“I don’t…I don’t get what they want from me. What were they even saying? I ‘betrayed’ Preston?! I wasn’t even… I haven’t…”
“They are fishing. Throwing garbage out, hoping it will stick. The best course of action is to not even acknowledge those types of questions. To just ignore them for now. We will figure this out, okay? And they will move on. It won’t be like this forever, I promise.”
“I just want to be left alone…” Seri began to chew on his thumbnail. “I hate going out anyway… Let’s just order what I need online. We can get same-day delivery. No big deal…”
“Okay…” Severo said softly, hand tightening around Seri’s.
Fuck, he hated this… He hated how small Seri’s voice sounded. Why did this world seem to want to constantly beat down on the Nymph?!
Severo would fix this… He didn’t care what connections he had to call in, he’d fix it so that Seri could walk out in the world safely. It was time to actually answer his parents’ calls… Though he was surprised that they hadn’t arrived on Earth yet… He probably should check on why that was…
Severo’s eyes jerked open, his heart pounding. He stared at the brightly lit room, trying to figure out what the fuck had woken him. Seri was asleep next to him, hogging the covers as he randomly did during the night…
He stiffened at what sounded like someone bumping into something. Moving swiftly, Severo slipped silently from the bed, and pressed his thumb to the scanner on the safe in his bedside table. Opening it, he pulled out his gun. Without hesitation, Severo stepped into the Shadow Realm.
Storming forward, he pushed out into the hall, and stared at the man currently creeping through their living room in the dark. The person happened to be in the one dark place in the apartment. They left the rest of the lights on, so Seri was unimpeded if he happened to be the one to wake up at 8am to change and feed Skya.
Glaring at the stranger, he tried to think if he looked familiar or not. Did it matter?
Shaking his head, he moved around the kitchen island and got behind him. Right as the man went to enter the hallway, Severo cut a hole into the other side and grabbed onto his neck, using his hold to slam the man’s face into the wall. As the intruder cried out, Severo cut fully through into the real world, and pressed the gun hard to the back of the stranger’s head as the man continued to howl.
“You have five seconds to explain what you are doing in my fucking house,” he ground out.
The guy let out a yelp of fear. “I’M A REPORTER!”
“You have to be fuc—” He cut off at the sound of a door opening.
He glanced over to see Seri peeking out, eyes fearful. Severo barely held back his urge to slam the guy's face into the wall again.
“We’re safe, Seri. It’s just an idiot reporter who decided he wanted to go to jail today. Get my cuffs.”
Seri blinked and then stared, and stared some more as his face slowly twisted into utter disgust.
“It’s not that serious!” the guy whined pathetically.
It wassix in the morning and, generally, Seri would not be awake at this time. But after having some insanely stupid reporter break in, getting back to sleep hadn’t seemed likely. Once they had handed the asshole over to the police, Seri had sat there in Severo’s Shadow Realm as he drove them to his workplace. Because, before 6am, there was no sun.
Instead of sleeping, Seri was sitting at a desk that belonged to who knows who, scrolling through the latest house listings their realtor had sent them, while chewing the shit out of his thumbnail. Not that he had much of one to chew on…the habit had pretty much ensured they were constantly stubs.
He sighed as he scrolled more. Nothing really matched what they were looking for, and at the prices he was seeing…they had to be perfect.
Severo was nearby, typing away. He wasn’t sure all that he was doing, but it was probably something related to the complete psycho of a reporter who had broken into their home.
Seri looked up when someone walked into the large, open, multiple desk office space.
“What are you two doing here?” Cyrus asked, brow raised as he slowly walked over. “And so early…it’s not even eight yet…”
“Oh, you know, just happened to feel the need to come in after having a reporter break into the damn apartment around 3am. How did your sleep go?” Severo growled, not looking up from the screen of his desktop computer.
“What?!” the man snapped.
“Yeah, apparently a possible story is worth major jail time to some idiots. The man is lucky I didn’t shoot him.”
Seri snorted and peered back down at the laptop in front of him. Would it have been sane for him to admit out loud that he sort of wished Severo had shot the man? Honestly, he was non-violent…he was… It's just he was so tired of people not caring about him as a person. Like, did what he wanted not matter?! Was his peace of mind not important?!
“So, what are you doing?” Cyrus asked.
“Putting a request in for a restraining order,” Severo drawled. “Anyway, I was thinking, after Seri gets his doctorate, you know, when he does eventually go back to school, wouldn’t he be like an amazing addition to our experimental development department?”
