At the store Rian sped through the aisles as fast as a bullet, grabbing the requested items, and several pretzels from the in-store bakery. Then he saw a stack of scrumptious looking apples that instantly grabbed his attention; so much so that Rian nearly ran a nearby display of Aegis Society plushies.
"Sorry," said Rian, apologizing profusely to a young child holding a Volkanox plushie that was shaped like a dragon. After deciding to take one of the Volkanox plushies for himself, Rian sped over to the apples with absolute glee. Jazz apples! Yes, please! Rian grabbed several.
Though the plushie was soft and squishy, Rian put it back. There was a strange smell on the material, and it made his palm itchy just above the knotted serpent drawn in sharpie on his left wrist.
"These greens good?" said Rian, returning in a flash of gold. Now bored again, he tossed an apple core into the kitchen compost bin and handed the stolen handbasket full of produce, barley, and olive oil to Spiros.
"Yes. God, yes," said Spiros, handing Theo the sack of potatoes, with instructions to chop them up.
"No pizza?" said Theo, disappointed.
"Dude, we've had pizza for the last three nights. It's butt-fuckingly cold. Tonight we're having roast and stew," said Rian, zipping back across the water as his stomach growled again. Still impatient for food, Rian grabbed the pretzels. Swallowing a bite of the salty bread, he added, "If you want pizza, get it yourself."
"But I don't have any money, and I can't steal things like you," said Theo, taking a few of the pretzels.
"What about an underground fight ring?" asked Corey, slinking into the kitchen. In the bright morning sun, his skin was shiny and looked vaguely orange. With reflexes almost as fast as Rian's, he snatched a fly in his hands, then ate it with a happy wiggle.
Theo glowered, his massive body shrinking ever so slightly as he pulled his shoulders inward, deeply insecure, "Would that be like the carnival? I don't want people to make fun of me again,"
"It ain't like that. Super casual. They meet at an abandoned warehouse in Seattle. You know where the aliens invaded? It's near that spot, so there's nothing and no one there to bother them. I've been goin' out there 'cause everything there is turning back to wetlands and there's so many worms. And they're all the invasive jumping ones and so much fun to catch!" said Corey, wiggling in excitement as he began talking about how delicious the worms were.
"Would I get to keep the money?" said Theo, with a worried, wide-eyed look at Spiros. "My old manager kept most of the money I made, because of all the fees."
"Eighty-twenty," said Spiros, after a moment of thought. "So if you make a dollar, you keep eighty cents, and the Obsidian Assembly gets twenty. Sound fair?"
"That's way better than my old manager. I don't remember how much I got, but it barely let me buy slurpees at the gas station," said Theo, glumly. "I don't want to go back to him. He called me fat and made me cry all the time,"
"Don't worry, Theo. We'll take care of you. No carnivals or mean-ass monster truck rally managers are going to get you on our watch," said Spiros, pulling a large cast-iron pot and lid out from a bottom cupboard. Heaving a grunt, and exhaling a swish of fog into the cold air, Spiros hoisted it onto the counter. "Grab a knife. We've got some veggies to chop up before I tell you all some news,"
"Yeah," said Theo, cheering up considerably, as he always did when food was involved. Theo was a simple meta. He liked food, beating people up, and funny TV shows. In that order. Things that required complex thought and brain processing were not the sort of things that Theo enjoyed.
"I can drive you to the fight ring," said Lavender, walking into the kitchen and grabbing an apple off the counter. The limited edition Christmas themed body spray she was wearing smelled like sugar plums and Christmas trees, and her roughly cut blonde hair had berry scented gel in it to make the jagged cuts even rougher. Playing with a fidget toy that appeared out of nowhere in her hand, Lavender greeted Rian with a wide smile. Her lips were shiny with gloss that Rian knew tasted like strawberries.
Lavender Langley looked like Barbie. That is, if Barbie had given herself a DIY punk rock Princess Diana haircut and added on a layer of sociopathic proclivities toward explosives.
"I'll drive him to games," said Spiros, walking into the pantry and grabbing an armful of produce. After handing an armful to Theo, he dumped the rest onto the counter. Aggressively, he began peeling several carrots. "You know, considering that it's my car,"
"I thought it was the Obsidian Assembly's car?"
"Are you a member of the Obsidian Assembly? No. You're a-,"
"Guest," said Rian, winking at Lavender. From the corner of his eye, he could see Corey backing slowly away from Spiros, and mouthing something at Lavender while shaking his head. What's his deal? Not really wanting to know, Rian ignored him. "She's a guest. Besides, why waste gas? Let's find a boat, and I'll run over the water, pushing everyone. Easy peasy, and super fun!"
Furious, Spiros ignored Rian's suggestion, saying, "A guest? More like a leech who steals my shit while endangering everyone on the road. You're fourteen! Why the fuck do you need to drive?"
"Jade needed my help. And I'm not a leech. I bring food and magic. Literally," said Lavender, sitting next to Rian and kicking her legs up into his lap. Not wanting the dirt from her shoes on his pants, Rian pushed them off.
"You do not bring magic. You bring decorating."
"Free batteries, lamps, and candles are necessary items, not decorations. And I also got you a spare tire." Lavender stuck her tongue out at Spiros. "You're welcome by the way. I didn't even summon it. That tire is the real deal."
"That's the least you could have done, considering whatever you were doing with it left it smelling like a fucking animal," said Spiros, roughly cutting the carrots before tossing them into the pot. Still fuming, he pointed at Lavender with the knife. "You've taken up Pyralis' old room at your own risk, and you've been here over a month. Which makes you no longer a guest. So if I'm stuck with you, when we get back from school, your job is making sure the fire in the main room is hot. We'll need a lot of coals if we're going to get this roast cooked."
"Not to complain," said Rian, raising his hand, "But I'm not sure how comfortable I am with having the fire burning while we're gone."
"It's not going to be burning," replied Spiros, grabbing a giant leek. "I'm getting it prepped. But it's not getting above forty today, so I'm just chucking the pot in the barbecue. Lavender, since you're tending the fire, you get to put the pot on the coals to simmer."
"Why not do it on the stove?" said Lavender, standing back up and stretching. "Seems easier,"
"We don't have much propane-,"
Rian raised his hand. "I can get-,"
"You are not lugging a giant, pressurized can of propane at the speeds you run at," said Spiros, in a dry tone.
"Oh, that'd be so awesome!"
"No, Lavender, it wouldn't! The propane could explode and Rian would get hurt!" shouted Spiros, pointing at Rian threateningly with the leek. "Besides, we don't need to worry about that. I've got-,!"
"Uh, besides what? Of course we don't need to worry. Nothing I've carried has ever gotten damaged," said Rian, cackling at the frustrated expression on Spiros' face. "Besides, I'll just outrun the explosion,"
"Seriously? Am I the only responsible person here?"
"Me. I don't want to get blown up," said Corey, catching another fly in his slimy hand.
"I love you guys," said Theo, chopping up potatoes with enthusiasm.
While Lavender cooed, Spiros laughed nervously. "Don't be a sap, Theo. Look, I've-,"
"Yeah, what are we, girls?" Corey snickered.
"I love you, too, Theo," said Lavender, jumping and wrapping her arms around Theo's massive arm, coming dangerously close to the large knife that Theo was using to cut the potatoes. Then, Lavender lowered her voice to a hoarse, loud whisper. "Don't worry about Spiros and Corey. They love you, too. They're just too emotionally stunted to say it. Or at least that's what the Dr. Quinn would say,"
Lavender pressed her chest up against Theo's arm, then directed a strange look at Rian that made him want to instantly flee the room. "But Rian's brave enough to say sappy stuff like 'I love you,'"
"Yeah, totally," said Rian, crossing his legs and sitting up in his seat as Lavender turned away from Theo to grin at him. Theo was too large and tall to see it, but Lavender was licking her sharp canines.
As Spiros glared sharply at Lavender, Rian winked.
Something like 'I love you' was not a thing he said regularly. In all the years Rian had known Eochaid, he had only heard the man say 'I love you' once. It was not to him, but Rian's twin sister Niamh after she woke up screaming from a nightmare about living skeletons and eels.
As for Pyralis… It was questionable if 'I love you' was a part of Pyralis' vocabulary at all. Certainly, Rian had never heard her say it.
But Lavender was convincing. And Rian didn't hate Theo. While he was larger than most full grown men, Theo was like a small child in many ways, and genuinely too dumb to hate. It was the things Theo did to the house that Rian hated. I guess he's like my brother. And I say 'I love you to Niamh when we talk on the phone.
"Theo, I love you so much," said Rian, mimicking how Lavender said 'I love you' to her friends at school. "We're in the Obsidian Assembly, which makes us buddies. Besties, if you get that hole upstairs fixed up like Eochaid and Prysilis taught you to."
Theo's face soured. Before the boy could say anything about Rian's comment, he added, "Right Spiros? Corey?"
"Uh, yeah," said Spiros, setting the large lamb roast in the cast iron pot and hiding his face behind his mop of brown hair. "...I love you, too, Theo,"
"Yeah, we're all… um, family," said Corey, unenthusiastically.
Lavender squealed happily, "I love all you guys!" After pulling away from Theo, she grabbed one of Rian's pretzels. Strutting away, she said, "Rian, I'll be in my room. Wanna hang out for a bit before school?"
Just as Rian jumped to his feet, Spiros whistled loud and high enough to make everyone in the room flinch and cover their ears.
"Aether! Hammerspace! Both of you sit back down, shut the fuck up, and pay attention!" Breathing harshly, Spiros waited until Rian and Lavender had taken their seats to speak again. "I have a plan to get the lights back on."
"Oh shit," said Rian, burrowing into his hoodie with a shiver. Both from the cold and from excitement. "Yes. Please. Tell me what you need. I will procure it."
"Nope. It's going to take the whole team. And there's going to be some stuff that I don't want running at super speeds-,"
"It's just some wires, isn't it?" asked Lavender, to which Spiros heaved another heavy sigh and shook his head.
"First things first, let's get something straightened out." Spiros glared sharply at Lavender. "Are you in, or are you out?"
"Uh… In? Is that even a question?"
"You still hang out with those Vanguard freaks," said Spiros, throwing the sliced leaks into the pot.
"Because I talk to them. They don't talk to me," said Lavender, glaring back. "Well… Dean is still giving me rides to school with Jade. And I guess Shiloh and Becky are usually in the car, too- By the way, how are things going with Becky?"
"Last time I checked, they were climbing up trees together," said Rian, in a loud whisper. Slightly louder, he added, "Or are you still climbing trees with Dante?"
"I'm not saying don't talk to those weirdos!" shouted Spiros, his face blushing red as he tossed a leek end at Rian's head. "What I want to know is that you're not going to go off and snitch on us!"
"Why would I do that?" asked Lavender, insulted. "I live here, too! I want the lights on just as much as you do!"
"Good." Grumbling, Spiros walked out of the kitchen and towards the swinging pantry door. The iron hinges opened soundlessly. Hair flopping as he twisted around to motion for the others to follow, Spiros yelled, "Follow me!"