knees. His chest burned, but it was nothing like the disappointment of knowing as little as Dan and Matt did. The only source of information he had on hosts was through Kevin.

“Shit,” he huffed, stretching his arms back behind his head.

He headed for the stables to check on Roach. There, he found the stablehand working on Roach’s hooves, and was scolded once again for neglecting Roach’s horseshoe maintenance. Horse ownership was new to him—every time before Kaer Morhen was by stolen saddle after stolen saddle as needs necessitated. He combed a hand through Roach’s mane and apologized. Roach butted his head up against Neil’s, and the stablehand said, “He forgives you.”

“I’m glad,” Neil laughed, wrapping his arms around Roach’s neck. “My incompetence isn’t enough to sway him.”

That makes two, Neil thought, and felt his bracers hum with warmth around his wrists. He rubbed at one of them before patting Roach fondly and walking off.

He went to the kitchen for a proper meal. As the staff in the kitchen prepared something for him, he took a bottle of liquor from a cabinet and slipped it into his satchel along with some fruit for the journey across the keep.

He walked around one of the wrap-around balconies on the rooftop to reach the higher walkway across the break in the cliff. He glanced down over the edge as he bit into an apple, and caught flakes of snow in his hair as he did so. He brushed his hand through the layer of snow that had collected on the bridge’s railing before looking up at the sky. Clouds shrouded Kaer Morhen, and likewise made it difficult to see his destination until he was standing right in front of it.

This far up, Neil could see the severe damage that was dealt to the keep. The rooftop entrance had a slice carved out of the side of the tower, and it cut down several stories and slid to where the bricks collapsed against the mountain. Neil stood against it all, a mere speck against the massive establishment that was nearly reduced to rubble. He bit into the apple and lapped up the sugary juices on his way down the stone steps. He tugged his jacket closer to ward off the breeze whistling through the cavernous tower. Icicles had formed high up on the broken roof, maintained by the high-altitude’s chilly nature.

One icicle snapped as he descended beneath a secure section of flooring. It crashed into a ledge overhead, and echoed throughout the tower. Neil ignored it in favor of hurrying to the hall where he could light a fire and settle in for a day of intense reading and, whether he liked it or not, a chat with Kevin.

It started by popping the cork on the bottle of liquor in his bag. He set it off to the side on the hearth and leant back against the stone pillar now warm from the fire glowing against it. He rubbed his hand over the tattoo, and drank from the bottle as he waited for Kevin to materialize.

The instant the embers faded from Kevin’s skin, Neil set the bottle down. “Getting drunk before noon?” he commented, and Neil shrugged.

“I have a feeling I’ll need it. Food?”

“I don’t need it.”

“Yeah, but it’s fun to eat it, right?” Neil said, holding a citrus up to Kevin. Kevin eyed it wearily.

“I haven’t quite gotten over the hunger pains yet. I shouldn’t make a habit of it,” he insisted.

“Hunger pains?” Neil repeated.

“Like your… friend getting over his sleeping habits,” Kevin explained, and pushed the fruit down back into Neil’s lap. “So no, thank you. Best not to waste it on me.”

Neil frowned at Kevin, who went to sit across from Neil on the hearth. Kevin kicked his feet up on the stone and reached for the liquor bottle, though. “This can never be wasted,” he said, and raised it in a half-cheer before swallowing a few hearty gulps. He pulled back with a hiss and shook his head. “It’s been a while,” he confessed. “I… wasn’t able to drink much before.”

Neil simply watched as Kevin studied the bottle before succumbing to another drink of it. He sighed, slumping back against the column with a curse of appreciation. He continued to drink until nearly half the bottle was gone, and Neil wondered how Kevin could tolerate the taste. He was only able to stomach a glass before paranoia kicked in.

“I know what you want me to say,” Kevin said, and his satisfaction with half a bottle of alcohol made his tone far more amiable than before. Despite this, Kevin couldn’t seem to slacken the tension in his face from his frown to the permanent crease between his brows.

“I want to know what your version of a proper host is,” Neil said, and Kevin laughed, looking out at the table full of books. “What kind of man is Riko? How did becoming a demon work for you if it was different from Andrew?”

“You’re not going to like your answer.”

“Tell me anyways,” Neil said.

Kevin’s frown split into a melancholy smile before he turned to look at Neil. He tipped his head back against the column, swallowing hard before saying, voice hollow, “You know how much the ritual changes a person physically, right? Demons aren’t effected by mortal pain. All of our scars vanish when we pass to The Other Side and are infused in artifacts. The last years are the worst of it because they know all your injuries are insignificant in the end.”

“They can do anything to you knowing that you’ll physically be perfectly all right after the ritual,” Neil reiterated, and Kevin nodded. “What did they do to you?”

“Everything. Pain is just something that humbles humans. It isn’t real,” he said, eyes unnervingly still as they watched Neil absorb this. “You know that. You know that intimately.”

“Don’t pry.”

“I can and I will,” Kevin said, taking a smaller sip this time. “Because the more I learn the more I know how much my master will make you suffer for imprinting me. Even after he kills you, I’ll have your name written all over my being. Andrew’s no different. You can’t erase a spiritual imprint like that.”

“How many pure demons were there? You must have trained with them all,” Neil said, and Kevin nodded.

“Master Riko cannot imprint until his father deems him ready. Until then, we were all raised with him. I was his first—until Boyd intercepted the ritual.”

“His first?”

“His favorite,” Kevin said, a ghost of a smile on his lips. He pressed the bottom of the bottle to the hearth and rolled it, one finger on the rim. He grinned at Neil. “I showed the most promise. And now it’s all being wasted.”

“You’re not being wasted,” Neil said, and Kevin scoffed at him. “I’m serious. What if you could train Andrew?”

Both artifacts seared into him. He refused to wince, not when Kevin was glaring at him like that. Kevin’s eyes narrowed into slits as he sneered, “I refuse to train that feral dog. You’re insane for trusting him as much as you do. He won’t save you from the Moriyamas anymore than I will.”

“I don’t care. Tell me more,” Neil demanded as he reached into his bag for something more to eat. He started to peel the skin of the fruit as Kevin demanded that he expand more. “Are there other people like Riko?”

“Only the Moriyamas. Their following assists in the rituals and are promised redemption in the New World,” he explained. “Most of the family distances themselves from their artifacts prior to the ritual. Master Riko was an exception—the children were either from within the cult or outside of it, and raised with Riko at the same time.”

“But aren’t all of the Moriyamas artifacts raised specifically for that purpose?”

“Yes, but he wasn’t planned,” Kevin explained. “They didn’t expect Riko to come along, and plans changed. There were sixteen of us.”

“Sixteen,” Neil repeated, pressing a finger to the tattoo. “All chess pieces.”

Kevin nodded. “He’s fond of the game. We were all expected to play. After a while I tended to just… let him win. It doesn’t take failure lightly.”

“But you do.”

Kevin pegged him with a scowl. “This is different.”

“Was he the one who treated you terribly, or the people who follow the Moriyamas?”

Kevin’s scowl twitched at the corner of his lip, his eyes flitting to the fire. He clung to the neck of the bottle as if restraining himself from drinking more. His self-restraint didn’t do much to prevent it from happening. He gulped down another mouthful of it. “Both,” he answered. “It’s what they’ve been doing for generations. You can’t expect them to raise Master Riko any differently.”

You don’t deserve that, Neil thought, and Kevin’s expression twisted in disgust. “No one deserves to be treated like that.”

“I’m not human, Neil,” he said, and the reminder was heartbreaking. “I was never going to be human. I am equally less than and more than.”

“It cancels out. You’re still human under those standards.”

“No, I’m not. I’m beyond pain and suffering, but I’m a servant,” Kevin reiterated, leaning forward over his knees. He stared at Neil, shaking his head. “I’m an immortal slave. Nothing more. I was raised to do anything for my master, but you are not it. Don’t expect me to heel like Andrew.”

“Andrew doesn’t heel. He isn’t a dog,” Neil said. “If being a proper host is what it’s going to take to win your respect, then tell me what I’m supposed to do.”

“No,” Kevin hissed through clenched teeth.

“Then what’s so terrible about how I do things?” Neil snapped. “I take it that you’re just afraid of what you’ve never been able to have before. I don’t blame you—I didn’t expect a life outside of my father’s control until my mother forced our hand. You weren’t raised to be in control of anything.”

“That’s not true,” he said, but his voice was tight.

“It is. And I can definitely see how cultivating sixteen artifacts could be detrimental if you gave every one of them moral integrity,” Neil said, holding Kevin’s shocked gaze. “But you aren’t one of sixteen right now, Kevin. It’s just me and Andrew.”

Kevin shook his head, tugging at one sharp, straight horn with the other hand clasped around the bottle. “Demons aren’t meant to act mortal, Neil. It’s distracting to the masters, and encumbers them with—I’m sure you’ve felt it. When we’re contained within the artifacts, we leak emotions. It can be used for warning when our senses pick up impending danger, or communication, but nothing more. Acting mortal means interfering with the master.”

“If your master can’t handle his artifacts acting mortal, then I’d say he’s just afraid of appearing weak. It honestly sounds like all of you could curb the tide of their plans if you all stood back and thought for a moment about how much bullshit they’ve been feeding you,” Neil insisted, and Kevin visibly paled, now raising both hands up to his horns, red eyes wide. The slits of his sharp, diamond-esque pupils stared in horror.

“You’re insane,” Kevin hissed. “One wrong step means death to the faulty artifact.”

“It sounds like replacements are hard to come by.”

“Right, but the timing of Master Riko’s imprinting was paramount to the timeline of the Turning Over,” Kevin insisted, shaking his head. “They—They’ve already… likely replaced me—”

Kevin curled forward, forehead pressed to his knees. Neil watched as a shuddering breath passed through Kevin. The man’s clawed fingers clenched around his horns, turning as black as the horns themselves. Neil reached over, hesitantly, and paused within a few inches from Kevin’s head. His skin felt as though it was tingling with sparks the closer he came, but he knew Kevin could read everything he was thinking. If Kevin wanted to stop him, he would have done so already.

Neil laid a hand between Kevin’s horns, patting his mess of black hair down. Kevin’s fingers loosened around the horns, and eventually, he raised them up to clutch at Neil’s wrist. Slowly, he pulled Neil’s hand away, and lifted his head to stare up at Neil.

Kevin pressed a thumb to Neil’s palm. Neil’s skin was rough from the gloves, and from riding Roach for days on end, holding fast onto the leather reigns. He lowered Neil’s hand to the hearth, and freed one hand to rub over his cheeks. Kevin’s tears were blood red, and stained his seemingly mortal flesh pink no matter how hard he scrubbed.

“I could never replace you,” Neil promised. “I’ll do what I can to convince Dan and Matt.”

Kevin’s throat tensed, the muscles along his shoulders tightening. He swallowed hard, refusing to look at Neil when the skin around his eyes was still red. “You’re insane,” he muttered. “Put me back.”

Neil complied. He rubbed his thumb over the tattoo and watched Kevin’s being shatter into glowing red sparks. The passed over his bracers and up his arms, circling to collect on the tattoo. When the heat sunk in and faded, Neil released a sigh, and lifted the bottle up to see his reflection in the glass smiling back. He took a small sip before deciding that alcohol just wasn’t for him.

Chapter Text

Kevin still refused to—physically—be in the same room as Andrew, so Neil simply didn’t summon him unless entirely necessary. Andrew seemed unwilling to talk about Kevin, and so the matter was settled: Kevin would remain in his artifact for the time being.

Andrew was quiet for those days, mainly due to Neil’s inability to talk about anything other than Kevin, or the Moriyamas, or the impending doom seeping through the earth as they read up on apocalypse after apocalypse. Most were far too heavily submerged in religious texts to be adapted to Kevin’s descriptions, but he had mentioned the Underworld.

“—The act of the apocalypse—he called it the Turning Over,” Neil continued, flipping through ancient text to reach a phrase someone had translated in faded ink. “‘Mumiksimaniq’ was translated to ‘turning over’. But it was a movement from a tribe awaiting the death of the world. It lasted for several decades, actually.”

“Hm,” Andrew muttered from across the table, head on the cover of a closed book. He turned his eyes up to Neil, his exhaustion prevalent.

“Don’t sleep,” Neil told him.

“I’m not. Leave me alone,” Andrew whined, voice muffled by his cheek pressed flat against the book. “What religion?”

“It isn’t specified. Historians couldn’t find much on the tribe. They lived in the northern mountains, likely not far from here,” Neil explained.

“Yeah, and who’s sitting outside the valley waiting for us.”

Neil hesitated, staring at Andrew. Andrew closed his eyes, drumming his fingers on the table. He pulled his finger down the length of the grain before blinking up at Neil. “I doubt the Moriyamas originated from this area,” Neil said.

Andrew shrugged and went back to fake-sleeping. Neil frowned and looked back at the text. The minimal, almost nonexistent tribe from long ago. He couldn’t trust everything on a paragraph simply because of a hunch. Besides, ‘turning over’ made him think of a new reign. The transition into the New World. He decided to investigate further and found himself outside of Matt’s office against specific instructions not to go to his office anymore.

Neil could only guess why, and thinking about it had Andrew smirking from beside him, arms crossed, leant up against the narrow entryway column. “Stop that,” Neil muttered, hand over his face.

“Can’t stop what’s already happened.”

“I know. It’s just—embarrassing,” Neil confessed, peaking out of one eye at Andrew, who raised his eyebrows. Andrew licked his bottom lip before biting into it as they listened to the locks being undone from the other side of the door. Neil’s ears turned pink and he had to clear his throat before saying anything to Matt’s visibly annoyed face.

Matt stared at them both, slumped against the door. He seemed to have just rolled out of bed. “What the fuck is it,” he droned.

“I was wondering where the Moriyamas originated. Where were they before?” Neil asked.

“Neil, it’s too early for this—” Matt yawned, shaking his head.

“Dan says you don’t know, but I think she’s lying,” he insisted, and Matt turned his harsh gaze back onto Neil. “You’re the only person here aside from Kevin who knows anything about the Moriyamas.”

“Then ask Kevin.”

Neil had tried, but the Moriyamas secrets were withheld from premature artifacts. Being imprinted on by a Moriyama would open them to everything within the minds of their hosts. Telling them before hand was unnecessary, and potentially dangerous. “He doesn’t know,” Neil confessed.

“Have you had time to think about it,” Matt asked dully, slumped against the door. He put a hand on his hip, and watched the way Neil fidgeted at the implication.

“I have. It doesn’t seem like I have much of a choice in the matter—”

“You’re right. You don’t.”

“—but even if Kevin isn’t useful against the Moriyamas, he’s still my artifact,” he insisted, and Matt inhaled sharply, raising a tired eyebrow at him.

“I take it you’re gonna spew some bullshit about ‘my body, my rules’, which is all good and well, Neil, except for when your body is a literal ticking time bomb waiting to cast this place up in flames,” Matt said, and Neil slumped once more at the thought. It came to mind plenty of times.

“There’s not much Kevin can do with me as his host.”

“You and I both know that you’re itching to let him out at every reasonable opportunity,” Matt said, and Andrew conceded it with a shrug and a nod. “Truth of the matter is this: He’s a danger to the keep, Neil. We need to eliminate it before something terrible happens.”

Neil was shocked by Kevin’s silence on the matter, only to remember Kevin’s training, and Kevin’s acceptance with the way Matt and Dan viewed him. He wasn’t denying Matt’s accusations, or Neil’s reluctant thoughts on the topic. Kevin was a danger, and he wasn’t about to deny it.

Matt left him with that bit of knowledge, and given the finality of Matt and Dan’s own decision, it didn’t take long for them to confront Neil again. They found Neil out the garden wedged between the two keep towers, underneath the shadow of the mountain. All of the plants in the garden were made specifically for minimal sunlight, and were all composed of deep greens, reds, and purples. The bushes were overgrown or unkempt, and the vines all looked like dried veins climbing up the broken rocks of the semi-collapsed keep.

Neil chucked a rock at the vines. It hit the hefty hull near the base and sent branches of dead leaves falling down into the valley. He picked up another pebble and readied his throwing arm, only to stop at the sight of Dan jumping up onto one of the stone ledges. She took a seat, catching Neil’s eye as he narrowed his gaze and went back to throwing rocks.

“Is Andrew around?” Matt asked from the entrance to the garden. Neil looked at him, and then back at Andrew, who was standing atop the railing overlooking the valley. Andrew turned, arms crossed, silhouetted against the sun. He didn’t cast a shadow, so the light made him almost ethereal. It contrasted against his dark jacket and horns that had curved nearly over the entirity of his skull.

Matt looked in Andrew’s general direction before taking a cautious step after Dan. “We should take care of Kevin today,” Dan said.

“Why today?” Neil countered.

The way Dan watched him—full of pity and concern—twisted his stomach uncomfortably. He rubbed at his chest, looking away from them. His forehead was starting to hurt from how tense his brow was. I don’t want to, he wanted to say, but even he knew that sounded childish.

“Kevin doesn’t want to go,” he said instead.

“Yeah, because if he happens to encounter the Moriyamas, he’ll do everything to ensure they kill you,” Matt remarked. He leant back against the stone ledge Dan sat on, and ignored Neil’s withering glare. “We’re leaving at noon. I checked with the stables and they say Roach and Fox are ready to ride again.”

Neil said nothing. He chucked a rock at the wall hard enough to chip a brick on the edge of the broken crevice.

***

The moment Neil rode Roach through the gate, the tattoo started aching. The throbbing pain of it seeped into his clenched jaw as he followed after Dan down to the trails surrounding Kaer Morhen. They diverged from the main path, following an overgrown fork in the road where they continued over the incline. Neil carried himself straight though all he wanted to do was clutch at the side of his face Kevin was tearing at.

Andrew looked back at him from where he rode ahead with Dan. Neil met his gaze, realizing that Andrew could likely feel the pain, or at least understand that Neil was silently struggling due to Kevin’s growing panic. Neil shook his head at Andrew, willing them both to stay quiet. It just prompted a flash of scorching heat to cut across Neil’s face. It struck his eye like a pin piercing through his cornea, and it took everything in his power to keep from doing anything more than wincing.

He squinted his eye in a grimace, clutching at the reigns. His vision scattered and recollected in a matter of seconds.

The trip to the ritual spot was at the peak of the mountain Kaer Morhen was carved out of. The cliff stretched out from the mountain range, flattened at the top into a plateau. The switchback trail carried them down the length of it, as far from Kaer Morhen as Matt would allow them to go. The closer they came to the border, the more and more Kevin fought Neil’s consciousness with the vigor of a man begging for his life—or, at least, what was left of it.

The path took them through a hollow opening in the cliff. It was cavernous and forged from a split in the rock face where a portion of the mountain slid to a halt, creating a crevice that illuminated the cavern. Running water resonated through it all, spilling through the crevice, and crystalizing wherever it stilled for too long. The walls were frosted over in ice, and the chill had clouds fogging the air in front of Neil’s face.

They followed the path alongside the ravine Neil never dared pass before then. He traveled to the mouth of the cave once, but never entered. Traveling underground triggered his claustrophobia, and this was no different. However, Kevin’s constant badgering made it easier for Neil to ignore the suffocating walls.

He swallowed hard as light gathered at the end of the tunnel. They closer they came to the gap in the ravine, the more Neil saw. The cave opened up its ceiling to a vast network of holes drilled into the walls of the exposed rock. Upon closer examination, squinting across the gap, Neil realized that they were houses covered in ash and dust, chiseled into the cliff.

“Whoa,” Neil gasped, peering down over the ledge. His voice echoed across the ravine and traveled back, warped and unrecognizable. Roach stepped away from where a rock dropped off from their ledge, and plummeted several stories down before hitting the edge of a walkway far below. It vanished into the abyss below where the sunlight couldn’t reach.

“I’m sure you’ve read up on this civilization,” Dan said, dismounting from her steed. She stood at the edge of the cliff, hands on her hips. She glanced back at Neil as he dismounted after her. “They existed long before us until volcanic activity wiped out the city. Most of the buildings were solidified in volcanic ash, or destroyed in the earthquakes since then. See there.”

She pointed down the ravine to a crack splitting off to the right. He looked beyond the tunnel ahead of them to what appeared to be a waterfall of heavy black charcoal. Solidified lava.

“It’s been a while since we had earthquakes around here,” Matt added. His feet landed not far behind them, and Neil glanced over his shoulder to where Matt was walking towards them. Andrew slipped in beside Neil before Matt had the chance to steal his spot, and promptly spent his time glowering at Matt in full view of everyone. Neil grinned at the look Matt sent him.

“So why’s the ritual have to happen here,” Andrew asked, staring up at the higher levels of the city.

“Because the volcano is no longer active. In the winter the gas vents create a vacuum that drops the temperature over forty degrees below the air outside. The earth keeps the temperature constant this far down, and with the volcano no longer active, the cavern is constantly sub-zero or further,” Dan explained. “And from what Matt’s told me, demons are vulnerable to temperature shifts because their power is often generated from heat. Pitching Kevin into sub-zero temperatures will eliminate him as a threat to us, and help with the ritual.”

They left the horses outside of the tunnel and followed the steps down into the depths of the city, and the pit of the volcano. It smelled like iron the farther down they got, and it settled on Neil’s tongue like a mouthful of copper coins. He grimaced at the taste as he dragged a gloved hand along the wall. Some of the steps were slick with ice, and so it was a slow-moving journey through the dark.

Dan lit the way as soon as light was vacant. The fire followed them amongst shattered columns of volcanic rock, all sleek and black, and reflecting the light of Dan’s flame. It looked like chiseled obsidian, polished into a fine, reflective surface, and it arced over them in sheets. Strips of it remained in the raw, bubbled form of the original frozen lava, insulating the bitter cold within the cavern. Neil’s nose turned numb along with his ears before long, but thankfully, the heat from his witcher magick kept him from turning purple.

Matt knocked his fist on the glassy wall, and the sound reverberated across the cavern. “Alright. This should do it,” he said, turning to Andrew. “Are you doing alright?”

“Fine,” he answered. “Cold doesn’t really effect me anymore.”

Matt raised an eyebrow at Neil, who shrugged. “I don’t know. He used to be sensitive to the cold before,” he explained.

They walked out into the chilly open center of the cavern. A crack through the ceiling cast a split of light across the inky black floor, and Neil walked out beneath it, auburn hair glowing white underneath the sun. The light sent Dan and Matt’s pupils shrinking, becoming nothing but a pure gold surrounded by white. Andrew horns were a striking contrast to the sunlight now washing his hair out of all color. Neil reached a hand up to his tattoo, displaying his bracers and the solid black mark on his cheek.

“We have to wait out the freezing process,” Matt explained, gesturing with a finger the shape of a triangle in the ground. “We can isolate him if we all throw up barriers. Neil, you know how to do that?”

“Not… especially,” he confessed with a wince.

“It’s just like a shield,” Dan explained, and demonstrated the action. She cut her hands out in front of her, her index finger and middle finger extended on either hand. She held them still as the golden barrier expanded. Neil was mainly used to applying that particular seal to his body. Attackers were blast with the equal amount of force they threw against it.

Neil glanced back at Andrew, clutching at his fox amulet before following Dan’s motions. He crossed his arms in front of him before swinging them down, cutting his extended fingers out into the projected form of a barrier. It sent a wave of vibrations down his arms, like his bracers had just become tuning forks struck against a metal surface. He stilled them, and willed the pain in his cheek to subside. He could hardly feel his face at all now, especially not with the cold sinking in.

“Good,” Matt complimented. “Hold it no matter what. If Kevin breaks free, you’ll have to cap him before he’s able to deal any damage to me or Dan.”

“Got it,” Neil said, mouth dry from the nerves.

He lifted the barrier. After a stern look from Matt and Dan, Neil looked back at Andrew. Andrew stood at one of the semi-severed columns, his back reflected in the black glass. His eyes remained on Neil and never wavered when Neil returned his attention to the center of the cavern and released a shuddering breath into the cold air. He sucked in a sharp intake of the chill before summoning Kevin out of the artifact.

The instant the embers began to collect, Matt and Dan were at their posts, striking the barrier out. Neil followed suit, and together the three of them tipped the top of their barriers in to the shape of a pyramid surrounding Kevin.

The sparks snapped with light, jolting against Neil’s barrier with the force of a strike of lightning. It shot up his arms, but he stood his ground, staring into the searing white light as Kevin manifested, trapped beyond the barriers.

He shot towards Neil, fists slamming on the barrier. His eyes were wide in horror, claws scraping for purchase on the barrier. Neil nearly faltered at the sight, shaking his head as Kevin screamed and slammed his fists into the barrier.

“Hold steady!” Dan shouted as Neil’s feet skidded an inch.

Something steady pressed against Neil’s back. He tore his gaze away from Kevin to find Andrew there, keeping him in place as Kevin berated Neil’s defenses with fire and claws, and sharpened teeth bared. He snarled curses at Neil, hexes slurred behind the barrier with little effect. The cold turned his lips purple and his skin paler, frosting over the black encompassing Kevin’s eyes. Specks of ice collected on Kevin’s skin in cracks of blue and white.

A shudder went through the earth beneath them, shifting the volcanic glass. The obsidian columns shifted, and one broke apart from the natural structure of the cavern. Neil turned wide-eyed to Dan as it echoed across the cavern, and then to Matt, who seemed startled that Kevin was able to procure such powers in these temperatures.

The shudder turned to a blast that deafened the cavern. Neil flinched, ears ringing, and narrowly avoided a rock collapsing with several columns behind them. The obsidian shattered and sent glass shards across the cavern, scattering around the pyramid where Kevin shivered, fists clenched to the barrier before Neil. A jolt went through him, coursing down his entire spine as frost turned the tips of his chalky, charcoal fingers white.

The shards of obsidian began to float, hovering as the floor vibrated with such intensity, it was all they could do to keep standing.

“What the hell is going on?” Matt shouted at them. Dan shook her head, lost.

“I-It’s n-not me—” Kevin started, only to scream when the blast struck through the crack overhead and blocked out the sun.

Andrew’s arms flared up in orange light, and with a sweep of his arms over his head, he cut through the rock collapsing over them, and sent it skidding through the rows of obsidian columns beyond. Neil’s barrier dropped, and Matt lunged towards them, shoving Dan and Neil out of the way of the collapsing cavern. Andrew wheeled his arms in front of them, deflecting the rocks with wide strokes of his hands. The sound of rocks shattering and colliding roared in all their ears as Neil broke away from Matt to grab Kevin by the wrist. Kevin was too busy staring at Andrew, and up at the widening gap overhead.

“Oh no,” he whispered through the chaos, and Neil wished he never knew why.

A crack split through the sunlight across the ground and opened a gap of pure black between Neil and Andrew. Andrew sliced a hand through the air overhead. A sliver of obsidian was cut from the gap in the ceiling, and dropped into the gap emerging between them. He used it to vault over to Neil and Kevin, grabbing them both by the arms, and running to where Dan and Matt were racing to the stairs.

They nearly made it.

Neil had Kevin on the stairs.

Something slammed into his ankles, kicking him to his knees. The rocks turned to tar beneath his feet, dragging him through the stairs and out of Kevin’s reach. He shrieked as it closed up over his face in a matter of seconds. It punched through his lungs like falling into the earth off of a cliff. Reflexively, he gasped, and the terror of being trapped without air ached through his entire being.

The air was knocked out of Neil’s lungs as he floundered in the dark. His hand struck through the surface, clamoring for purchase across the cavern from where Andrew and Kevin witnessed his disappearance through the ground.

Neil hauled himself out, gasping. His hand fell inches from a pair of steel-toed boots, all armored up to the knees and strapped to the thighs of a man towering over Neil. Neil stared up into the blackened eyes of this elvish man—all narrow, angular features and slicked-back black hair. His features looked almost fake, down to the king chess piece printed in black ink on his cheekbone, until he sneered down at Neil, nose wrinkling up.

“You’re the one who took my queen,” he sneered, crouching down in front of Neil. Neil was out of the earth all except for his legs, unable to move, and hardly able to breath as Riko Moriyama leaned in to face Neil. “You’re going to wish you hadn’t done that.”

A gunshot sounded from across the cavern. The bullet ricocheted against an invisible shield surrounding Riko, sending a shockwave of purple through the air between them. Neil gained function of his arms again, tearing his fist out of the rock as another gunshot rang out. Dan aimed and fired from between the columns, shattering the base of one behind Riko. Neil used the force of his magick to tear himself out of the earth, only to be caught by the back of his armor and slammed into the ground.

“Shit,” he hissed.

The column split over Riko’s shield as he slammed Neil into the ground, knocking his head back against the stone. “I’ve been waiting years for this,” Riko seethed, pupils mere slits against his blackened sclera. “As if I’d let you kill him!”

The earth beneath them quaked, and it brought Riko’s attention up, eyes honing in on where Andrew thrust his fists into one of the walls on the brink of Neil’s perimeter. An opening split down to his feet, the vibrations intensifying. Neil grasped at Riko’s hand still clutching the front of his chest plate, looking to stare at where Kevin stood near the stairs, shrouded in shadows.

Kevin was petrified, unable to move, unable to speak, unable to do anything except stare at Riko as a heatwave rocketed through the cavern. A blast of putrid air swelled in the vacuum of gas vents and a gaping open ceiling. It rose up with the current of lava Andrew tore from the volcanic glass, and sent spiraling around the expanse of the cavern. It drenched his physical form, turning his skin and red eyes black like the rocks.

Riko released Neil, dropping him to the ground in favor of deflecting the tide crashing into them. Neil shut his eyes and waited to be burned to a crisp, but it felt like nothing more than a blanket passing over him. He pushed himself to his feet, looking out as the current sloshed through the remaining obsidian columns. Dan and Matt retreated to the stairs, running past the point where the lava sloshed up and swirled around Kevin’s knees. The ice thawed from his flesh, and he took a step down into the cavern.

Riko tore his hands up into the air, the sleeves of his cloak riding up and revealing a row of tattoos on either arm. He ripped a column of rock out from the ground beneath him. He rose with it, standing over the waves of lava pulsing from the walls. It burst through the crack overhead, and sent torrents of heat washing up into the cavern, filling it up to the edge of Riko’s platform. Neil stood waist-deep in lava, untouched by it. The steam in the air was suffocating, though, and turned to a boiling intensity that gathered in sweat across his forehead.

It was then that Riko saw Kevin. The earth beneath them tipped, and sent the lava sloshing towards Neil. Neil grabbed hold of a spike of obsidian to keep from falling with it, feet nearly leaving the ground.

“Kevin—” Riko started, but Andrew didn’t give him the chance to finish.

HOLD ON. The words were screamed into Neil’s head, planted by someone other than himself. He decided not to test it, grabbing hold of the spike attached to the ceiling, just as the ground broke away.

Riko collapsed with it, his column splintering in the lava. Neil was too occupied holding on for dear life that he hadn’t realized that the lava was rising at an extraordinary rate. Andrew, covered in charcoal and eyes flashing red through it all, ripped his clawed hands up pulling himself from the ground as he urged tons and tons of unearthed lava back into motion. It churned beneath them and where Riko used to stand, rising up to the crack in the ceiling.

“We need to go!” Kevin shouted at Neil.

Neil heaved out a dagger and wedged it into a crack in the rock overhead. He hefted himself up and took another out from his belt. He climbed as far as he could, past the submerged stairwell, and towards the gap overhead. He pressed his back against the opposite side of the crack, feet perched on the other, gasping for oxygen outside the gaseous contents spewing from the lava. He coughed, clasping a hand over his mouth.

Neil slipped a few inches, clutching for purchase. A hand hefted him back up, steadying him against the rocks. Kevin leant in front of him, chalky eyes wide and glassy.

“I’m fine,” Neil rasped. “Let’s keep moving.”

He reached a ledge and rolled out onto it, nearly dropping his daggers in the process. He gasped, lungs aching. Tar was solidifying his respiratory system. The air was boiling his skin from his bones. He turned over onto his knees and coughed, spitting out dust and ash with it. Kevin knelt in front of him, grabbing him beneath the arms, and heaving him back to the crevice.

“I can’t carry you up!” Kevin shouted over the roar beneath them. “I don’t have enough energy—”

Neil collapsed against the ledge, his arm dropping with the weight he could no longer carry. His bracer clanked against the edge of the stone, and an instant later, flared up with heat collecting in patches of gold before they dispersed in a flurry of sparks. Andrew came forth from the fire, his features pronounced in sharp edges like flakes of rock pulling back at his cheekbones, and piercing his triangular ears.

Andrew kicked off of the cliff’s edge as the lava swelled beneath them in hot, sizzling bubbles and plumes. He took Neil by the hand and wrapped Neil’s arm around his shoulder as he started up the crevice to the top of the mountain. His claws buried deep within the rock, scraping shards away where they went up in flames beneath them.

Neil rolled out onto the mountaintop at the first given opportunity. He skidded a ways, feet scrabbling for purchase. His eyes were blurry with tears, irritated by the ash and gas, but Kevin caught him at the edge, scraping them both to a stop. They barely managed to stay still for five seconds before the rock began to shift.

“Do something!” Kevin seethed at Andrew over his shoulder. Andrew flipped him off, storming towards them from where he sealed the gap as best he could.

Andrew waved Kevin away from Neil with a stern, “Off.” Kevin staggered back, slipping against the ice on the slick rock. He spun back, floating over the ground just in time to witness Andrew jumping directly off the cliff with Neil in his arms.

“That’s certainly one way to do it,” Kevin muttered, kicking off the mountain with a swift, backwards flip and a dive to the forests below.

***

Neil fell unconscious halfway down, but the story goes like so:

The instant they were off the mountain, the volcanic activity ruptured through the entire ancient city, and severed the mountain in two. It slid in an avalanche of lava, ice, and rock, taking hundreds of trees with it. The sound of it all echoed across the valley, and shook Kaer Morhen’s foundation. The structure remained standing, but the damage to the abandoned tower made it vulnerable. It collapsed and knocked out the north wing of the keep.

The smoke from the eruption clouded the sky for days after the event, but by then Neil was forced to a bed in the keep, and Andrew was scolded by Dan incessantly for fucking up Neil’s health.

“You know how hard it is for a witcher to be poisoned? Very fucking hard,” Dan snapped. “He must have inhaled enough fumes to kill all of Novigrad.”

“You’re exag-gerating,” Neil coughed, groaning from his bed. “Stop ma-aking so much noise…”

Dan opened her mouth to rant some more, but stopped at the fact that Andrew was staring her down from where he stood at the foot of Neil’s bed, blackened arms crossed. A knock sounded on the door, and one of the trainees opened it, only to hesitate at the sight of a full-fledged demon in one corner of the room, a thoroughly pissed Dan directly before her, and a stranger with horns across from her. Neil waved from the bed, eyes covered in a cold compress to reduce the swelling.

The trainee cleared her throat, holding out a pitcher of water. Dan snatched it in an instant and thrust it towards Kevin. “Fuck with anything and you’re done for,” she seethed at him. She stormed after the terrified trainee and slammed the door.

Kevin stood, dumbfounded, holding a pitcher of water between his two clawed hands. The adrenaline from seeing Riko Moriyama had yet to fade, and if Neil could even see, he wouldn’t be at all surprised by the terror still infecting Kevin’s expression. Kevin eyed Andrew, who came to stand between him and the bed. Andrew reached for the jug, though Kevin didn’t have to move an inch to supply it. The jug jolted out of Kevin’s hand and into Andrew’s, water sloshing up the side. A splash of it sizzled against Andrew’s bracer, turning to steam in seconds.

“I swear if you start boiling wa-ater you better be making tea,” Neil said, voice hoarse.

“I’m not fucking boiling it,” Andrew hissed, pouring the water into a glass. It turned to steam as soon as it emptied out, and the surface of the end table around it lifted smoke from between the grain. It turned black like his hands. He cursed and all but threw the jug at Kevin, who ducked low to avoid a concussion.

“How are you still like that? The energy should have faded by now,” Kevin asked, flinching when Andrew turned a sharp-toothed sneer on him.

“Your guess is as good as mine,” Andrew snapped, voice suddenly warped. Neil snapped his hand out at Andrew, taking a wild guess as to where he was. He wound up punching Andrew on the upper thigh, but Andrew didn’t even flinch. His eyes never left Kevin’s.

“Hey, stop acting like a goddamn guard dog,” Neil said, and pointed sharply at Andrew when he turned to mouth off at Neil. Andrew shut his mouth and clamped his jaw tight. Neil tried to say more, but his throat was on fire. He cursed, curling to the side with a hand over the cold compress.

“I’ve never seen anything like that,” Kevin confessed. “Winter is the worst time for us. By now the majority of the Moriyamas are at the southern territory waiting out the cold.”

“Seems like your necrophiliac master couldn’t care less about his personal army if that’s the case,” Andrew commented. Kevin wasn’t even fazed.

“The cold did nothing to you,” Kevin said, amazed. “You should have started decomposing as soon as you approached the cavern, but you didn’t.”

“We aren’t talking about this,” Andrew hissed, voice warping into a low, glitchy growl. Kevin clamped his mouth shut, shoulders tensing as Andrew stepped up to him. Andrew’s frame towered over Kevin after the transformation, and his pointed ears flattened back as he snarled down at Kevin, “You are the reason we went there in the first place. I’ll do this however many fucking times it takes for your ‘master’ to step off, got it? Are you with us or against us.”

Kevin swallowed hard. “If you’re planning on killing Riko, it’ll take more than a vat of lava and dumb luck,” he said, and glanced up and down Andrew’s form. “You’re going to need training. Proper training.”

“Fantastic,” Andrew snarled. He tore away from Kevin and headed for the door. With a hand on the handle, he took a deep breath and said, voice gravely but relatively normal, “I’m going to get more water.”

The moment Andrew slammed the door, Neil turned his head to Kevin, who stared at the door where Andrew disappeared. Kevin cleared his throat, clutching a hand to his neck as though afraid of his head falling off his shoulders (again). He always knew overcooked demons were a danger, but he hadn’t expected Andrew to be so in control. Andrew’s fight with Riko Moriyama could have gone severely downhill. The entirety of Kaer Morhen could have been flattened to the ground, and while at first Kevin was entirely for that plan, he was starting to think that—

“So you think we can do it?” Neil rasped. “Take out the Moriyamas?”

“I… I don’t know,” Kevin confessed, clutching his free hand into a fist against his shirt. “I—I think we might… With proper training Andrew might be able to…” Do anything, he wanted to say, but thought better of it. The reason the Moriyamas carried dozens of artifacts on them was because it took dozens of artifacts to deal the damage Andrew made on his own in sub-zero temperatures.

“The Moriyamas will strike by summer,” Kevin said instead. “They have to. Master Riko will—”

“How do you know Riko’s alive?” Neil asked. “He could have died in the volcano. You saw him.”

“He’s alive,” Kevin promised. “And even if you think he isn’t, it’s better to be cautious. He knows about Andrew now, so he has even more reason to take you out. If he was able to breach even a section of Boyd’s barrier, he’ll work even harder now to get to Andrew.”

“Why?”

Why? Kevin wanted to laugh. He looked desperately at the door before shaking his head. “Andrew is exactly what the Moriyamas have been breeding for—an unlimited power source. Andrew’s sentence in his artifact—He doesn’t have a magick cap. He could potentially use an unlimited amount of magick without breaking a sweat if trained properly.”

“Huh. Cool,” Neil hummed, and Kevin wanted to throttle him. How could Neil treat magick so offhandedly? Any average, magickless person would yearn for the verdict Neil was given three years prior. He was wasting potential, and Kevin couldn’t stand for it.

Kevin clenched his fists at his sides and, despite the anger churning inside of him, managed a calm voice as he asked to be put back in his artifact.

Chapter Text

Andrew mind was a torrential downpour the day of Riko’s attack. He couldn’t stop thinking, couldn’t deflect the mental attacks, the guilt. He wanted to blame everything on Kevin, but the truth was this: He chose to kickstart the volcano. He was the one who ultimately hurt Neil the most. That was unforgivable.

Neil recovered fast, but not until a two-day period of poison symptoms. Andrew’s insides ached through the entirity of Neil’s recovery period. His lungs were cramped in his chest, pushed to the brink from the desperate way his heart throbbed, pulsing through every fiber of his being. Andrew wasn’t alive, but feeling Neil’s pain made him believe it.

When Andrew returned with water that first day, Kevin was gone, and Neil was asleep on the bed. He shut the door, pressing his back against it as he watched and waited for the pull of air raising Neil’s chest. It rattled in his throat, and emitted a soft cough through his lips. Andrew pushed away from the door, clutching at the handle of the jug all the way to the end table. His hands shook as he poured the water. He wished he wasn’t chained to Neil so that he could hunt Riko down.

He hesitated at the edge of the bed, looking down at his arms. The sleeves of his jacket were ripped in stripes, stretched underneath his muscled, stone-hard skin. He clenched his clawed fists before opening them over his abdomen. His nails hooked on the buckles of his jacket and ripped them forward, tearing apart what remained. His chest was beginning to fade back to the color of his pale skin, turning grey between his pecs. He rubbed the heel of his palm against it before pressing a knee to the mattress and lifting himself up and over Neil.

He drifted onto the covers, settling with his head against the side of Neil’s pillow. He turned his chin to look at the back of Neil’s head, from his darkened hair to where it tapered off on the nape of his neck. Andrew felt a shock of heat through him, flushing him back to the volcanic glass where he first drenched Neil in lava. He turned to his side, raising a clawed hand to Neil’s bicep where the quilt covered him in heft layers.

He closed his eyes to the sensation of fear spiking through his chest—the panic of being swallowed up by the earth. The suffocation. The desire to thrash and scream and claw his way out. Andrew hooked his arm around Neil’s arm and chest, clutching his claws into a fist over Neil’s heart. When he lost control, he didn’t expect to be able to hurt Neil. Never before had he tried something like that—something with lava—so he always just assumed that Neil was immune to his magick. Every host was supposed to be, but magick couldn’t exactly control the fumes.

He pressed his forehead to the nape of Neil’s neck and curled up with the blankets as a barrier between them.

Could I have done that with Drake? he thought, breath hitching.

No, don’t think about it, his mind rebuked. You aren’t supposed to think like that. Forget anything ever happened.

It was difficult to forget when Neil coughed frequently through the night, or when Neil reached for the water and Andrew had to help him due to the cold compresses over Neil’s eyes. He swapped the compresses out sometime through the night, which involved a trip to the freezer that he couldn’t make. He hammered on Matt’s door then and wordlessly passed the compress to Matt before heading back to the room. Matt knew what to do with it, and came back several minutes later to deliver a fresh icepack.

Through the night, the color faded from Andrew’s skin, and his frame began to shrink to his original, human size. Eventually, he struggled to keep his arm completely around Neil, and wound up resting his wrist against Neil’s hip. He lifted his leg up and hooked it around Neil’s.

“What’re you doing…” Neil slurred, stretching back. Andrew ducked his head to the side, frowning down at Neil as the compress slid off Neil’s red, swollen eyes. Neil blinked at him through the burn of bloodshot scleras.

“You’re too muscly,” Andrew said, flopping back down and hitching his leg higher. “Can’t reach.”

“Shut up. No I’m not,” Neil laughed.

“Shrink.”

“No.”

“C’mon.”

“No, I’m not shrinking my muscles just so you can snuggle me,” Neil said. “You aren’t even a good snuggler. You move around too much.”

“Fuck off,” Andrew snapped, pouting as Neil turned away, shoulders shaking as he giggled against the pillows. He wanted to block out Neil’s happiness, but just like everything else, he couldn’t control what he picked up from Neil’s mind. Neil wasn’t supposed to be happy right now, not with his eyes tearing up from the gasses.

Neil sniffed and reached across the mattress for a glass of water. He sat up, twisting around to rest his arm over Andrew’s shoulders. Andrew tensed, preparing to move away. “Is this okay?” Neil asked, lifting the weight of his arm as he looked down at Andrew.

Andrew stared as the blankets slipped off of Neil’s legs and revealed dark, solid bruises from his thighs down. From forcing himself out of the obsidian floor.

Andrew pushed up to his knees and climbed off the bed. “I need to walk for a bit,” he lied, feet hardly touching the ground as he headed for the door.

“Andrew,” Neil started, and Andrew closed his eyes to the sound of Neil’s raspy, wrecked voice. His fault. “You didn’t do this,” he said.

Andrew laughed, rolling his eyes to the ceiling. He licked the front of his teeth as he turned around to raise his eyebrows at Neil. Neil had his hands over the hem of his undershorts, his fingers pressed to the patches of yellow across his scarred thighs. He looked like he’d just asked Andrew to grab him more water—definitely not about what the situation warranted.

“Excuse me?” Andrew said with a scoff, tipping a hand to the side of his face. “Did I hear you correctly? Did you just say this wasn’t my fault?”

“Don’t be so difficult,” Neil said. “I know you think this is your fault.”

“And since when did you know what I think? Last I heard you can’t pry.”

“Yeah, but Kevin can,” he said, and a spike of heat flared up from Andrew’s spine to the base of his skull where he wanted to burn Kevin’s grubby little fingers from clutching at his memories, his thoughts, his feelings. Andrew was impressed that Neil held eye contact for as long as he did, but eventually, Neil dropped his gaze to his lap. Mentioning where Kevin’s mind was was definitely not what Andrew was hoping for.

Not that… he was hoping at all.

“The volcano was my fault. That’s on me,” Andrew stressed, a sneer pulling at his lips. His teeth sharpened on their own accord, nicking his lips as he ground his teeth together. He dropped his hands to his sides, backing up to the door. “And the gas was just an extension of that. I didn’t think I could hurt you, but apparently I can.”

“Does it feel better having that control?” Neil asked, looking up to where Andrew stared at him. When Andrew said nothing, waiting for more, Neil gave him that. “You aren’t trapped if there’s a way out, Andrew.”

Andrew laughed, and it faded into a wistful sigh. “You’re so fucking stupid, Josten, it hurts. It really fucking does.”

“What about before?” Neil asked.

“What bullshit is our dear Kev feeding you now, huh?”

“I’m just saying that… it’s probably a relief knowing that if shit goes sideways you’ve got a backup plan,” Neil says. “Like, what if… what if I go crazy? Just dig up a fucking volcano and take me out. It’ll be great.”

“Oh my God,” Andrew muttered, slapping a hand over his face. “This is so painful. I’m not going to kill you, Neil.”

Neil smirked at him, and Andrew regretted taking a peak between his fingers. “Yeah, but you could.”

Andrew marched up to him, pressing a hand to the headboard as he leaned in to Neil’s smug-ass face. Fuck, his stupid, perfect face down to the trio of scars nicking his cheekbone. “I am not killing you,” he started, slowly, “I am not about to dig up another volcano, and I sure as Hell don’t need a backup plan. Got it?”

Neil’s breath hitched, rattling in his chest where his heart stuttered and told Andrew that he was doing everything right. “Perfectly,” he rasped, eyes steady on Andrew’s narrow pupils. Andrew listened to the hum resounding in Neil’s mind, feeding warmth through his veins.

“Say it,” Andrew hissed, nails digging into the headboard.

“Kiss me.”

Andrew leant in fast, lips crushing in Neil’s with bruising force. Neil rocked into it, tipping forward with his mouth open and pliant. Andrew caught Neil’s hand before it could fall on his chest, and pushed it back against Neil’s throat, holding him to the headboard as he ravaged Neil’s lips. The soft, desperate sounds escaping Neil’s throat were nearly enough to push Andrew over the edge were they not thwarted by the fumes damaging his vocal chords.

Andrew tipped his head away, keeping his hand firm over Neil’s throat. Neil tried to lean in again, but nearly strangled himself in the process. His lips were slick and red, and gods, did Andrew want to fuck them. Instead, he pushed his thumb to Neil’s bottom lip before pulling away. He pressed the pad of his thumb to his tongue as he turned away.

“I’m going for a walk,” he declared.

The instant he was behind the door, back to the stone wall, he stilled and listened. He passed the void gap between his mind and Neil’s, and willed himself to dip into the rush of Neil losing his mind. Andrew grinned, sliding down to the ground with his head tipped back against the bricks. If this was what Neil meant by going crazy, Andrew was happy to oblige.

***

Neil could walk by the third day, though with the poison in his system, his body was too busy flushing the toxins to bother fast-healing the damage. He could tell Andrew was anxious about it, though he never said so aloud or hinted at it on the apathetic looks he sent Neil.

Dan led them down the stairwell to the depths of the keep. There lied a network of tunnels stretching out beneath the forests, unused and connected by a common area that rested just above the keep’s foundation. Their footsteps echoed across the vacant walls, and the empty bookshelves surrounding them.

“I wouldn’t take the tunnels if I were you,” she said. “They were built before the forest sprung up. A lot of the root systems have collapsed the openings. It’s also relatively easy to get lost, so if you do go, keep an eye on your senses.”

“I don’t think we’ll have to worry about that,” Neil confessed with a smile. “Thanks for letting us use this space.”

“Just don’t let Kevin fuck anything up. I meant it the first time around,” she said, with a sharp point to Neil’s tattoo. Kevin bristled at her distrust, but otherwise remained quiet.

Dan left them to it, and the moment her footsteps were no longer audible, Neil freed Kevin from the artifact. Andrew stepped away from the wall and came to stand near Neil, watching as the embers solidified and faded into Kevin’s skin. Kevin’s neutral black uniform reminded Neil of the way Andrew’s skin turned a chalky charcoal in the volcano.

Kevin studied Andrew as if approaching a wild animal. Eventually, he took several calculated steps back and turned to look around the room. “This will do,” he said. “If we’re focusing on control, we won’t be doing any physical tasks today.”

Kevin passed his hands over his arms, scorching flames down the length of them. He rubbed the heat into place, reminding Neil that it was likely cold down here in the depths of the keep, beneath all of the earth and rock. He went to one of the fireplaces posted at the end of the hall and struck a light, catching it on the weathered, dry wood in the fireplace. He tossed in a log of wood to keep it going, and turned back around to find Andrew no more than a foot behind him like a child refusing to go off to school.

Neil nudged Andrew forward. Andrew shot him a withering glare.

“We don’t have all day,” Kevin sighed. Kevin dropped to his knees and settled back on his heels. He pointed to the dusty ground in front of him. “Sit.”

Andrew eyed Kevin before obliging. It wasn’t like they had anything better to do today, and Neil wasn’t going anywhere, so Andrew’s designated job for the day was to put up with Kevin’s bullshit. I have a feeling it’ll be a full-time job from here on out, he thought miserably, eyes on the ceiling. He leant back on his hands and lifted an eyebrow at Kevin, who likely heard it all but remained unfazed.

“You have to sit up straighter,” Kevin said.

“I don’t have to do anything. What are we doing,” Andrew drawled, rolling his eyes over to where Neil was heading for one of the tunnels. He snapped his fingers at Neil. “Hey, where do you think you’re going?”

“Exploring,” he said, and Andrew thought to himself, Like Hell you are.

Andrew pushed himself to his knees and prepared to stand, but Kevin jabbed a finger at him, and back at the ground. “Sit,” he demanded, and the force behind his words had Andrew heeling. He perched on the ground and watched after Neil as the witcher disappeared into one of the dark tunnels, the flame in his hand lighting the way.

Andrew bristled, wondering how far Neil would go from them. Did he even understand the distance of the radius? A tunnel would collapse, Dan said as much, and he just pictured Neil dragging his stupid hand across the walls as he walked and triggering a loose stone that’d send the whole labyrinth to pieces—

“—You’re hopeless,” Kevin was saying with a distraught groan. He collapsed back on the dusty floor. “Why do I even bother…”

“Hm? What were you saying?” Andrew said, turning back to Kevin, who slowly but surely sat up again.

“Look, your devotion and all is admirable, but being out of sight from Neil isn’t a worse-case-scenario,” he said. “The Moriyamas are worse-case-scenario.”

“Do you fucking see them emerging from whatever crypts Boyd keeps down here?” Andrew said, and at Kevin’s annoyed look, Andrew leant back and said, “Didn’t fucking think so.

“You’re being ridiculous. Just let Neil be for an hour or two.”

A minute was spent in silence while Andrew picked at a pebble on the floor, and Kevin glowered at him. The entire time, Andrew thought about Neil, which also meant Kevin was thinking about Neil.

Kevin chucked a pebble at Andrew’s head. “Stop that.”

“Get out of my fucking head then,” Andrew said in a childish, mocking voice.

“I’ll teach you how to block me out, but you have to be serious about this,” he insisted over the loud, echoing sound of Andrew groaning and moaning. “There’s a reason we can read each others’ minds. It’s more complicated opening a reciprocative pathway with Neil, but we’re able to do it because in war we can’t always talk aloud. Myself and the rest of Riko’s artifacts would have done this and collaborated mentally at all times of the day.”

Andrew stopped at that. “So I could technically root around in your head, is what you’re saying,” he said, and Kevin nodded.

“Once I remove my block, it won’t be that hard. You already have a deep understanding of Neil’s mind, aside from his own personal blocks on memories. His trauma forced some of his knowledge to be cut off from our prying,” Kevin explained with a vague, closing gesture of his hands. “It’s not as strong as one of our blocks, but it’s generally understood that hosts will be giving everything to their artifacts upon imprint. I was raised with Master Riko, so there isn’t much for him to hide from me in those terms. It’s different depending on the case.”

Andrew’s vivid memory pulled up the image of Neil’s horror when Andrew commented on the state of his arms beneath the bracers. Or the tension in Neil’s shoulders from where he hunched over his knees in the bathtub, as if trying to shrink away from whatever Andrew saw—or already knew about.

“I haven’t pried that far,” Kevin confessed. “I’m unconcerned about Neil as a threat to my own safety.”

“But I’m different.”

“You could do anything. I haven’t decided whether you were telling the truth the other day,” Kevin said.

Through the weight of Neil’s mind constantly linked around Andrew’s, a phrase was pushed through the fog, emerging in black and white images. He recognized the sensation it gave—Kevin within the artifact, watching Andrew push a hand against the headboard and lean in to study Neil’s eyes. “I am not killing you.”

“If you had the chance before, you would have taken it in an instant,” Kevin said to Andrew’s neutral expression, and the rage building inside of him. Kevin’s lips were purple as he spread fire over his arms and rubbed it into his cheeks with a sigh.

“That was different,” Andrew spat at him.

“No, it was normal. This is different,” Kevin retorted, gesturing to where Neil disappeared. “No competent host would act like this. And yes, the Moriyamas are, in general, celibate, but that doesn’t excuse violence and torture.”

“Don’t fucking compare him to the Moriyamas,” Andrew sneered. “The Moriyamas were raised like assholes so of course they’re assholes. Drake became one because he wanted to be. He had a choice to be a decent fucking human being and knew the difference between being shit and being good. Riko doesn’t.”

Andrew was desperately trying to tear Kevin’s defenses apart. After that one glimpse, Andrew could feel it. Kevin’s grubby little fingers prying all around Neil’s mind. He was sure Kevin could feel him—grabbing and tearing at them—so when Kevin let him through, Andrew went spiraling.

***

“You know I don’t like it when you look at my uncle,” Riko sighed, reclining back in his seat. His tutoring lessons had just finished, and after a brief chat with Ichiro, of course he wasn’t happy. Riko was the pinnacle of everything Ichiro wanted—the power succession skipped directly over him. The man would never be satisfied with born abilities, and everything to enhance them would soon be passed down to his snobbish nephew.

Riko rubbed a finger over his sharp, narrow brow. He pegged Kevin with a withering stare and lowered his arm over the back of his seat. “I think he despises me. No, wait, envies me. If it weren’t for me, he’d have you, and that just won’t do.”

Riko leaned across the table, confident grin stretching wide to reveal sharp canines and dimples on either cheek. His blackened eyes crinkled at the edges as he reached towards Andrew’s face. “Who’s are you?”

“Your’s,” Kevin replied without hesitation. Andrew felt the word like a rock in his throat and resisted the urge to gag as Riko’s fingers drifted down his cheek.

Riko cupped his hand beneath Kevin’s chin, arcing it up. Every muscle in Andrew’s throat and shoulders tensed, bunching up where Riko dug his nails beneath Kevin’s jaw because it wasn’t the first time. He could feel it, inching up every part of him in a wave of heat that flared to life from his ankles to his forehead were scabs cracked at every movement.

“Maybe he was just admiring my work,” Riko hummed, scraping his nails down through the semi-healed cuts across Kevin’s throat. Kevin didn’t move, and pain was irrelevant. Pain was just in their heads.

Hot liquid began to spread across Andrew’s chest, soaking through his shirt. He looked down desperately as Riko pulled at Kevin’s tunic. The moment it was over their heads, Andrew could see it—the way Riko carved out Kevin’s skin like a goddamn rubber stamp. Andrew gasped, and every breath sent the blood oozing, coursing out from the needles punctuating between his visible ribs.

Riko was over the table by now, legs dangling off the edge, straddling the space where Kevin sat, staring up into Riko’s face. They watched the fascination on Kevin’s master’s expression as he plucked a needle out from beneath Kevin’s lowest rib and lifted it to his mouth. He sucked the blood off of it and sighed.

“You taste incredible,” he complimented.

“Thank you,” Kevin said.

Riko slipped off the table. He pushed Kevin back by the shoulders so he steadied on the back two legs of his chair. Andrew arced his neck back, fully aware of the blood dripping from his throat. Riko chased it with his tongue, lapping up every last drop before moving down to the needles that sprouted droplets of oozing red ink when he plucked them out one-by-one. He suckled each and left dotted red marks across their abdomen.

Andrew turned his head to the rest of the room. It was dark all except the light they had used for tutoring lessons, and so the shadows nearly masked them all. The rest of Kevin’s cohort, standing in the shadows.

Watching.

Chapter Text

The tunnels smelled of mildew and standing water, but where there was water, there was ice, and so Neil took to the edge of every walkway, one hand pressed firmly to the wall. He reached a fork on the trail and turned left, only to be stopped several paces ahead by arching shadows flooding the tunnel. He moved the flames closer and illuminated damp, moss-covered tree roots.

“Creepy,” he mused under his breath, and squinted beyond them. The path seemed to clear up after a ways, and so Neil weaseled his way under a patch of them, and unsheathed his sharpest blade to cut through the rest. He hooked it underneath knotted, stringy vines and sliced up, forcing his way through.

The cold condensed and resonated through the halls like the wind whistling through the hollow underground, between the cracks of stone bricks arced over him. He wondered how much farther he’d go before reaching the end of his radius with Kevin and Andrew, so at the next opportunity, he turned right and walked in a semi-spiral around the room they sat in, quietly fuming over what Kevin had just shown Andrew.

“If this is you saying we’re one in the same, you’re dead wrong,” Andrew said, voice cutting. Internally, he was tearing at the claws Kevin had around Neil’s mind, seeping into his own. He severed the tendrils and they retracted like crawling vines. “I don’t want to see that.”

“A decade of being treated like an animal followed by ten years of what you just saw—are you serious right now?” Kevin said, laughing. “No, we aren’t the same, but I’ll take it into consideration.”

“Then why show it to me at all? I don’t care—You know I don’t care.”

“You only care when it’s happening to you,” Kevin said, rising to his feet. Andrew rolled his eyes and looked away, settling on the tunnel Neil disappeared through. He could feel Neil teetering on the edge of the radius. “And if we’re going to prevent that from happening—”

“What are you saying. That a threat, Kev?”

“It is if you decide not to take this seriously,” Kevin seethed. “Right now you’re second-best—a mutt, but still useful to the Moriyamas. Even more so than me. If you want to stop Master Riko from killing Neil and taking your artifact, then you have to be better than second-best. Second-best is what’s going to get Neil killed, and you put into reformative training.”

Andrew narrowed his eyes at Kevin and watched the man pace away and back, collecting the harsh breaths in his chest to calm himself. He returned to Andrew a moment later with a firm scowl. “I picked up that you’ve used telekinetic cutting and dismemberment.”

His statement had Andrew scoffing, which only earned him a stern, “This isn’t funny, Andrew.”

“Yes. Alright? Is that what you want to hear?”

“It’s an advanced skill. We’re more adapted to elemental magicks. The fact that you’ve also picked up possession suggests that you’re on a higher level of psychic frequency than most artifact demons I know. That will be useful in the future.”

“Look, I’m not exactly inclined to sever heads unless strictly necessary,” Andrew said with a slow, calm sweep of his hand. “I’ll let you know when I’m in the mood.”

Kevin ducked down in front of him, arms resting on his knees as he squinted at Andrew up close. “The fact that you’re so in-tune psychically means that cutting me off should be easier than that temporary separation you gave yourself. I can easily mend the damage you dealt, but repeatedly cutting me off isn’t going to do anything when I can just reattach myself to your mind right after.”

Andrew narrowed his eyes at Kevin, jaw clamped shut. Kevin drew a circle between them on the dusty floor, and followed up with jagged segments of an alchemic circle. Andrew hadn’t had to use one since becoming an artifact. It was a memetic device he, Aaron, and Nicky used because magick wasn’t an inherent resource like the ability to breathe or speak or hear. Humans weren’t innately magick, so to speak, unlike artifact demons. Their bodies were nothing more than light. Physical, perhaps, but capable of shifting forms and transparencies.

Kevin finished the circle and looked pointedly up at Andrew, who lifted an eyebrow.

“A basic possession deflector?” he droned.

“Not just a possession deflector—a psychic shield.” He followed it up with a circle encasing the possession deflector, crossing through the entire device like one would a pie. “It protects your mind from external intrusions. Not just me, but Master Riko, and whoever else might be prying. As part of our training, Master Riko’s entire artifact cohort learned external psychic penetration, but with this shield you’ll be safe from psychic attacks.”

“What about Neil?” Andrew demanded.

“You already have a basic scope of his mind,” Kevin said. “You can cast a shield on him as well. Eventually you should be able to plant thoughts into his head as I’ve been doing. They’re easily mistaken for his own thoughts, but he’s picked up on mine relatively well.”

“Then would you potentially be able to influence Riko’s actions?”

“No. Oh, no,” he laughed, shaking his head. He rubbed a hand through the alchemic circle. “Riko is far to adept at differentiating artifact thoughts from his own. It’s also a rule amongst Moriyama subjects not to influence a host’s mind. Punishment is worse than death. Once imprinted, we go through the primary trial of training. By the end of it, death would mean nothing to us.”

At this, Kevin met Andrew’s eyes. “I’m sure you understand.”

“You didn’t seem to care when I beheaded you.”

“That’s because I saw it coming.”

“And by ‘saw’ you mean ‘read it in my mind’.”

Kevin grinned, and Andrew scowled off to the side. Andrew could tell Kevin was smug because he was getting the hang of it. The instant Andrew felt Kevin tugging at his mind again, he snapped the vines like he would slapping Kevin’s hand away. He fortified the separation with the spell, and the bubble he put his mind in felt… safe. Like his own for once.

For an instant, though, he lost track of Neil.

The gap Neil’s mind left behind was jarring. His head felt off-center, all at once, and Kevin noticed the shock on his face. “What is it? What’s wrong?” Kevin asked, leaning forward. Someone might have registered the look on Kevin’s face as concern, but Andrew knew that wasn’t it. “You blocked me out, I can’t get in.”

“I can’t hear Neil,” he said, standing up. He nearly cut the barrier down, but he didn’t want people in—he didn’t want Kevin in, specifically. “How do I let him in?”

“You must have fortified it too much. You have to take it down and start over—”

“No!” Andrew seethed, snarling his sharpened fangs. A feral growl cut up his throat as Kevin lifted his hands in surrender. “I’m not taking it down.”

Kevin stared at him in alarm, or fear, perhaps. He lowered his hands and said, slowly, “Then you might be able to chisel away at it. You have to control the magick you put against it, though, or else it might shatter.”

With Andrew’s brain reverberating like a free, yet taunt string, he heard all of his thoughts as they were, no longer mingled with Neil’s or anyone else’s. He was back in that century alone with nothing but his mind to keep him company. He forgot what it felt like, being stuck in his own head. He came to depend on Neil’s balanced nature, the calmness of his mind when he wasn’t strung out and anxious. With his mind wide open, the urge to kill Kevin gathered in intensity with each resounding part of his brain agreeing to it.

Andrew turned on him in an instant, claws out. Kevin shouted at him, something he couldn’t hear beyond the intensity of his mind screaming at him to shut Kevin up—

His weapons shot out from his cuffs, spiraling with the motion of his hands into the curved, bladed arc of his scythes. He hooked it into Kevin’s shoulder and ripped it down, dislodging his arm from its socket, and severing the skin into thin, meaty sinew stripes. Kevin staggered back with a cry, spinning out of range and heading for the nearest tunnel.

Kevin’s still connected to Neil—He knows exactly where to go, a familiar voice goaded on in Andrew’s brain, following him as he stalked after Kevin through the tunnels.

Andrew’s pupils narrowed into pin-thin strips down the center of his bloodshot eyes swelling with deep, opaque red. The shadows of the tunnels disintegrated, illuminating the path to where Kevin’s heel disappeared around the corner. He picked up the sound of Kevin skidding over dirt, clamoring around roots. Andrew swung his scythe forward and back, tauntingly, as he turned the corner after Kevin. He tightened his grip on the scythe and sliced it through the roots. The vines all severed and split into pieces from the one cut, falling too the ground and turning to ash beneath Andrew’s fiery-hot boots. Smoke rose in the air and spiraled after him as he cut through it, following after the sound of Kevin shouting for Neil.

In the distance, Neil heard his name being called. It was far off, but he recognized it.

“Kevin?” Neil shouted, turning back around. He looked back at an empty, dilapidated corridor shrouded in vines and branches. He started back the way he came, but he couldn’t quite remember the turns he took, or where the original basement was, for that matter. He’d have to use his senses to get there.

As Neil clasped onto his amulet, Kevin skidded out into the opening of the basement with a curse. Of course Neil forgot his way. He hurried into an opposite tunnel, ducking into the shadows, flattening his back to the bricks as he listened to the sound of Andrew’s footsteps approaching out of view. Kevin ducked beneath the root system that threatened to claw into the tower, and hoped it would be enough to conceal him from Andrew.

Andrew stepped out of the tunnel. He paused at the site of the basement stretched out before him. He went to the nearest empty bookshelf and tipped it over with a kick of his boot. The clash had Kevin flinching, pressing the back of his head to the bricks. Andrew waited, listening, scythe tense in his clawed hands. He stepped onto the bookcase just as Neil triggered his witcher senses, and washed the color out of both of their fields of vision.

Kevin blinked in astonishment at the warped sensation that took over his eyes. He blinked and looked out at the basement room where Andrew stood out of view, washed over in orange, amidst a sea of bloody orange.

“Fuck,” Andrew said, following the orange as it streaked across the basement like splotches of paint thrown at the walls, the floors, the ceiling. He jumped down from the bookcase, landing amidst the glow hovering over the ground, infecting every goddamn part of this room. “Shit.”

He could hear Neil approaching the room, and just as he was about to shout at Neil to stay back, the orange began to lift from the floor, rising and passing over and through Andrew. A shudder went through him—not that he felt the beast, but that he saw its insides, shrouded in the color of Neil’s senses.

Andrew turned, slowly, staring within the belly of whatever invisible beast he now resided in. He looked for a face, and found none until his eyes landed on Neil standing in the tunnel a pillar away from where he could see Kevin looking up at the ceiling, and around the room in horror.

“Andrew—” Neil started, stepping forward, but Andrew held a finger out, stopping his movement.

“What the hell is this?” Kevin asked.

“It must have been smaller at one point—grew too large to pass through the tunnels or go up into the keep,” Neil said, eyes wide as Andrew passed his hand through the beast’s stomach and came through clean. “It seems relatively harmless…”

“So we’re just going to leave it here?” Kevin said.

“If it keeps growing, we might have a problem,” he reiterated. “Is your weapon hurting it at all?”

Andrew looked down at the scythe in his hand. He had just run through this room with it, but ceased to feel any resistance of it cutting through the creature. He cut it up into the air with a diagonal slice, and ended with a useless shrug. Nothing.

“Try your telekinetic cutting,” Kevin said from afar, as if Andrew hadn’t just tore his arm out of its shoulder socket.

Andrew pegged him with a scowl, and Kevin only withered a little, ducking out of view before peeking back out again to see if Andrew would do it. “I’m not doing that shit here,” he said, terse.

“Doing what? What’s telekinetic cutting?” Neil asked.

“It’s—”

“Trust me when I say you don’t want to find out,” Andrew said, cutting off Kevin. He pegged Kevin with a scowl and seethed, “Don’t you fucking tell him telepathically, either.”

“What, you aren’t there to stop me,” Kevin said, and yelped when Andrew jolted towards him, weapons bared. “Take down the shield.”

“No,” Andrew shouted, anger pulsing in waves of heat down his arms. He clenched his fists tight around the scythes until Neil gasped.

He paused, looking to where wisps of orange coated his vision of Neil. The beast was moving. “It doesn’t like heat,” Neil said, blue eyes wide in realization. “Try fire.”

Andrew melted his scythes away and replaced them with wide, sweeping arcs of his hands, summoning flames down the lengths of his arms. He spun it around gaining momentum with each cycle of fire roaring around him. It broke through the orange in Neil’s senses, creating a pocket of clear space. He was burning a hole straight through the belly of the beast.

The fire roared and echoed through the hollow space, stretching to the edges of the room where it barreled through fallen and broken bookcases. Sweltering heat broke through into the tunnel Neil stood in. He backed away, shielding an arm over his face as Andrew pushed the flames out and let them sputter out of existence.

As soon as the wall of fire faded, Neil lowered his arm. The orange was gone from the room. He dropped his senses and let color flood back into the world. Neil barely took a step into the room before Andrew was in front of him, grabbing him by the head.

“Whoa—What’s going on—” Neil said, hands hesitating several inches off of Andrew’s hair. Andrew pushed their foreheads together.

Neil felt the hot, clammy texture of Andrew’s skin against his, and the short, panicked breaths that made receding his claws impossible. After a moment, he laid his hands over the tops of Andrew’s, and waited for Andrew’s panic to pass. “I—” Andrew started, clearing his throat. “I can’t hear you. I can’t hear you in my head,” he said, blinking his eyes up to met Neil’s.

“What?”

“Andrew and I were practicing psychic blocks,” Kevin explained, stepping over. He crossed his arms, his shoulder having repaired itself in the time it took for the beast to burn down. “The shield’s too strong.”

Andrew’s hands tightened around Neil’s jaw, red eyes narrowing. His brow tensed, and he turned to Kevin with a snarl, hissing like a feral cat. Neil caught his hands and tugged them off. “Hey, not nice,” Neil said.

“He has to take down the shield and rebuild it,” Kevin said, which was doing none of them any good because Andrew strangled to get away from Neil and attack Kevin. Neil caught him by the back of the jacket collar and held him still while Kevin looked Death in the eyes and said, “He refuses to see reason because he doesn’t want me in his head even though I’ve seen everything.”

“I’m sure you fucking have,” Andrew snarled, kicking a short leg out and missing Kevin by a long shot. He bunched his shoulders up and flared fire at his fingertips.

“Then at least calm down enough to—”

“They always say—never tell someone to calm down—” Andrew started in a sing-song voice before Neil stepped between them and raised his hands almost defensively. He really didn’t want to be decapitated that day, and though he knew Andrew wouldn’t hurt him… then again, the closest he saw Andrew in this state was when they first met. He pictured Andrew stealing his silver dagger in the alleyway.

Neil stared intently at Andrew, who huffed and looked away, an incredulous sneer tugging at his lips. He continued to stand and watch Andrew until Andrew grew fidgety, jaw clenched tight, claws scratching along his biceps. Andrew shifted his weight from foot to foot before scratching irritably at his hair with an exaggerated sigh, and a hollow laugh pegged in Neil’s direction. “I fucking hate you,” he seethed, and then drifted his steely gaze over to Kevin. “I’m not letting you near my fucking brain.”

“You and I both know your magick isn’t delicate enough to chisel away at it,” Kevin said. “One tap and it’ll come down.”

“So Andrew can’t hear my thoughts right now?” Neil asked, looking over his shoulder at Kevin.

“I’m standing right fucking here,” Andrew hissed, grabbing Neil by the straps of his chest plate armor. Neil looked forward, feigning indifference as Andrew shook him around furiously before shoving him back against Kevin.

Neil staggered, and reached a hand out to block Kevin from whatever was going on in Andrew’s head now. Kevin stared as Andrew clutched at his hair, kneeling forward with a broken shout: “GET OUT OF MY FUCKING HEAD—”

Andrew slammed his fists into the concrete foundation, splitting cracks across it. Neil resisted the urge to flinch, or even flee, but every muscle in his body reminded him of how it felt to run. Though he could hardly tear his eyes off Andrew now, Neil glanced at Kevin, desperately. Kevin’s expression did little to quell the concern rising in Neil. In fact, Kevin looked pallid, eyes drawn wide.

Andrew’s skin started to flush with that chalky black filter, fracturing away from his eyes and consuming his cheeks, his jaw, his ears. His hair almost looked white where it fell over the charcoal, his curls cutting around the sharp, curved edge of his horns where they hooked back behind his pointed ears. Neil would have continued staring had Kevin not grabbed him by the wrist and dragged him towards the stairs.

“Don’t put him in the artifact unless he starts to cause structural damage,” Kevin said without losing a beat. At the stairs he turned back and thrust his arms up, shaking the stairs beneath them. Neil clutched to the wall as a hedge of bricks shot up from the ground, and slammed into the ceiling above. “I think it’ll only make his state worse-off if he comes out again.”

“Why? What’s happening—”

Neil was broken off by some sharp, warped wail coming from behind the wall Kevin threw up. The two of them stared at it, frozen by the wretched sound. Neil wanted to help, but he didn’t know what to do.

“There’s nothing you can do,” Kevin hissed, jabbing a finger at him before shoving him ahead. “Now go. We have to get to the radius.”

They jogged up the stairs as far as they dared. As they went, Kevin explained: “I think I know why Andrew’s able to function as well as he does after a century in the bracers. Your mind balances out the insanity.”

“Are you able to break the shield?” Neil asked, stopping as Kevin commanded him to. They stood at the opening to the second floor, frozen in the archway as Kevin debated what to say, debated what he could and couldn’t do. He stared at a point on the wall as if he had the answer to this dilemma, but he knew it wouldn’t help. Breaking Andrew’s shield without his consent might do more harm than good. Truthfully, he didn’t want to know what was on the other side of the now-blank spot adjacent to Kevin’s space in Neil’s brain.

“Can you?” Neil reiterated, firmly, stepping in front of Kevin’s view.

Kevin looked up at him and shook his head. “I don’t know. I don’t think so, anyways. I mean, I’ve done it before when I was human—with other humans—but this is different. You don’t understand—Andrew’s magick—”

“I don’t care about how much magick Andrew has or doesn’t have,” Neil said. “Just try, alright? Just get me in for a split second. Maybe it’ll help.”

“You have too much faith in me,” Kevin said scornfully as he turned away and stared down the stairwell where they could hear resonant howl, like wind coursing through an abandoned corridor. He pressed a hand to the stone wall, and felt it vibrating through the structure. Distantly, but still significant enough to feel two stories up.

He sat on the edge of the stairs and put his head in his hands, shutting his eyes. He’d spent enough time in Neil’s mind to navigate it like the streets on the Moriyama’s estate far south from here. His childhood was spent on those streets, memorizing pebbles on the side of the road and stacking them with Riko. They’d been friends then. Not the way they were now. The way they were, before Neil.

A shock of cold rushed through him, sending a shudder through him, all the way to his fingertips where they clutched at his skull. The stone stairwell was freezing beneath him. He could feel it through the fabric of his ritual clothes. He twisted his feet together and shook his head. Funneling his magick across Neil’s brain and drilling it into the blank spot Andrew left behind was… empowering. The fact that Neil trusted him enough with this task was impressive enough.

He managed to unhinge a chink out of Andrew’s barrier, and it was enough to cease the floor from vibrating. Kevin looked up, and then back at Neil, who raised an eyebrow.

“Did you do it?” he asked.

“A little,” he confessed, sitting up straighter. “I… think it did the trick.”

Instantly Neil was scrambling down the stairs. Kevin expected it, but he still tried to stop him. He clutched onto the back of Neil’s cloak, only to stop at the urgent way Neil pleaded with him, silently, eyes wide. Kevin lowered his hand and followed slowly after Neil, back to the basement where they were stopped near the base of the bottom steps. Kevin’s wall had crumbled, and Andrew laid against it, panting, skin clammy and paler than the way they left him.

Neil hesitated a few steps up until Andrew dragged his dull, tired eyes over to them. The skin around his eyes was red, smeared with dark, bloody tears. Kevin felt exhaustion leak from Andrew’s cracked defenses, and decided to stop there. He wanted to pry, for his own safety, but reeled himself back before he could do so.

Neil ducked down a step above Andrew, kicking away rocks and pebbles. He crouched down and looked at Andrew’s clawed, charcoal-black fingers clutched over the bracers. Kevin felt Neil’s desperation like a hot, wet cloth on his chest, soaking through his clothes where he clutched at his shirt and watched Neil refrain from anything his mind demanded. To hold Andrew’s hands between his own.

Instead, Neil sat there in proximity to Andrew, and waited for Andrew to decide that he could stand again.