Lunch in hand, a smirk spread across Cyrus Grimm’s face when he opened the two way glass door of Killian Neftlem’s office and found the Siren sitting behind his desk with his head hidden by his floating monitors, typing away. He’d made it a few steps inside by the time the man finally stopped working and waved the screens out of the way with his hands. Killian smiled upon spotting him.
However, Cyrus’ own smile stiffened, even as he kept walking. His heart picked up pace as he neared, and the unbeckoned threads of fate formed in his vision around Killian. His eyes were automatically drawn to the thicker line leading directly into the Siren’s heart. What only days ago had been a brilliant aqua-green color, with not a dim spot in sight, was nowblackened right where it disappeared into Killian’s chest, the darkness spreading even now.
Cyrus’ heart clenched tight in his chest, his smile wavering further as he once again looked into Killian’s face. But he was only able to stare into the man’s unearthly beauty for a moment before a bleak, unspeakable future took its place. No longer did he see the Siren’s heart-shaped face, slightly upturned nose, and large, startling, glowing blue eyes, but a skull with Killian’s long ombré teal and purple hair, and a single bullet hole right between the sockets.
With a clear vision of death before him, Cyrus stopped the ever-falling sands of time, an action that was as easy as breathing. In an instant, the color of the world bled away, becoming a pale version of reality, and without a shred of doubt or hesitation, he reached for that blackened thread and plucked the darkness off, cleaning it until it was once again shining and bright, forever changing the fate that had been waiting for Killian.
Cyrus restarted time, and the lines disappeared as Killian began to move again. The Siren frowned slightly, likely at his off expression, or no doubt having seen his eyes change briefly to green.
“Something wrong?”
Cyrus smiled genuinely. “No, nothing.” He chuckled and held the bags up. “Food?”
“Oh, thank fuck! I’m starving!” The Siren hummed happily and started pulling out containers once the bags were set on his desk.
As he eyed the man he loved with all his being, Cyrus couldn’t help but hope that he hadn’t just lied… Nothing was wrong, not anymore. For how long though…he didn’t know…
As Ender Imorus stared down at Maris Rubin, his rage simmered inside, yet the feeling was so familiar that it was easy to hold back his Gorgon. Not even a single scale had popped through the surface of his skin. He'd had too much practice to lose it that easily. No, when Ender shifted, it was always on purpose, or for a very good reason—like when he was in the mood for scaring someone shitless.
Staring at the fucker for barely a moment more, Ender kicked the chair that the Cryptid was strapped down in. It jolted, but didn’t move from the spot it was bolted down to, as Maris jerked back to consciousness.
The Cryptid stared wide-eyed at him, his heart going from relaxed to racing a marathon in barely a second, but the man remained quiet.
“Welcome back to the waking world, Maris. We were beginning to worry there, you were out for quite a while, wasn’t he, Toddles?” His gaze flicked up to Soren Odette, his second in command and older brother, who was standing only a few feet behind the man.
The Harpy’s expression was neutral, as Soren slowly drawled, “Nine hours and fifty-eight minutes, to be exact.”
Ender tipped up his cowboy hat with a chuckle. “Well, shit, we should have waited an extra two minutes and made it even!” The smirk on his face was wide now, as he met Maris’ gaze again. “Oh well. I’m curious, Maris, how much did they pay you?”
Maris swallowed. “I-I d-don’t know what you are talking about.”
“You hear that, Toddles, the man doesn’t know?!”
His brother just sighed, but then, the Harpy wasn’t a big fan of games.
“Unfortunately for you, Maris, fakin’ innocence ain’t gonna cut it.” His smirk turned vicious. “Because we all know what you did. You know what you did, and more importantly,Iknow what you did. So why don’t we cut the bullshit, and you answer my damn question?”
Not that he needed an answer. Ender knew well enough how much Maris was paid. In his mind, it was a pathetic pittance compared with the lives he’d been willing to sacrifice for it.
“Forgive me!” the Cryptid blurted out. “It was a mistake! I’ll make it up to you!”
He tsked. “See, that’s the crux of the issue here, boy. You think this was a simple mistake. That it’s something that can be made up.”
“It was! It can be fixed!”
“Oh, it was already ‘fixed’. But it doesn’t change the fact that you sold a couple of the individuals our organization was helping to fucking traffickers.”
“He was working with humans! Don’t you see, I just did what should have been done! We aren’t supposed to help them! He’s a traitor to our kind! He wasn’t even fully a Cryptid himself!”
See, that was the problem with having an organization that only recruited Cryptids with a slightly anti-human message. It just attracted a lot of fucking bigots. Ender may be anti-government, and have a strong distrust and dislike for most humans, but he did not in fact hate them, or believe that they all deserved to be trafficked, just because others were doing it to Cryptids. The fact was, many of those doing the trafficking were Cryptids themselves. Also, Ender had an equal dislike and distrust for his fellow Cryptids, so…
“Well, ain't that just the cherry on top of this shit pie of a situation. I thought it was greed, but now I get to wonder whether you damaged our reputation over that, or some stupid, ass backwards opinions about Cryptids and humans interloping.
“One would think protecting a family—his wife being human or not, his parents not both being Cryptid or not—would be an easy fucking thing to understand, Maris.”
“I…I’m sorry, I’ll do better! I didn’t mean to?—”
“What?! You mean youdidn’tmean to put our whole fucking reputation in jeopardy, creating doubt as to whether people could trust us to not fucking sell them to one of the many damn governments we are working against?!” Ender hissed.
