“No… Please,” Foxx begged cutely as he stared up at Harlow with wide, innocent eyes. Well, as innocent as Foxx could make himself look while being caught red-handed with the man’s jacket and a needle.
“Why, Foxx? Just…WHY?!” Harlow practically screamed.
“It’s cute…” He faked a whimper and sniffled, his gaze flicking down to the partly stitched gray heart on the cuff of the jacket’s right sleeve. “I’m almost done… Isn’t it cute? Don’t you think it’s cute?” He popped his bottom lip out.
The dhampir’s right eye started to twitch. “I’m…not…falling for that, brat.”
“But…it’s cute, old mannn!”
“I don’t needcuteon my clothes, Foxx!’
“But it’s almost doneee, Harlowww!” he whined. “And it’s cute. And it will match the one I’ve already put on your leather pants!”
Harlow blinked, his eyes widening. “The one…on my… On my WHAT?!”
“The one I stitched onto the left pocket of your leather pants, of course!” Foxx huffed. “I need to finish so it will match.”
Foxx figured it would be best for him to NOT mention the five T-shirts and various pairs of black jeans he had…stitched on over the last two weeks. It would be fine… Harlow would find them eventually! Honestly, it all looked subtly cute!
Foxx wasn’t sure why he hadn’t come up with the idea sooner. Either way, new hobby activated! Maybe he should break into Alastair’s and start on his clothes too! Well, he had a key, so it wouldn’t be breaking in, now, would it?!
The dhampir closed his eyes and took a few deep breaths in and out. As his eyes opened again, Harlow slowly let go of his jacket.
Foxx beamed, “Yay! It’s going to look so cute!”
Harlow sagged, groaning loudly. “What is my life?”
He giggled. “Your life is amazing, that’s what!” Foxx blinked as his stomach growled. “Ohh, you know what would also be amazing right now?!”
The dhampir just glared in response.
Foxx’s smile widened, completely undeterred. “Well, sinceyouasked! A grilled cheese!”
Harlow stared at him for a moment, before finally rolling his eyes, grumbling, “Brat,” as he stomped away from the couch and into the kitchen.
Humming happily, he repositioned the jacket in his lap and went back to stitching his gray heart, while Harlow banged around in the kitchen.
Eyes glued to what he was doing, he said, “Oh, by the way, I talked to Charity while you were at the gym. They are apparently still finding cases that they believe show evidence of Maverick testing this shit. Some going back as far as a year after paranormals became legal. They're all just random vampires or werewolves becoming suddenly violent. Though…” Foxx grimaced. “It appears that in the beginning it wore off. The hunter reports, based on what Charity hinted, were a bit sad. As most of the surviving paranormals were confused.”
Harlow dropped four slices of bread onto a plate with a sigh. “Making it so that death was the only end result was likely always Maverick’s end goal. The bastard wouldn’t have wanted containment to be a viable option of stopping this. Either way, that timeline matches up with the growth rate Doc had estimated for the Heaven’s Wolfsbane.”
“Speaking of that Scottish bastard. I talked to Santiago after Charity, and apparently, on passing out after he’d successfully created a counteragent for the wolves, he woke up three days later and started working on a joint agent that would work for both species.”
It turned out that recreating the poison had been the more time intensive part of the process. Having gotten his hands on the actual werewolf version, Doc had been able to quickly break down what was in it. The werewolf counteragent only took him three days after that to complete.
“He finished and it works. It seems that while there were a few huge differences in the poisons between species, there were also enough similarities to create something that worked for both,” Foxx added as he finished securing the last stitch with a smile. Running his fingers lightly over the heart, he chimed, “Speaking of being finished, I’m done!”
Harlow dropped two buttered slices of bread onto the electric skillet. “Congrats on fucking up my jacket. They hadn’t started production of the other two by that point?”
“Hmph! It hasn’t been fucked up, it’s been enhanced! They had in part, but time-wise he made it five days after completing the werewolf counteragent, and only like six or seven days after they managed to find trusted people to begin creating the vampire ones. Basically, some had been made, and while they will keep those doses, Tony, and I suppose, the Guild Directors, who managed to set up production near them, were able to switch to the new joint version. So, while the supply isn’t where it needs to be, the majority of what is currently stashed and hidden at each Guild will work for both species.”
“I was only gone thirty minutes, how did you manage to talk to two people and fuck with my leather jacket?” Harlow growled as he covered the grilled cheeses he was making with the top piece of bread and flipped them both.
“Well, talking was why I didn’t finish before you got back.”
The dhampir snorted. “Of course.”
Setting the jacket aside with a sigh, Foxx asked, “Do you think they are going to target any other species? I mean…vampires and werewolves respectfully make up the first and second largest paranormal populations. As for the third… I don’t even know what it would be.”
