It took longer than normal for his mind to process what Alice was saying, and even so, Thomas couldn't keep his eyes off the puddle of water now forming on the bedspread. "No, I mean yes," he answered without thinking. "I mean, no worse than usual. I just had an unexpected visitor."
He needed something. Activity. Something to keep him from staring at the bedspread, staring at where the Winter Lady had stood, wearing Justine's form like a coat. The scent of pine and snow lingered, a constant reminder, until Thomas forced himself to stop staring at the bedspread and jerked his eyes away to land on the coffee maker. Coffee.
He all but jumped up and began pouring water into the pot, ripping open a bag of coffee and tossing the packet into the top. Coffee to cover up the smell of evergreen, something to drink to wake him up and shake off the dream. It'd been the worst one yet. His fingers shook a little as he poured the water into the coffee pot. "Bad way to wake up," he said with a frail, sheepish smile. "How was the Shoe Tree thing? Not what you'd hoped for?"
"No it wasn't what I'd hoped for, it was a bunch of shoes nailed to a pole, Thomas a visitor? What the hell? Who even knows you're here aside from the package person which is a question on its own lemme tell you. And why does it smell like a forest in here?" And why are you shaking, and did you wet the bed except I can tell you didn't, but that was enough questions in a row. She missed Jasper, really and truly, but it was a lot easier keeping a lid on herself now that Thomas was there. Her headaches had gotten so much better.
"Thomas, come on." She put a hand on his once the coffee was brewing. "What's going on? You're scaring me."
Actually he'd been scaring her a little already. Nothing major. They'd had such a great time in Vegas, and when he'd slept she'd tested the limits of her sight which, on her own, was a pretty small radius, so she'd increased her already ridiculous fortune by quite a bit before they kicked her out. They always kicked her out.
And when he wasn't sleeping they'd been drinking, laughing, actually relaxing. He seemed way better, less like some hollowed out person masquerading as Thomas, and it wasn't like she minded when he started going off with waiters or showgirls or whatever, she had plenty of fun on her own, it was just more and more of them. Every night they'd been there he'd fed a little more, drank a little more, seemed more reckless, and that was kind of good, he was loosening up. But it was kind of weird, too.
Now she wished they were still back there so she could be a little worried instead of really scared. "I'm not just the chick on the back of your bike, ok? I'm a big girl and I have a brain, you can tell me what's happening if something is."
It was the touch of Alice's hand on his, all sour fear and worry, more than her barrage of questions that made Thomas stop, made him pull his eyes away from the coffee percolating away. He had hoped (probably foolishly) that once he'd left the house, once he'd proven to himself that he was under control, that the nightmares would go away, that the Fae would realize he wasn't worth their time.
Apparently he was wrong on both counts. And it was all made worse by the fact that the gnawing hunger was back. He'd fed in Vegas. Fed often, like he had at the house, hunting multiple does and bucks in one night, a cocktail waitress here, a dealer there. And here it was again, that gnawing hunger at the back of his mind, the emptiness in his soul gaping just a little wider.
"I know." The words slipped out quietly, without thought, even as Thomas tried to find the words to explain. "She found me once while Lacci and I were out," he said, careful and hesitant, as if the very mention of her would bring Maeve back. "The Faerie. The Winter Lady. Whatever you want to call her. Wanted to make a deal."
The coffee maker was still bubbling away, but the strong smell of slightly burnt coffee was already overpowering the lingering scent of snow. Thomas sat down heavily on the hotel couch and ran a hand through his hair, a look of lost disbelief on his face. "I thought it was all going to stop once I got away from everything. Once I got back in control."
Alice talked a mile a minute, sure. No one was more aware of that than she was, but she wondered sometimes how it was other people just condensed such huge pieces of information into tiny little sentences, like that was better. The weird consequence was that she ended up responding in kind 'cause she really, really had to think, and it was noisy in Alice's head to begin with.
"She wanted to make a deal?" Alice had heard whispers of all kinds of stuff over the years, had seen more stuff than she actually had names for just by looking at people's paths, and the Fae or whatever, they were bad fucking news. The door Thomas had cut had been hilarious just to see the look on Edward's face - he never believed her when she told him there were way more than vampires and werewolves in the world, which, so blind - but the cat thing had been less amusing, and now there was a Queen popping up regularly? And she wanted Thomas? Bad didn't even begin to cover it.
Then there was the whole other spiel Thomas had gone into about control and everything stopping and it wasn't totally comforting, all at once. What she'd wanted to hear was that he was just getting his sea legs back and it was all totally normal, even if she didn't completely buy it. Everyone needed room to wobble for awhile, but Alice wasn't stupid. She knew damned well what 'everything' was code for, and that raised a bunch of questions that for once, she really didn't want to ask. Didn't mean she wasn't going to have to. Damnit.
Alice curled onto the couch, slipping her arms around Thomas' waist. "You seem pretty in control to me aside from not being able to make a cup of coffee worth a damn, that smells foul." He looked even more helpless than he had when she'd come in, which again, bad sign. "Thomas? Your nightmares. I mean- do you remember anything else? What happened when you left?"
"Don't say that like you think I'm going to accept any sort of deal with the fae. I swear you and Lacci talk like I don't have an ounce of common sense," Thomas grumbled, letting Alice wrap her arms around him without complaint. He didn't even manage false irritation, which actually did irritate him on some level. Unfortunately, his mind was too busy being currently occupied by the fact that Maeve had found him.
He did manage a smile at the coffee crack though. "Smells better than snow and pine," he pointed out, unconsciously resting against Alice. The memories floated back to the top of his mind easily, spurred by the nightmares and the question. He was too tired tonight, too tired and unsettled to put forth the effort right now to hide, and Thomas suspected Alice recognized it, was striking while the iron was freaked out and unstable, so to speak.
"When I actually left, or everything that led up to it?" He frowned a little, remembering the bar. The memories there were fuzzy, as if seen through a haze of curling smoke. If he inhaled deeply, he thought he could smell it. Roses and night blooming jasmine, niggling at the back of his mind like some little tic or itch just out of reach.
"I remember being hungry. And there was the girl." Her name was Grace. He tried not to think too hard about that. Everything had been clearer, sharper, more in focus that night because he thought he needed it, needed the Hunger's awareness to keep them safe from the Other. "Dru... not Her, but Dru, was there. With the girl. Offering her like some sort of appetizer." Thomas shivered a little at the memory. There had been frustration. Irritation. Things he hadn't recalled at the time because he had been so seduced by the scent of roses and jasmine. The scent of madness.
Thomas blinked a little, several puzzle pieces falling into place. "I think Edward and I might have fought over a girl." His words were almost comical in their simplicity, coloured even more so by his own disbelief at the idea.
The Fae could wait, he really wasn't that stupid and overall she really didn't want to know what they might have offered him, safe to say it was a bad experience and she'd leave it at that except for keeping an eye out.
For now she took his weight and let him rest while he groped for memories, even if it did make her head hurt and that was mostly her own frustration at not being able to have just seen it, but she kept a clamp on that. She was getting used to it, and anyway she didn't want to interrupt his train of thought with shiny new emotions popping up and waving signs.
"So you and Edward... what, had an argument about who got to feed?" That didn't seem right, not with all the footage she'd seen of the two of them living it up in co-ed town. And Dru had just been Dru apparently, which along with the past few days was beginning to make her think her understanding of the whole situation had been really, scarily wrong.
She stayed as calm as you could under those circumstances which was something she was pretty schooled at, thanks to Jasper. Just hugged him a little tighter and tried to word it right. "What happened next?"
The way Alice asked the question, as if she couldn't quite believe it, provoked a dry chuckle. "Doesn't seem quite right, does it?" he asked. "I don't get it either. But it's what happened." He tried not to think too hard about Grace, about her trembling innocence. The mere memory of her was sharpening the hunger that gnawed at him.
The memory unfolded, the bright quivering taste of Grace on his tongue, clinging to his skin like opium. Opium. Not roses and jasmine. He'd thought it had been Dru, the fact that the bar was hers, that clung to him, that whispered madness into his mind, but it had been Grace.
"Empty night, she was crazy." The niggling feeling at the back of his mind eased a little as a piece fell into place, explained why he had been so drawn to her, more so than just her innocence. It had been Grace's insanity, that whispering call of volatile, intense emotions, that had snared him.
That little revelation made things clearer, and Thomas became aware again that he was leaning on Alice. "No offense, Alice," he added with a teasing grin. "I like crazy women."
"Whatever, that's like the worst kept secret." She grinned right back, and it wasn't like she was offended, but it poked at something she couldn't really make out herself, little whispers at the back of her head that were always there anyway becoming more animated and confusing. Some crazy girl that Edward had wanted for whatever messed up reason and Thomas had wanted because he was Thomas, and Dru had been there oh christ Dru had been there.
There wasn't a whole lot Alice remembered about that night at the mall other than bare facts. It was a movie she could replay without feeling anything about it one way or the other and maybe facts were missing in places, but one thing flared to life like black and white gone vibrantly colored. Crazy girls belonged to Dru. Little pieces of them or even big ones, she guessed. Even a little piece of Alice.
"You can't really offend me I mean you could try, but it'd have to be pretty bad and even then I bounce back easy, calling me crazy isn't even trying it's like 'oh hey Alice you like shoes, ha ha'." Either she babbled now or he'd feel the fear a mile away and it was just not the time. "So a bunch of vampires walk into a bar and two of them meet a girl from Loopytown. Finish the joke, yeah?"
There was a certain amount of comfort in Alice's babble, and Thomas grinned back, letting her voice wash over him as he looked back on that night with new eyes. It explained a couple of things, like why he hadn't felt Dru, felt Her, until she'd slapped him and kissed him with lips that burned like fire. He'd felt madness, thought he had been too far gone to notice any change, but if it had been all Grace...
"Dru hadn't been there." The thought was so surprising it came out of his mouth the second it popped into his mind. "Dru left. And came back." His memory was fuzzy, too fuzzy to be perfectly reliable, but it had the ring of truth in it. She hadn't been there when he'd lost control.
The knowledge sat like a rock in Thomas' stomach, heavy and inescapable. Had it been just him? Him losing control because he'd... It still didn't explain why. A hundred different things went through Thomas' mind, but the only thing that showed on his face was dawning comprehension and a growing horror. "Why didn't I remember that? It hadn't been Her. It'd been me."
There were a bunch of ways Alice could think of off the top of her head to rationalize that. She was still there, and even if she wasn't a Goddess right at that second, and how did that even work anyway, and none of it made one bit of sense. If she said it out loud she would only make it worse, 'cause this was clearly the real problem. Whatever that was.
It just wasn't Dru. No way in hell was Dru going to urge him on to demon out on a mad girl in her presence. Alice knew it in her bones.
This was what had been creeping over her since Vegas. Thomas hadn't been loosening up, he'd been sliding for no reason she could see, except maybe stress or worry or whatever it was that made Thomas let things slip any given day, and Dru hadn't been there then. The weight of it was right there on his face.
"You know I told you I'd seen you go- whatever happens. With your eyes." She held on to him as tight as she could without actually restricting air flow. "A couple of times, anyway, but it doesn't matter because you chose different and that's what's important, but Dru wasn't always there. Not every time." She bit her lip. "I thought you knew that, I mean I thought it was like, roaming, or she was in your head or something, hell I don't know how this Goddess crap works."
Except she kind of did; if Dru was going to be in anyone's head it wouldn't be Thomas', flipping his demon switch and making him feed. It would be Mary Alice Brandon's. And Alice, despite having angered Dru to the point where she was pretty sure she was going to die the minute she set foot in that house, aside from being blocked since way before Dru went supernova, was fine.
"It doesn't matter if it was you, Thomas. You're still you, it's gonna be ok. You're still ok. We'll figure it out."
It helped that his stomach was empty. It also helped that Alice was holding on tight enough that it was almost hard to breathe. Almost. But it was a reminder of things being real, things being solid. He took long, deep breaths, the new knowledge an uncomfortable weight against his shoulders, and twisted enough in Alice's arms to kiss her.
The Hunger flared a little at the contact, but Thomas kept it buried, kept the kiss warm but not heated. Just comfort. Comfort and thanks for simply being here with him. Thomas pulled away with reluctance, feeling the edges of want creep through his consciousness, and gave Alice a wavering smile. "Don't look at me like I'm about to break," he chided, forcing levity into his voice. "Though if you don't ease up, I might shatter."
He needed a distraction, something to think about besides bad dreams, faeries, and the fact that he was losing control of his own mind. It occured to Thomas that he could ask. That the demon inside his head could and would answer truthfully if he asked why he'd lost control, if he bound it with the proper words. But that was dwelling, and he shoved the thought away for another night. Another time.
"I'll consult the voices in my head sometime. You can even be around for it," he continued, eyes falling on the side table, at the shopping bag and package. "Did you go shopping for brown cardboard boxes?"
Damnit. She really didn't want him to break open, no matter how much she pestered him. This was big, even Alice needed time to wrap her head around what it meant, and not just for him. There were whole huge sweeping things turned upside down if this was true, and it obviously was. A bunch of stuff she hadn't wanted to examine but was clearly going to have to at some point. So yeah, she could talk about shopping and be kissed and figure this stuff out later if that's what he decided he wanted. It was definitely what she wanted for the next ten minutes, at least.
But that package, oh god she'd forgotten all about it. "Thomas seriously not now, ok? You just got- visited, and there's no one else who knows we're here, I don't know if it's a good time to be all curious about mysterious brown packages showing up for you in random cities, yeah?" If he was getting offers from faerie queens who left wet spots on the bed she was not exactly intrigued by the possibilities.
"All the more reason to check the mystery package now," he said pragmatically, falling back into familiar territory, of being paranoid of little threats like Lara. Thomas' lips twisted a little at the thought. Since when did Lara get lumped into the 'little threats' category?
Right. Since Drusilla became a fledgling goddess and they'd gotten all wrapped up in demonic law firms.
"Better check it out and if it's explosive, toss it into the dumpster and blow out of this town. There's way too much sand here, you know." Thomas grinned at Alice and nibbled a little at her lip. "And if it isn't an explosive or a severed head, we'll go scandalize the old folks lounging by the pool."
Untangling himself from Alice, Thoas took the few steps to the package. The actual printed shipping label had been slapped on over another label, handwritten, that had simply been addressed "To Thomas." That was handwriting he'd know anywhere, and he ripped the label off without hesitation, crumpling it in his hand as he pulled the box open.
Amid the crumpled brown paper wrapping rested a little white leather box. Thomas remembered the last time he saw it and stiffened. "Just some thing I left at the house," he said, surprised by how calm his voice sounded as he folded the flaps back over the box. "Guess someone decided to send it to me."
Turning his back on the package, Thomas offered Alice a hand. "Poolside?"
She took his hand all right, and yanked herself right next to him, staring at the box but managing to be just polite enough not to rip it open and look for herself.
"Sure I have a really cute new swimsuit I got today and it demands moonbathing and also I'm a total idiot who drops things like they don't matter cause I was replaced with a clone while you weren't looking. Thomas. Someone decided to send you something to this hotel that we checked into six hours ago? What the hell is in there? Who is it from?"
"It was worth a shot?" Thomas asked with a hopeful grin. The grin disappeared as quickly as it had come as he held out the torn off shipping labels. "You're not going to like it," he warned. "But it's from Dru and the law firm." At least that's who he suspected had attached the actual shipping label.
"Go ahead and take a look if you want," he added, resigned. "Just don't expect me to touch it. I've got collected enough scars on this trip already."
The weird thing was, hearing it was from Dru - and ok the law firm but everything in that house was and she didn't scare easy, no matter what they'd done to Dru and Lacci and her brother - was actually kind of a relief. Better than some surprise from a faerie, which on reflection was kind of dumb. She would've just brought it and left it while she was there. Still.
Alice pulled back the cardboard flaps and picked up the little leather box gingerly, a curiosity. She even opened it, taking in the old rusted key and map coordinates. Any other time this kind of present would have filled her with a very particular kind of Alice glee, but this was Dru's, it was really specific and really- hang on.
"Look allow me to take this moment to apologize for the last time about Jasper's ring, cause seriously you only get to hold that over me for a week max, and in return you tell me why this would burn you? What is it?"
He needed something. Activity. Something to keep him from staring at the bedspread, staring at where the Winter Lady had stood, wearing Justine's form like a coat. The scent of pine and snow lingered, a constant reminder, until Thomas forced himself to stop staring at the bedspread and jerked his eyes away to land on the coffee maker. Coffee.
He all but jumped up and began pouring water into the pot, ripping open a bag of coffee and tossing the packet into the top. Coffee to cover up the smell of evergreen, something to drink to wake him up and shake off the dream. It'd been the worst one yet. His fingers shook a little as he poured the water into the coffee pot. "Bad way to wake up," he said with a frail, sheepish smile. "How was the Shoe Tree thing? Not what you'd hoped for?"
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"Thomas, come on." She put a hand on his once the coffee was brewing. "What's going on? You're scaring me."
Actually he'd been scaring her a little already. Nothing major. They'd had such a great time in Vegas, and when he'd slept she'd tested the limits of her sight which, on her own, was a pretty small radius, so she'd increased her already ridiculous fortune by quite a bit before they kicked her out. They always kicked her out.
And when he wasn't sleeping they'd been drinking, laughing, actually relaxing. He seemed way better, less like some hollowed out person masquerading as Thomas, and it wasn't like she minded when he started going off with waiters or showgirls or whatever, she had plenty of fun on her own, it was just more and more of them. Every night they'd been there he'd fed a little more, drank a little more, seemed more reckless, and that was kind of good, he was loosening up. But it was kind of weird, too.
Now she wished they were still back there so she could be a little worried instead of really scared. "I'm not just the chick on the back of your bike, ok? I'm a big girl and I have a brain, you can tell me what's happening if something is."
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Apparently he was wrong on both counts. And it was all made worse by the fact that the gnawing hunger was back. He'd fed in Vegas. Fed often, like he had at the house, hunting multiple does and bucks in one night, a cocktail waitress here, a dealer there. And here it was again, that gnawing hunger at the back of his mind, the emptiness in his soul gaping just a little wider.
"I know." The words slipped out quietly, without thought, even as Thomas tried to find the words to explain. "She found me once while Lacci and I were out," he said, careful and hesitant, as if the very mention of her would bring Maeve back. "The Faerie. The Winter Lady. Whatever you want to call her. Wanted to make a deal."
The coffee maker was still bubbling away, but the strong smell of slightly burnt coffee was already overpowering the lingering scent of snow. Thomas sat down heavily on the hotel couch and ran a hand through his hair, a look of lost disbelief on his face. "I thought it was all going to stop once I got away from everything. Once I got back in control."
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"She wanted to make a deal?" Alice had heard whispers of all kinds of stuff over the years, had seen more stuff than she actually had names for just by looking at people's paths, and the Fae or whatever, they were bad fucking news. The door Thomas had cut had been hilarious just to see the look on Edward's face - he never believed her when she told him there were way more than vampires and werewolves in the world, which, so blind - but the cat thing had been less amusing, and now there was a Queen popping up regularly? And she wanted Thomas? Bad didn't even begin to cover it.
Then there was the whole other spiel Thomas had gone into about control and everything stopping and it wasn't totally comforting, all at once. What she'd wanted to hear was that he was just getting his sea legs back and it was all totally normal, even if she didn't completely buy it. Everyone needed room to wobble for awhile, but Alice wasn't stupid. She knew damned well what 'everything' was code for, and that raised a bunch of questions that for once, she really didn't want to ask. Didn't mean she wasn't going to have to. Damnit.
Alice curled onto the couch, slipping her arms around Thomas' waist. "You seem pretty in control to me aside from not being able to make a cup of coffee worth a damn, that smells foul." He looked even more helpless than he had when she'd come in, which again, bad sign. "Thomas? Your nightmares. I mean- do you remember anything else? What happened when you left?"
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He did manage a smile at the coffee crack though. "Smells better than snow and pine," he pointed out, unconsciously resting against Alice. The memories floated back to the top of his mind easily, spurred by the nightmares and the question. He was too tired tonight, too tired and unsettled to put forth the effort right now to hide, and Thomas suspected Alice recognized it, was striking while the iron was freaked out and unstable, so to speak.
"When I actually left, or everything that led up to it?" He frowned a little, remembering the bar. The memories there were fuzzy, as if seen through a haze of curling smoke. If he inhaled deeply, he thought he could smell it. Roses and night blooming jasmine, niggling at the back of his mind like some little tic or itch just out of reach.
"I remember being hungry. And there was the girl." Her name was Grace. He tried not to think too hard about that. Everything had been clearer, sharper, more in focus that night because he thought he needed it, needed the Hunger's awareness to keep them safe from the Other. "Dru... not Her, but Dru, was there. With the girl. Offering her like some sort of appetizer." Thomas shivered a little at the memory. There had been frustration. Irritation. Things he hadn't recalled at the time because he had been so seduced by the scent of roses and jasmine. The scent of madness.
Thomas blinked a little, several puzzle pieces falling into place. "I think Edward and I might have fought over a girl." His words were almost comical in their simplicity, coloured even more so by his own disbelief at the idea.
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For now she took his weight and let him rest while he groped for memories, even if it did make her head hurt and that was mostly her own frustration at not being able to have just seen it, but she kept a clamp on that. She was getting used to it, and anyway she didn't want to interrupt his train of thought with shiny new emotions popping up and waving signs.
"So you and Edward... what, had an argument about who got to feed?" That didn't seem right, not with all the footage she'd seen of the two of them living it up in co-ed town. And Dru had just been Dru apparently, which along with the past few days was beginning to make her think her understanding of the whole situation had been really, scarily wrong.
She stayed as calm as you could under those circumstances which was something she was pretty schooled at, thanks to Jasper. Just hugged him a little tighter and tried to word it right. "What happened next?"
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The memory unfolded, the bright quivering taste of Grace on his tongue, clinging to his skin like opium. Opium. Not roses and jasmine. He'd thought it had been Dru, the fact that the bar was hers, that clung to him, that whispered madness into his mind, but it had been Grace.
"Empty night, she was crazy." The niggling feeling at the back of his mind eased a little as a piece fell into place, explained why he had been so drawn to her, more so than just her innocence. It had been Grace's insanity, that whispering call of volatile, intense emotions, that had snared him.
That little revelation made things clearer, and Thomas became aware again that he was leaning on Alice. "No offense, Alice," he added with a teasing grin. "I like crazy women."
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There wasn't a whole lot Alice remembered about that night at the mall other than bare facts. It was a movie she could replay without feeling anything about it one way or the other and maybe facts were missing in places, but one thing flared to life like black and white gone vibrantly colored. Crazy girls belonged to Dru. Little pieces of them or even big ones, she guessed. Even a little piece of Alice.
"You can't really offend me I mean you could try, but it'd have to be pretty bad and even then I bounce back easy, calling me crazy isn't even trying it's like 'oh hey Alice you like shoes, ha ha'." Either she babbled now or he'd feel the fear a mile away and it was just not the time. "So a bunch of vampires walk into a bar and two of them meet a girl from Loopytown. Finish the joke, yeah?"
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"Dru hadn't been there." The thought was so surprising it came out of his mouth the second it popped into his mind. "Dru left. And came back." His memory was fuzzy, too fuzzy to be perfectly reliable, but it had the ring of truth in it. She hadn't been there when he'd lost control.
The knowledge sat like a rock in Thomas' stomach, heavy and inescapable. Had it been just him? Him losing control because he'd... It still didn't explain why. A hundred different things went through Thomas' mind, but the only thing that showed on his face was dawning comprehension and a growing horror. "Why didn't I remember that? It hadn't been Her. It'd been me."
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It just wasn't Dru. No way in hell was Dru going to urge him on to demon out on a mad girl in her presence. Alice knew it in her bones.
This was what had been creeping over her since Vegas. Thomas hadn't been loosening up, he'd been sliding for no reason she could see, except maybe stress or worry or whatever it was that made Thomas let things slip any given day, and Dru hadn't been there then. The weight of it was right there on his face.
"You know I told you I'd seen you go- whatever happens. With your eyes." She held on to him as tight as she could without actually restricting air flow. "A couple of times, anyway, but it doesn't matter because you chose different and that's what's important, but Dru wasn't always there. Not every time." She bit her lip. "I thought you knew that, I mean I thought it was like, roaming, or she was in your head or something, hell I don't know how this Goddess crap works."
Except she kind of did; if Dru was going to be in anyone's head it wouldn't be Thomas', flipping his demon switch and making him feed. It would be Mary Alice Brandon's. And Alice, despite having angered Dru to the point where she was pretty sure she was going to die the minute she set foot in that house, aside from being blocked since way before Dru went supernova, was fine.
"It doesn't matter if it was you, Thomas. You're still you, it's gonna be ok. You're still ok. We'll figure it out."
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The Hunger flared a little at the contact, but Thomas kept it buried, kept the kiss warm but not heated. Just comfort. Comfort and thanks for simply being here with him. Thomas pulled away with reluctance, feeling the edges of want creep through his consciousness, and gave Alice a wavering smile. "Don't look at me like I'm about to break," he chided, forcing levity into his voice. "Though if you don't ease up, I might shatter."
He needed a distraction, something to think about besides bad dreams, faeries, and the fact that he was losing control of his own mind. It occured to Thomas that he could ask. That the demon inside his head could and would answer truthfully if he asked why he'd lost control, if he bound it with the proper words. But that was dwelling, and he shoved the thought away for another night. Another time.
"I'll consult the voices in my head sometime. You can even be around for it," he continued, eyes falling on the side table, at the shopping bag and package. "Did you go shopping for brown cardboard boxes?"
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But that package, oh god she'd forgotten all about it. "Thomas seriously not now, ok? You just got- visited, and there's no one else who knows we're here, I don't know if it's a good time to be all curious about mysterious brown packages showing up for you in random cities, yeah?" If he was getting offers from faerie queens who left wet spots on the bed she was not exactly intrigued by the possibilities.
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Right. Since Drusilla became a fledgling goddess and they'd gotten all wrapped up in demonic law firms.
"Better check it out and if it's explosive, toss it into the dumpster and blow out of this town. There's way too much sand here, you know." Thomas grinned at Alice and nibbled a little at her lip. "And if it isn't an explosive or a severed head, we'll go scandalize the old folks lounging by the pool."
Untangling himself from Alice, Thoas took the few steps to the package. The actual printed shipping label had been slapped on over another label, handwritten, that had simply been addressed "To Thomas." That was handwriting he'd know anywhere, and he ripped the label off without hesitation, crumpling it in his hand as he pulled the box open.
Amid the crumpled brown paper wrapping rested a little white leather box. Thomas remembered the last time he saw it and stiffened. "Just some thing I left at the house," he said, surprised by how calm his voice sounded as he folded the flaps back over the box. "Guess someone decided to send it to me."
Turning his back on the package, Thomas offered Alice a hand. "Poolside?"
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"Sure I have a really cute new swimsuit I got today and it demands moonbathing and also I'm a total idiot who drops things like they don't matter cause I was replaced with a clone while you weren't looking. Thomas. Someone decided to send you something to this hotel that we checked into six hours ago? What the hell is in there? Who is it from?"
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"Go ahead and take a look if you want," he added, resigned. "Just don't expect me to touch it. I've got collected enough scars on this trip already."
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Alice pulled back the cardboard flaps and picked up the little leather box gingerly, a curiosity. She even opened it, taking in the old rusted key and map coordinates. Any other time this kind of present would have filled her with a very particular kind of Alice glee, but this was Dru's, it was really specific and really- hang on.
"Look allow me to take this moment to apologize for the last time about Jasper's ring, cause seriously you only get to hold that over me for a week max, and in return you tell me why this would burn you? What is it?"
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