Iron chains clank against the ground as their metal creaks with strain, the smell of cooking flesh, burnt ozone, and the sounds of crackling lightning coming from where the cuffs dig into Cristine’s ankle. She hisses and growls, bearing fox-like fangs as she plows into the salt barrier, over and over again, as Lance’s house burns down around then, the red flames licking off into purple embers.

  Tim takes a few steps back, his feet splashing in blood, until the dirt sucks it up and red grass starts sprouting from it, before it dies all around him, leaving the outline of a person. Lightning flashes as a storm rages above his head, the rain doing nothing to douse the flames, and with another flash the reds and purples and replaced with white and black, as something huge circles just beyond them.

  A burst of thunder clears the clouds of the storm, but the sun doesn’t begin to shine, and the lightning keeps flashing, the burning smell of flesh getting worse and worse and worse as Cristine's ankle snaps and she collides with the barrier, clawing it, beginning to scale it. She screams, opal stones pouring from her mouth and onto the ground.

  “Help me.” The outline under his feet says as a flaming sword emerges from it, glowing silver. “You’re not better than me, you’re worse.”

  ”I’m not crazy!” Cristine leaps at him, her mouth impossibly wide, her fangs about to sink into Tim, before he shoots up, awake.

  He takes a few moments to catch his breath, Jane sitting up with him and grabbing his hand.

  “Nightmare?” She asks as she guides him back down.

  “Yeah...” He takes a few deep breaths to calm his nerves.

  “What happened in it?”

  “I don’t even really remember, it was about Cristine, I think, and there was a lot of fire, and I think a big storm?”

  She hugs his arm tight and nuzzles her face into the nape of his neck.

  “You should go back to sleep, it's still night.” she says, her voice made only more endearing by it being muffled.

  His body is still exhausted, Lilith did say to take a weekend to recover, so the fatigue is likely going to last a few days. That being said, his mind is too alert now, and his body still full of adrenaline from the nightmare. Maybe he can still go out? It's not like being physically exhausted made it so he couldn’t easily deal with drug dealers and other random crimes, or help someone find a lost pet. Weird how often that happens at 3 am. Besides, a fun, easy fight will help distract him.

  “I’m too awake now, I think I’ll go and do my rounds. With everything going on I’ve been letting my catchphrase down lately anyways.”

  “What? Are you stupid?” Jane pouts more than frowns.

  “Ain't no rest for the wicked, until I knock them out anyways.”

  “You’re supposed to rest, that... stupid devil said you’d need a whole weekend anyways.”

  “Man, you really don’t like her.”

  “And you like her too much.” She turns around in a huff.

  That brings on another “fun” cocktail of emotions. Tim wasn’t lying before, he did think it was cute when she was acting jealous, but given all that was going on with him he can’t help but feel a little irritated with Jane. Then again, it also made him feel guilty, Lilith was so alluring he couldn’t even hold her gaze, and it did seem to genuinely be bothering Jane. She had wanted to talk after he slept, let him let loose everything that was building up, but he’d flip the script a little on that.

  “She’s just pretty.” He shrugs and pulls her against him. “You’re so much more though.”

  She glances at him for a moment before looking away again.

  Damn it, how far is she going to make him go with this? She gets just as embarrassed as he does, he wants to change the subject to the other things that are bothering her but that would feel too... abrupt? Unnatural.

  “Man, how far are you going to make me go with this?” He decides to just say out loud as he blushes, lifting his head up to look down at the side of his face.

  “I don’t know, far.” She says while twisting her hair around her finger.

  “Man, it's embarrassing though.” He lays his head back down.

  “Good.” She says, and he listens to her blood flow into her cheeks.

  “You can’t handle it either dude, can we just—”

  “No.”

  He lets out one last sigh before steeling his nerves.

  “Lilith is just beautiful, you’re—”

  “You just said pretty before!” She turns on him and he quickly puts his hand over her mouth.

  “Shut. Up. Jane, you are more than beautiful, that word doesn’t even get close to describing you.”

  She rolls her eyes at him, hand still covering her mouth, and he rolls his back, but he keeps going.

  “You’re gorgeous, adorable, hell even graceful. We’ve been in so many fights together, the way you move during them is mesmerizing. The way you do anything is always... there’s always something. But who cares about that, that’s just your looks, my favorite part of you is you, You’re loyal, more passionate than you give yourself credit for, funny and—”

  She pushes his hand away while blushing hard, “Ok, that's enough, I get it.”

  “Reap what you sow.” He shrugs, having gotten pretty into it and enjoying her reactions. Plus, he had cooked up some lines he’s pretty proud of that he hasn’t gotten to yet.

  “You’re strong, stubborn, and so amazingly cool yet a total dork.”

  “Shut up!”

  “But most of all, you’re the future.”

  “Huh?”

  “You’re so worried about finding something you want to do, something you want to focus on, I think you forget about just how much potential you have. Smart, strong, cute, funny, loyal, you have each and every ingredient you need to be anything you want. You’re so much more than beautiful, Jane, you are potential, you are the future.” His nerves get the better of him and he begins to blush hard again as he reaches the climax of his speech, and his voice gets much lower and softer. “You’re my future.”

  She stuff her face into his chest and squeals a bit, wrapping her arms and legs around him and just making odd noises. When she finally runs out of air and quiets down she sits quietly, before peaking up at him.

  “I love you.” She says quietly.

  “I love you too.” He says back.

  “I... that was cheesy as fuck.”

  “Really? I thought it was pretty gouda,”

  She snorts, “Shut up! You’re so dumb.”

  “What? I thought I feta make a brie’f response, quick and sharp, lest I become a muenster. Like the Beast of Monterey, I hear they’ve named him Jack.”

  Jane snorts and her cheeks puff out before letting out a huge and long fit of laughter, the bug quickly spreading and infecting Tim as his laughs mix with hers in a symphony of corny romance. Jane laughs until she wheezes, tears building up on the edges of her eyes, and as it finally begins to settle she flips on her back, giggles a few times more, then takes a deep breath and stares at their ceiling.

  “Nice speech, maybe you’re secretly more Captain America than Spider-Man.”

  “Nah, you just inspire me to be inspiring.”

  She giggles and grins, “Shut up.” then makes a happy sigh. “You know, I was honestly just kinda... fishing for compliments.”

  “No you weren’t.” Tim snorts.

  “Ooook, yeah, it... was really bothering me. But I also kinda was, for my looks, but you took it so fucking far.” She huffs.

  “What? You just wanted me to call you pretty?”

  “Well yeah, I... I don’t know. Sometimes I feel like I'm not girly enough, you know? And Lilith made me feel really... yeah.”

  “I think you’re girly.” He shrugs. “Maybe you let your reputation get to you too much, people think of you as a violent tomboy, and that’s only half right.” He nods.

  “Ok, but like, even with all you said right now I know I’ m not like Lilith, she’s so...”

  Tim blinks, “What, do you want me to call you hot or something? Is that what this is?”

  “Yeah, sorta.”

  “Too embarrassing.” Tim huffs.

  “And the rest wasn’t?!”

  “Sure but I got to build up to it, I can't just call you hot out of nowhere.”

  “Ugh, I hate you.”

  “Ok, call me hot right now then.”

  She immediately blushes and faces away from him.

  “See? That’s what I thought.”

  “Shhhhhut up.” Jane huffs.

  Tim snickers and she turns back towards him and pouts, rolling her eyes.

  “Anyways...” Jane thinks about something, seems to drop it then move on. “We should hang out with Rowan and Alex this weekend since you need to rest.”

  “I need to keep an eye on Darik though, he has powers now, if I stay home I can listen to him from here.”

  “What? Really?”

  “I told you I had super hearing.”

  “Yeah but that’s... way more than I thought.”

  “I need to focus in if I want to be able to pay close attention but I can expand them out pretty far, yeah. It was the hardest thing to get the hang of when I got my powers.”

  “It sounds overwhelming.”

  “It was, but now I sort of... naturally filter things out I guess is the way to describe it? I don’t know, the way my senses work are genuinely indescribable sometimes. Especially when I transform into certain things, seeing different light wavelengths is a trip.”

  “Nerd.”

  “Shut up.”

  “Shut me up.” She blushes.

  “I am not nearly confident enough to follow through with that.” He rolls his eyes and blushes back. “Anyways, I do want to hang out with them, especially cause I don’t want to be here but...”

  “What could you even do that like... Edward and his motorcycle couldn’t do right now?”

  “Survive a bullet, knives, rocket launchers, most conventional weapons. Let's see, what else...”

  “You know what I mean though, we don’t even know what Darik’s powers are. What if he just heals? What if he doesn’t have a whole bunch of other stuff like you do? Edward got his powers the same way right? Darik could totally be on the same level as him. Just ask if he’ll keep an eye on Darik until you get back to full strength and can punch clouds or whatever.”

  “You know, even though our whole lives we've been getting into fights you sure are anti me fighting lately.”

  “I’m anti you being stupid.” She rolls her eyes. “Besides, Darik is an asshole but he’s not a psycho. If he has some crazy power he’s gonna try em out, but not on people, at least not to start.”

  Those are good points, Darik sucks but Tim never knew him to try and kill someone. Plus, it's not like Edward couldn’t handle himself against a threat more powerful than him, it seems like, if anything, that’s the standard. Even before Tim was weakened, the weasel Yokai was keeping up with him, and Ed took it on while simultaneously dealing with Cristine and another Yokai. He repeated the feat in the mall too.

  “Ok ok, I’ll see if he can, I’ll ask when I go over there, I want to check on Cristine anyways.”

  “In the morning right?”

  “What’s wrong with just flying over there now?”

  She shrugs, “Cause spend time with me.”

  “What? You haven’t gotten your fill of extra sweet mush yet?” Tim asks

  “Not even close.”

  Tim flies above the cloud line, so far up that even a huge pterosaur would be mistaken for a bird, not that he would pick something like that though. A lot of his paleontological interest was on non-avian dinosaurs, but birds were still dinosaurs, and he knew there was already a decent amount of biodiversity of said aves by the late Cretaceous that were basically indistinguishable from modern birds, at least from the outside. That being said, the few he knows about were pretty small, and not that fast without using his strength to crack the sound barrier. So he goes with something a little more modern to get to Lance’s house during the day time.

  Teratornis, a huge bird of prey closely related to North American vultures, and it looks the part too. To an untrained eye Tim was certain people would just mistake for a condor, albeit a huge one. Though to be fair, that was only about a third larger than the biggest condor species, which only really helps the disguise. It's not like it’s unheard of for one individual to end up a lot larger than the rest of its species, happens all the time in the grand scheme of things.

  If anything was going to give him away it was how fast he was flying, sure he was using his natural abilities to stay aloft on air currents like any large bird, but a good flap sent him zooming far beyond any modern bird could manage. That was what the clouds and going so high up was for though, he’d be just a dot, a drone, or a UFO, not an anomalous shape shifter.

  Lance’s house is far into Alpine, characterized by its hills and mountains versus the flatness of El Cajon. It’s also a much nicer neighborhood, devoid of apartments, run down or otherwise, and instead being dotted by middle and upper class houses surrounded by decently sized chunks of land.

  Tim begins to descend as the long, winding path that leads to Lance’s far off, small home. Apparently the property has been in Edward’s side of the family for generations, but it wasn’t till Edward’s parents moved to California did anyone build a house on it. Those parents, and Lance’s, are obviously not around anymore, and Lance didn’t seem too open to sharing what had happened to them.

  Tim lands on the roof and extends his senses all around, just to be safe. No human sounds or scents around the property, and only two from inside. Lance and Edward appear to be in their kitchen, and Tim picks up that he can’t sense Cristine. Knowing Lance, he probably properly sound proofed the basement. Tim’s about to drop down to the door, but the cousin’s conversation catches his attention, and he can’t help but eavesdrop, just a little.

  “What if I'm right?” Edward says, and says angrily. “What if I’m right Lance? We don’t know if she just has that one Yokai left, we don’t know how she’s so powerful.”

  Metal clinks against something ceramic as Lance stirs some creamer into a coffee, the nutty aroma reaching Tim’s nose.

  “What is the likelihood that the Crypt Keeper could even keep something as powerful as a Kitsune? Do we even know how powerful a Kitsune really is? I don’t recall any Hunter families we know coming across one, abroad or otherwise.”

  “Lance...” Edward sighs. “This is dangerous, you know how dangerous this is. We’ve tried this before, we’ve...”

  Lance sips and sets the mug down on their kitchen counter. “It will end differently this time.”

  “Why, because of Tim?” Edward sighs. “Look, I'm glad you finally have a... a friend that’s strong enough to survive but...”

  “But? But nothing.” Lance tone shifts, becomes more aggressive. “I am capable of being pragmatic, more pragmatic than you, Edward, but I’m drawing the line here, I am carving a better path here.” He takes a deep breath and sighs.

  “It isn’t better.” The screech of a chair dragging across tile echoes through the house. “It isn’t, Lance. What are we supposed to do? Sit at home... Neither of us being able to leave just to take care of her now as she sits in a dungeon and rots? The already mentally ill girl has to sit in the dark in—”

  “I’ve thought about this, this doesn’t change the line I’m drawing.”

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  “Why?” Edward asks with a sad desperation. “She’s too powerful, too unstable, and that’s not even accounting for what’s going to happen if the police get involved. Lance, you are all I have, you can’t ask me to sit back and just—”

  “Put myself in danger? That’s a very ridiculous sentiment, and you know it.”

  “Not that, our lives are dangerous, as long as we’re going after Ellie that won’t change. I just don’t want you to take unnecessary risks”

  Ellie? That must be the sister Lance had mentioned at Tesla’s house. Crazy that despite it only being a few weeks ago, it feels like a lifetime.

  “You’re seeing it from the wrong perspective.”

  “I’m seeing it from the perspective of not wanting my cousin to die, to go to jail, to get hurt.” Edward sighs.

  “Ignoring that you’re under all those same threats, more consistently than I am, that is—”

  An alarm goes off interrupting him from continuing.

  “Ah, time to start on Cristine’s meal, Tim should be here soon as well.””

  Edward sighs and walks off, “I’m going to go tune up the bike.”

  “I have several upgrades in mind to—”

  “Finish the other ones before you start on new ones Lance.” He says and, almost, slams the garage door.

  Tim backflips off the roof, digesting all he overheard, then knocks on the door as his suit retracts. Tim hears the quiet whir of Lance’s drone come up to the door and unlock it, letting him in.

  “Smells good.” He comments as he finally takes his chance to take in the sights of Lance’s house.

  It has a cozy vibe more than anything, though it doesn’t seem particularly well lived in. The pillows on the couch gather dust despite looking new, some even have a tag still on them, and the couch isn’t well worn. The white carpet is a little different, the heavily trafficked parts of the living room obvious to Tim’s enhanced sight. He also spots subtle, hidden defenses against the supernatural scattered just about everywhere. Salt circles on knick knacks and picture frames, heavy clubs of iron forged into statues of various wildlife. A silver utensil set makes Tim wonder about werewolves and vampires.

  “That’s good.” Lance says as he brings out various vitamins and begins to blend them into a smoothie. “I’m hoping it serves as a small comfort to Cristine.”

  “How is she?” Tim asks as he takes a seat at the island a few feet away fro the stove.

  “Difficult to gauge exactly, but obviously leaning towards negative.”

  Tim winces, a familiar tinge of nausea working its way through him. He believes that he and Lance will find a better solution for Cristine somehow, but there’s no small part of him that dreads this becoming the norm.

  “I can take the food down to her, if you want.” Tim offers.

  “Very well, has the mark taken effect? You look exhausted.”

  “Do I?”

  “Yes.” He almost leaves it at that, pauses, and continues. “We have had many long nights together now, but I've never seen you with bags under your eyes.”

  “I didn't realize I had them.” He rubs his eyes.

  “You didn’t need to make your way out here, you should rest, spend more time with Jane.”

  “I will, but I wanted to talk to you guys...”

  “And check on Cristine.” Lance finishes the thought he was going to leave hanging.

  “Eh.”

  “Even to someone who has trouble in social contexts, like myself, you are not a hard person to figure out Tim.”

  “Pffft, nu uh, I am an enigma wrapped in a contradiction placed inside a J. J. Abrams mystery box, one he’ll never open.”

  “A 3rd of that is correct.”

  “What 3rd?”

  “You’re, at times, very contradictory.”

  “Rude, I think?” Tim asks himself more than Lance.

  “It isn’t, most people are.”

  Lance finishes making the smoothie and pours it into a large glass then returns to the stove.

  “Lance.”

  “Yes?”

  “Are the silver utensils secret weapons?”

  “Yes, while iron is a nigh universal weapon against the supernatural, silver is often more effective against certain beings.”

  “Lance?”

  “Yes?” He answers while cracking a few eggs.

  “Are vampires real?”

  Lance sighs, “I suppose I should’ve expected this, yes, vampires are real.”

  “Werewolves?”

  “Yes.”

  “Werebears?”

  “There are many “were” animals, yes.”

  “Zombies?”

  “Yes.”

  “Ghouls?”

  “That's more a generalized term for a large group of mostly unrelated creatures with similar traits.”

  “Ah the ever present failings of old phylogeny, Bigfoot?”

  “Bigfoot?” Lance raises an eyebrow as he lays some eggs on a plate. “Unlikely.”

  “Aw, Mothman?”

  “Yes actually.”

  “Wait really?”

  “We’ve briefly encountered him.”

  “You have to tell me about that.” Tim scoots into the island.

  He had brief stints on getting deep into cryptozoology, especially when he was younger and didn’t realize it flew in the face of any real science, but that just lent itself to his escapism pursuits rather than his scientific interests.

  “Perhaps another time, the food is ready.” He finishes up the plate of eggs, pancakes, bacon and hash-browns and hands it to Tim, along with the smoothie.

  “That felt fast.” Tim says as Lance leads him through the house and into the basement.

  “Indeed.”

  His guts tighten as they begin to head down, what is he supposed to say to her? What was she going to say? Will she convince him that she doesn’t deserve this? Will he crack and let her out? No, no she had her chance, Lilith offered it with open arms, there was no changing her mind. Morally, functionally, she killed someone, Darik only survived because of the silver flash.

  She deserves this, she deserves this, she deserves this.

  Lance opens the hidden door and paper nearly erupts from it, until a high pitch chime that makes Tim flinch echoes through the air, making the instantly retract into Cristine’s hair, barely glowing, like embers. She looks miserable, the light sparkle of salt from dry tears catches Tim’s eye as the candlelight reflects off them. Half of her face is still transformed, like in their final fight. One of her eyes remained fox-like with a slit pupil, thick, dark lines extending from it and wrapping to the back of her head. The rest of her remains human though, no tails, claws or fangs. She doesn’t wear her power’s shrine maiden outfit, instead she was dressed in clothes much too large for her, Lance’s shirt making her seem even smaller than she already is. Damn, he should've thought to bring her some clothes, Jane is still bigger than her but it would’ve been a better fit. .

  “Oh, Tim-Chan.” She scoots onto a mattress and wraps herself up in a thick blanket. “I knew it wouldn’t work, but I guess it extra wouldn’t have with you here.”

  Tim walks forward, hesitates, then walks into the salt circle, giving Lance a glance to see if he’ll object. He doesn’t.

  “Brought you breakfast.” He crouches down and sets the plate and the cup on the cold, stone ground.

  “Thank you.” She takes the plate and starts eating.

  “How’d they get food to you last night?” He looks around the room.

  “There’s a thing under that spot.” She points to the ground near the entrance. “It opened and they slid it in.”

  “Is the bed comfy?”

  “Comfier than mine actually.” She slurps up the egg, the runny yolk splashing onto the plate. “Want some? I’ll feed you!”

  “What? No.”

  She shrugs, “Suit yourself.” She eats her food quietly for all of 30 seconds before taking a sip of the smoothie, making a bleh face.

  “I don’t get you Tim-Chan.”

  “I’m not hard to figure out, apparently.”

  “I know, or I thought I did!” She groans. “I just don’t get it, you fight evil, you beat them up. You’ve been doing it for forever, but you were also just a kid so you couldn’t do more, now you can!”

  “I don’t see why I need to justify not wanting to kill people.”

  “Cause they’re bad! They’re bad and they’ll keep doing bad things! That’s why, duh!”

  She’s taking this all much too casually, and it is very quickly wearing Tim’s nerves. The more things change, the more they stay the same.

  “How many times have you and Jane fought the same bullies, protect the same people, over and over and over again? How many times did you fight Henry, Darik, all of their friends? Did they ever stop being bullies? No! What about the drug dealers? Rumors about you have been going around for awhile now, and lots of people say that you’ve beat them up! Does that stop them from going back out and selling more crack to my mom? Kids? Nope!”

  “That’s why I destroy their supplies, that way...”

  “No! It doesn’t work.” She huffs. “Why don’t you get that? You’re smart, smart enough to go to college, be a Senpai until you become a Sensei.” Her demeanor begins to drop, “You’re smart enough to know they’ll never stop... you know they never will. The police won’t do anything...” she grabs one of her arms. “The teachers won’t do anything, so it's up to us, we have to make the guilty pay, or else they never will.”

  ‘Cristine, that is insane.”

  “I’m. Not, Crazy!” She throws her plate against the wall, food showering the ground. “I don’t... I don’t fucking get you!” She shoots up, her hair lighting up and her tails unfurling. ”Look at where you live, look at how much evil comes out of your house and you see it! You see it every day and you think I'm crazy for wanting them dead so they can’t ever do it again!”

  “Yes!” Tim stands to meet her, glaring into her eyes. “Its fucking crazy to want to kill anyone! I don’t give a fuck if Darik and Henry are assholes that doesn’t mean they deserve to die you idiot!”

  “I’m not stupid!” She tries to lash out, Tim sidestepping her so she makes contact with the barrier, a jolt of pain courses through her body before he pulls her away and forces her to sit back down on her bed. Her powers fade and tears well up in her eyes as she narrows them.

  Thunders rolls in Tim’s chest, booms against his rib cage, and escapes as hot air through his lips. Who cares if they were anything close to friends, if she’s like this on the inside? She’s no better than his mother or Tesla.

  He opens his mouth, ready to condemn her, but a quick “Tim,” from Lance snaps him out of it. He glances behind him, to Lance watching, and his friend gives him a subtle nod.

  He takes a deep breath to quell the storm, to calm down. It’s almost funny, how new he and Lance’s bond is, but how strong it's already become. It offers him some level of clarity, nearly as potent as Jane gives him.

  “Maybe you’re more Captain America than Spider-Man.” Jane said to him earlier, and while he didn’t particularly agree, they are the kind of heroes he wants to be.

  He kneels down to Cristine now, her glare still locked on him, and then sits by her on the mattress, surprising her and causing her glare to melt into a confused squint.

  “I don’t think I can change your mind, but...” He takes a deep breath. “But I’ll try and help you understand. I don’t think I could ever kill someone, I just don’t have it in me, despite being surrounded by all that evil all my life, and you know...”

  Some of what he was about to say, he doesn’t know if he believes himself, but damn it if it wasn’t what a superhero would say.

  “It wasn’t all evil. My sister sells drugs to kids, my mom actually had a rule against it and she broke it, which sort of, enabled my mom into breaking the rule too, in a way.” He sighs, “but that money that she would get? It wasn’t like it was all to get high and buy more drugs. There were a lot of times when we were around a lot of hungry people, a lot of hungry kids. She’d be out for days selling and selling and selling, only to use it all on piles and piles of food. She’d bring it home, get it ready, cook it all by herself sometimes, and make sure each and every kid in our overcrowded house got fed, had seconds. As long as she was around, no one went hungry. That isn’t evil, that’s love.”

  “Ok but...”

  “I found Darik and his dad out in a bar once, while I was doing my rounds.” He spins his wristband around. “Some guy, I know I've seen him around but I do not remember his name, lots of faces going in and out my door you know?” He rolls his eyes. “Anyways, the guy owes Darik’s dad a lot of money, and he wants to beat him for it, with a metal pipe.” He makes a swinging motion with one arm. “But I guess Darik’s dad wants him to be a big strong man like him, so he tries to make Darik do it, you know what happened next?”

  “You stopped them?”

  “I stopped his dad, but I didn’t need to stop Darik. Darik knew it was wrong, he knew it was going too far, and he stopped himself.”

  Cristine’s face contorts, her fried brain trying to work through and process the information.

  “Everyone is full of evil Cristine, and everyone is full of love. Normally you only see one slide of a person, and never even think to think that there might be more to them.”

  “I... that still doesn’t mean they don’t hurt people, that still doesn’t mean they don’t deserve to die.”

  “Maybe, but once you realize that all that applies to most everyone, could you really go through with it?”

  “They... they deserve it.” She says as she tucks her knees up to her chest.

  Tim doesn’t expect to change her mind, his hunch is he won’t ever be able to, but, it looks like he at least got her thinking, and that will have to do for now.

  ***

  “Edward doesn’t necessarily need to watch over Darik.” Lance says as he, Tim, and Edward all sit together in the living room. “I can easily do it with my drone, among other methods.”

  “Well...the reason I was going to ask Ed specifically—”

  “E-Edward, please.” He says as his leg bobs up and down.

  “My bad, I was going to ask him specifically so I can invite you along. Although if we end up going to Rowan and Alex’s house you’ll have to meet their family and you probably won’t like them all too much.”

  “I’m far too busy, there’s too much to prepare for, Cristine needs to be cared for and Edward needs to...”

  “I c-c-c-can do it.” Edward quickly cuts him off.

  “Edward.”

  “Go, Lance, you deserve it.” He smiles at him.

  “Its not like you don’t need breaks too.” Tim smiles at him. “You’re not even superhuman and I sure as hell need some more rest.”

  He gives a defeated sigh, and nods. “I’ll set aside one day, I would like to get to know the others better, after all.”

  “Nice, anyways, I'm going to head home. Got plans to make and all that, call me if anything comes up.”

  Tim flies back home, reflecting on everything that had just happened while dipping through a cloud and letting its moisture collect on his feathers.

  Cristine being stuck there was still a band-aid fix, but after his little speech, hopefully that scrape will heal over soon and they’d be able to just let her go safely. Or Lance can figure out... a talisman to slap on her forehead or something. Either way, Tim will keep working with her, for her sake just as much as everyone else's.

  It isn’t long before he lands in a good hiding spot and transforms, walking the rest of the way back home, yawning as the fatigue begins to hit him hard again. He’s very glad that it didn’t escalate into a full fight in Cristine’s cell, she probably would’ve wiped the floor with him in this state. Still, he fights through the exhaustion to pick up his pace to get back to his beloved and get on the phone with his two best friends to start making plans, when he spots Darik, leaning against the fence that encloses his apartment complex.

  “Good, I was just going to go see you.” He pushes off the fence and stands to face Tim, looking right into his eyes.

  So much for a relaxing weekend.