He didn’t respond to that, letting the man ramble on, but as he entered his bedroom, heading straight for the bathroom, the Harpy snapped, “ENDER!”
He came to a stop in front of the white double farmhouse sink in his bathroom that was set in a wooden base, and took a deep breath before looking back at the bird with a brow raised. “What?”
“Ender, I know you don’t want to hear this. I know you hate change, but would it be so wrong to face the anniversary of their deaths—of our families and friends’ deaths—without drugs?”
He snorted. “To what end? Or do you have a few specific people you want me to accidentally eat?”
A fire lit up inside the Harpy’s stormy gray eyes as Soren let out a low, angry chirp. “You could at least try and see what happens?! You can’t expect to get better by refusing to let yourself feel it! All you’re doing is hurting yourself more by hiding, and?—”
“I feel enough! And I will do what I damn well see fit when it comes to those hellish days,” Ender snapped with a hiss, glaring pointedly before opening the far left cabinet above the sinks and tossing the bag inside.
“How is refusing to face any of it, refusing to even talk about it, helping anything?!”
He ignored the question, mainly as he didn’t see the point. They were both stubborn, and this conversation was old and tired, just like him. Neither of them would bend here, and they both knew it. Pulling out his birth control to take it, he frowned when nothing popped out of the end of the metal dispenser when he pressed the button for a pill.
“So, you picked up your ‘think no more’ drugs and forgot all about, let me guess, even ordering your birth control pills?” Soren chuckled snidely.
He had in fact forgotten to order them, but he was not going to admit that. “Not like I’ve been having sex recently.”
It would be nice if the latest and greatest scientifically advanced birth control that lasted for years worked on him, so he’d only have to worry about it every decade, but it did not. So, weekly old-school pills it was. At least, they weren’t every day like the ones when he was growing up.
That being said, going without them would fuck with his hormones, and because it was considered a special request, it would take a while for the pharmacy to get the stock in. And like most meds that were intended for him, they couldn’t be fucking stored and still work. Extra hormone fluctuation was definitely not the greatest thing to deal with this close to the anniversary of the Great Gorgon Massacre. But again, it wasn’t like he had plans to do the deed anytime soon, and as he just said, it had been a long while since his last one-night stand.
Longer than he would admit to anyone. Not that a few specific people—Soren being one of them—wouldn’t realize it with how heavily they tracked the movements of everyone in Cryptid Means. Privacy was a luxury they did not have.
Sure, being the boss, he could do shit without being tracked, if he wanted, but his paranoia took comfort in the fact that he was always one hundred percent certain someone was tracking his ass. Whether there were others was always the question, but he knew at least his people were watching!
“Maybe you should,” Toddles drawled. “Could relax your stubborn ass.”
Tossing the empty dispenser back into the cabinet, he turned a smirk Soren’s way. “Why? You offering, Toddles?”
Soren squawked, sputtering for a moment before blurting, “You’re my little brother!”
Instead of pointing out that they weren’t technically blood relatives, he started singing the melody ofDueling Banjos. Either way, the man wasn’t wrong, they were brothers, and that was all he could ever see the Harpy as, but it was also fun to fuck with him.
“Stop,” Soren growled.
Smirk widening, Ender just sang louder, ramping up as the Harpy spun around and scurried away. He followed Soren, singing enthusiastically as he chased after the man, through theunderground compound, all the way up to the surface, causing many of his people to start laughing as they passed.
Ender only stopped when he’d successfully driven Soren out of the compound, and away from him for now. With his eyes on his brother’s tall fleeing form, he stared for a moment more before sighing. “Without drugs, huh?”
He tsked. The few times he’d tried that in the beginning, he ended up almost digesting several people. To be fair, he did eventually spit them out and they were fine…after many years of therapy. As for talking about it…
As numerous faces flashed through his mind, with them came an almost instant stabbing pain in heart. Shaking his head, he banished the memories that tried to surface, rubbing at the tightness in his chest. How could he talk about it when he couldn’t even bear to remember?
Sighing again, Ender headed back inside the white semi-oval building, going down the large freight elevator into the underground and stopping at level one. Cryptid Means headquarters, which was a giant underground base, only had three levels, even if it was expansive. The first level held most of their living quarters.
He had seriously debated on where they should go when construction had started. But his fear of a structural collapse during the middle of the night and being buried many feet underground had made the decision for him. They were currently building another underground compound miles away, on the expansive property that would eventually connect to this one.
As he took the path back to his living quarters, to his ‘house’, Ender ignored the people he passed. He was barely looking at the white walls with black trim as he walked through the halls, his cowboy boots clicking on the black floors that had circle lights built in every five feet.
The path wasn’t long. He only had to take a left at the end of the first hall, and then a right at the branch in the middle of the following, and he would reach the double doors of his home.
Most of the underground had automatic doors that slid upwards when unlocked, but not his house. The entrance to his home, and all the doors inside, had to be opened manually, even if many of them had some type of security lock on them.
Ender’s front doors were wooden and rustic looking, painted a faded red color. The signs of aging were fake, of course. They didn’t look any different from the day they had been installed. The doors opened up into an old fashion foyer with wooden floors and wood dark green wallpapered walls with tiny white flowers on it, which branched out into other rooms and hallways.
Ender took the hall to the left of the entrance, following it straight back until it opened up into a room that had a black glass wall and silver double doors, with a security panel next to it.
