Marcus Tenneson never brought women home. Those he dated were not the type that he thought would be wise to introduce to his siblings, let alone his mother. No matter how obvious it was the relationship would never last, the moment a woman entered his parents' house, Cassandra Tenneson would start referring to her as his fiancée and have her wedding planner out. No ring or proposal required. Instead, he was happy to sit alone, the ginger sheep, amongst the sea of raven-headed siblings and listen to his mother badger him a couple times a week.
"You're not getting any younger, Marcus." His mother jabbed her fork in his direction, a noodle slipping off and onto the hard oak table.
"I'm twenty-seven, Mama. I think I'm doing alright for myself." Marcus chuckled, not looking up from his plate.
"Twenty-seven and not even married." His mother huffed and gestured somehow more aggressively at his brothers with her utensil. "Look at your brothers. Twenty-two and I've already got a third grandbaby on the way."
His brothers, Harold and Carven, were real standouts among the Tenneson children. They both graduated with honors from Blue Ridge Arcanum and were natural prodigies, much like his parents. They took very high-paying jobs right out of school at the Department of Magical Education and Ethics, which was just a long-winded way of saying they were boring bureaucrats.
"He's probably got more kids than us." Carven elbowed him in the side. "Just doesn't know about them."
"Real funny." Marcus leaned over, bumping his brother's shoulder with his own.
Both his brothers had been married right out of Blue Ridge to their high school sweethearts. Carven and his husband had no issue finding a surrogate for their first child and had recently adopted a second, while Harold and his wife were expecting within the next couple of months. His younger sisters, also twins Ellena and Hellen, were still at school, though that did not save them from their mother injecting herself into their love lives. Then the youngest, little Nicholas, had just started at Blue Ridge this year, thankfully a little too young for her to set her sights on him. All three of them were excused from family dinners during the school year, much to his envy.
From the other side of the table, his elder sister gave him a sympathetic smile. Calliope had been his confidant since they were children, and in some cases his only line of defense. Growing up a Mundane in a world of powerful witches and wizards did not make his early years very easy, but she was always there for him. Even during her broody teen years, when it was a chore just to get her down from her room to eat dinner with the family, if Marcus needed her, she was always there for him.
His father finally looked up from the newspaper he'd been reading at the other end of the far too long table to address him. "James was telling me about your most recent catch. Was it really a virex?"
Finally, a subject he didn't mind talking about. James was not only his sister's husband, but also his partner at the Appalachian Reserve. "James is the expert, but it definitely looks like it. We tracked it down into an abandoned mine shaft a couple hundred miles north of the reserve camp. It was burrowing a den for itself."
James scoffed, "In theory, I guess. Marcus identified it just from the grooves its claws had made in the rock. I was basically just there to enchant his rope."
You two are going to get yourselves killed." His mother piped in from the head of the table. "Chasing around drakes and dragons like their poodles."
"You know they come from the old country? Nobody has seen one is ages." Michael was an expert at knowing exactly when he needed to listen to his wife and when Cassandra was just talking to herself. So what would end up being a spoon to the back of the head to one of the kids, Marcus' father skated by without a knock. "My father used to tell me that vampires trained them as pets." His dad nodded as if it was an undisputable fact. While vampires were more prevalent in Europe, there was no real historical evidence to say they ever had dragon pets.
"Granddad also used to say that werewolves would sneak into our rooms at night and eat us if we didn't mind our parents." Marcus grinned over at his dad.
"If only. Would have been much less expensive that way."
The front door opened and closed quickly, followed by the sound of shuffling in the den. "Oh, finally." His mother waved a hand through the air, another plate lifted from the stack on the table and was placed beside his sister. "We're already eating, Ophie! The boys were ravenous, I couldn't get them to wait."
Ophelia Harris went to school with his brothers and, while they were both incredibly smart, she intellectually dwarfed them. Throughout school, Harold had always pined for the young woman until at some point he'd given up. Marcus liked to think it was thanks to his endless ridicule of him that he finally took out his would be wife and they fell in love. Though looking now, he couldn't really blame his younger brother. She was a stunning woman, if you were into the posh sort of thing she had going on.
"I'm so sorry I'm late. Work held me up." Though she'd been on this side of the Atlantic for more than a decade, there was still the slight English accent that lingered and stood out amongst present company. She quickly hugged the twins, kissed each of the babies on the head, and hugged his mother before hurrying around to sit beside Calliope.
"Oh, don't worry, sugar. We're just glad you could make it." Cassandra waved her hand again, carbonara scooped from the dish and set softly on her plate. Luckily for him, Ophelia, being so close to the family for so many years, essentially just made her another daughter as far as his mother was concerned. As soon as Ophelia started to dig in, so did the matriarch, giving her the same riot act he'd been suffering since walking through the door.
Marcus excused himself once dinner finished, taking the dishes that were all but clean already back to the kitchen with him and setting them beside the sink where the charm his mother had cast earlier that evening had already started cleaning. He snuck out the back door and pulled the pack of cigarettes from his inside jacket pocket and lit one, leaning against the rail on the back deck.
It wasn't long before Calliope joined him, scrunching up her heart-shaped face at the smoke. "I thought you quit?" She asked, taking a spot on the rail beside him.
"I did." He shrugged, patting the pocket where he'd stashed them. "Then I started."She rolled her eyes and leaned against his shoulder, sitting in silence for a moment before she continued. "How'd you convince James not to tell me?"
"The spellbook he gave you for your birthday. Agnes something-or-another?"
"You found it for him?" She stared, mouth agape. "He told me it took him ages to get that book."
"It did." Marcus shrugged. "You know how long it took me to find a witch I hooked up with almost a decade ago, then get her to sell me a five hundred-year-old book? It was exhausting. James did technically pay for it though, so." Marcus shrugged. "No harm done."
"You two are unbelievable." Chuckling as she shook her head. She reached over and stole his cigarette and took a drag from it before giving it back. "You know she worries about you."
"There's nothing to worry about."
"Mhmm.." She leaned against him again and set her head on his shoulder. "I worry about you too."
"I'm fine, Callie." He wrapped his arm around his sister, pulling her up to his chest much like she'd done for him a thousand times over. "Honestly, I couldn't be happier. Outside getting the baby inquisition a few times a week."
"I know." She muttered as she embraced him. "Doesn't mean I can't worry." She started digging into her pockets and gestured to his cigarette. "Put that thing out, I've got something better."
"Oooh, don't mind if I do." Marcus put the cigarette out on the bottom of his boot and tossed it in the garbage as his sister pulled out an old mint tin packed full of crushed herbs. The powerful aroma dulled the smell of cigarettes almost the instant she opened the box. "Calliope special?"
"Only the best." She said, making several quick gestures with her hand. A thin piece of paper slid out from beneath the herbs, scooping up a decent amount and rolling itself. She snapped her fingers, a tiny flame appearing on the end of her thumb to light the end of it. "Eldest first." She took a long inhale before passing it to him.
"You know this is still illegal here, right?" Marcus said before taking the smoke into his own lungs.
"The state of Tennessee wouldn't be able to identify half of the herbs in that if they tried." She let go of him and moved over to one of the outdoor recliners her father had set up to look out over the Smoky Mountains. Marcus sat down in the chair beside her and passed the unknown, yet probably still illicit, substance back to her. "Mom just wants you to be happy, and if I'm honest, I wouldn't mind having my favorite brother give me a niece or nephew to spoil, either."
"Please don't start."
"Come on, a little ginger running around here terrorizing the other kids like you used to do?" She reached over and pinched the hair at his chin, giving it a good natured tug. "It would be the best. Then I could have a secret favorite kid."
"I will get up and leave." Marcus side-eyed her.
"Calm your tits." She waved her hand dismissively at him. "By the way, I need you to shave. James thinks this scruffy thing you've got going on looks good and his facial hair is awful."
"I don't control your husband's facial hair decisions, Callie." Marcus took the joint again. "He's a big boy."
"He's a big nerd," she corrected him, "and you're the coolest guy he knows." Calliope put her hands together to plead with him. "Please."
Rolling his eyes, Marcus nodded. "Fine, whatever." Silence overtook them again as they passed the joint back and forth. Though the veil of dark hair did a half decent job at hiding his sister's eyes from her profile, the subtle slump in her shoulders and the slight tilt of her head toward the starry sky gave her away. "I'm here if you wanna talk about it, okay?" He reached over and sat his hand on hers.
She just nodded, the faintest bit of moisture trickling down her cheek. "I know." She turned her hand to interlock their fingers. "I love you, little brother."
"Better hide that, the Feds are coming." Carven's voice sounded from behind him, followed by Ophelia.
"I'm not the Feds." A solid thud and then a yelp of pain came from his brother. Ophelia rounding the chairs after punching him. "Is it alright if we join?"
Before Marcus could protest, Calliope sat up, swiping at her cheeks, and offered the joint. "As long as you're smoking."
"Don't tell my boss." She pressed a finger to her full lips before taking it with a grin. "Not that he'll be my boss much longer."
"You're leaving M.I.S.?" his sister asked, pulling the recliner out to put her feet up.
"Yes, just looking for something new." She extended a slender hand to Marcus and offered the joint. "I'm actually going to work at the reserve. James put in a good word for me."
Marcus' eyebrows raised slightly, "You're coming to work with us? Doing what?" He took a long drag.
"I start keeper training on Monday." She answered, giving rise to a heavy, smoke-filled cough from Marcus. "Something wrong with that?" The deadpan look on her face made him surprisingly self-conscious.
"No," Marcus coughed again. "No, of course not. It's just a dangerous job."
"If James can do it, I don't see why she can't." A pang of guilt hit him immediately as his sister came to Ophelia's defense.
"Are you trying to say that women can't be keepers?" Ophelia placed her hand on her hip, squaring her shoulders to him in a challenging stance.
"No, there are a few women that do the job already. It's just not.." As Marcus stammered out the remainder of his sentence, Carven was the first to break. Short bursts of laughter then started between all three of them, roiling into a cacophonous storm.
Marcus turned a shade of red he hadn't expected and leaned back in the chair, shaking his head. "Alright, don't you think I've taken enough abuse today?"
"They're just messing with you. Though the unconscious gender bias is a bit of a problem. You should probably see a therapist about that." Carven patted him on the shoulder.
Marcus considered defending himself, but thought better of it. "I hope you enjoy it." He said instead. He didn't think it was particularly sexist. It was closer to sizeism than anything else. There were women that worked on the reserve as keepers and they were damn good, but if you saw them in the light of day outside the tight black jumpsuits and harnesses with various tools they worked with, they had a rough look to them. Years of working with magical and dangerous beasts packed on muscle and scars, which didn't really fit Ophelia. She looked more like she belonged in a Vogue spread, rather than in a jumpsuit tangling with thorncoil drakes.
"I think I will, I've been doing a lot of research on the local magical animal population. It's really fascinating." She took the joint again from his sister. "I hadn't realized that there were so many glimmerfangs in the Appalachian Mountains." The siblings winced at her pronunciation of Appalachian, "Grow up, people pronounce it differently between regions." Her response causing a burst of laughter between the three of them.
"Wait until you meet Kane," Marcus said after recovering from the laughter. "He's a glimmerfang James and I rescued a couple years ago. More personality than most people I know."
"I can't wait." She replied, wrapping the fashionable black coat tighter around her torso. "What is the most dangerous thing you've handled?"
"Besides witches?" As if predicting his snarky remark, Calliope hit him hard on the shoulder. "Ooow." He complained. "Physically dangerous, probably the Ashwinder Chimera. We don't have it at the reserve, though. James and I went up to Greenland to help them wrangle it up there. The scariest ones were probably the colony of blightshrews."
"Shrews?" his sister raised an eyebrow at him, chuckling. "Like little rats?"Marcus grinned at her and nodded. "Sort of. They're semi-aquatic rodents. Like a beaver and a mole had a baby and then you shrunk it down to hamster size."
"They sound adorable." Ophelia took another long drag of the joint.
"Yeah, until one of them pisses on you and it gets on your skin. Goes right into the bloodstream and you're septic before the days out." He frowned and shook his head. "Some idiot in Wisconsin was keeping them as pets. One got out of its habitat and into his well. Poor bastard had black goo for blood before we even got the call."
"Not so adorable then." Ophelia amended her statement.
From that point on, the two of them dominated the outdoor conversation. If there was anything on the planet that Marcus never tired of talking about, it was his work. Glimmerfangs, essentially magically infused overgrown Saint Bernards, moved to various species of dragons and then to the herd of unicorns, which, as far as he was aware, was one of the few that existed in the world anymore. She would ask him a question and just let him ramble on, vomiting various facts and stories about his previous experience wrangling the animals and the dangers they imposed.
"Then there's Norah. She's a rimeclaw. The Reserve was originally built for her, actually. Her mother was killed by poachers like seven decades ago. They needed some place to keep her safe while she grew up." He had hardly noticed when people started to file out. His brothers and their partners first, then Calliope and James, leaving the two of them out on his parent's back deck chatting away. "I didn't know you were interested in this stuff." Marcus finally said, a yawn sneaking up on him.
"I expect there are a lot of things you don't know about me, Marcus Tenneson." She stood up and stretched. It wasn't like he'd never seen the very catlike stretch before a hundred times over, but it took him by surprise how distracting it was. Until he checked his watch, he hadn't realized how late it had actually gotten. "But I have work in the morning, so I'm off."
Marcus stood up and was mid-stretch himself when she wrapped her arms around his torso for a quick hug. The embrace was brief, but even in the short time, he'd noticed the extreme difference in temperature from her freezing cold hands on his back and her toasty chest pressed against him. Her hair had a subtle scent to it that he couldn't place. Lavender maybe, or jasmine?
"Have a good night." He said, but before he could return the hug, she was gone. He watched her through the kitchen window as she hugged and kissed his mother on the cheek before he turned back to look out over the forest a little longer.
"My sweet boy." His mother slipped under his arm, wrapping herself in his leather jacket as best she could. "Thank you for coming."
"You know I never miss family dinner, Ma." Marcus squeezed her in one arm against his side. "I wanted to talk to you before I left, actually."
"Oh? About what?"
"Callie," he said looking down at her round face, a curious expression written on it. "You know the baby thing is still a sensitive subject for her and James."
"I know." She sighed and looked away from him. "I can't help it when the little ones are around, though. I just get so excited, and she won't talk to me about it." She shrugged, and after a long, somber moment, choked out a silent sob. "Even if she did, I don't know what I could say to make it better."
"You can't make it better, Ma." Marcus leaned down and softly kissed the top of her head. "No one can. All we can do is be there for her. I'm not saying cut out the baby stuff completely, just tone it down a little?"
"I'll try." She pressed her cheek into his chest again, warm, wet tears soaked into the cotton.
"Oh, and don't tell her I said anything. She's likely to kick my ass if she knows I was trying to speak for her." Marcus grinned as he drew a laugh from his mother.
She smacked his chest and shook her head, letting him go. "You need to watch your language around your mother."
"Yes, Mama." He leaned down and kissed her cheek, wrapping her in a tight hug. "I'm gonna head out. I've gotta work in the morning."
"Alright, son, I love you. Your dad is passed out in his chair, but make sure you tell him goodbye. He gets cranky if you guys leave without talking to him."
"I love you too, Ma." Marcus stepped back into the house, the sudden warmth drawing goose pimples to his forearms and neck. As warned, his father sat reclined in his chair, head back as far as it could go, wide open mouth generating surprisingly quiet snores. "Pop." He whispered, setting a hand on his shoulder jolting the man awake.
"Hmmm..?"
"I'm heading out, just wanted to tell you goodbye."
His father reached out and pulled him into a tight hug, surprising strength from the pushing sixty-year-old. "Thanks for coming, boy."
Marcus squeezed him back and his father kissed his cheek. "You'll be here Friday?" While it was technically a question, it really wasn't.
"Wouldn't miss it. I love you, dad."
"Love you too, son. Drive safe."