70Once upon a time, there was a little boy. Like other little boys his age, he hated playing with girls, liked matchbox cars and often caused messes even when he wasn't trying to.
He lived in a normal little town and went to school with all the other normal little children. His grades were average, as were his clothing and his looks. His parents were normal and they lived in a normal suburb in a house that looked just like all the other houses lined up beside it.
In fact, most would say that there was nothing abnormal at all about this little boy. But, as is often the case with these stories, appearances can be deceiving. For this little boy had a secret that he kept from everyone.
Mayhap, his parents might have noted the occasionally odd tidbit about him. Certainly, they had to have been aware of this little boy's differences when he'd been a child. Seaweed hair, antlers, horns, forked tongues and other such fanciful observations that he stubbornly assigned the people around him.
But like normal parents, they explained away their son's abnormalities as quickly as they popped up. An over active imagination. Too much TV. Attention deficit disorder. Asperger's. Autism.
After many credited specialists that declared him normal, his parents decided to pretend that the problem didn't exist. And after much unneeded and unwanted therapy, so did the boy.
So, the little boy grew up, keeping all that he saw a secret. And while he looked like a normal child on the outside, he wasn't very normal at all.
But, then again, as this story goes, you shall see that many people are more extraordinary than they seem.
00000
Elijah tried to huddle deeper into the big brown coat he was wearing. It was December and outside the snow was falling in a fashion that looked decidedly more sinister than happy or cozy. The café was warm, and dimly lit with strategically placed lamps that simulated candlelight. Despite the cold weather and heavily falling snow, it was bustling with activity and Elijah had to shove his book bag under the stool he was sitting on so that no one would trip over it in the clutter that was the arrangement of tables, chairs and booths.
As he took a sip of his coffee, a chunk of snow fell from his wet, black hair and into the steaming cup splashing up just enough so that the coffee burned his hands. Growling, Elijah grabbed some napkins, closed his blue eyes and shook his head a little bit in an attempt to dislodge the rest of the snow that was beginning to melt and dribble down the sides of his face and down the back of his neck.
Of course, his luck being what it was, he managed to get a few of the other people wet with his little shake and he tried to apologize for it, feeling all the while that he was apologizing for not being dressed quite as trendily as they were. Although, really, he didn't see anything wrong with a good pair of jeans and a sturdy—if old—pair of scuffed tennis shoes and a warm, if ragged looking, old corduroy winter coat.
Sighing, he blew over his coffee, knowing that blowing on it wasn't actually going to a damn thing to make it cooler, but liking the normalness of the gesture all the same.
Which, in itself was stupid, because he hated being trapped in the confines of normality. And maybe every kid his age felt like that at one point or another. Maybe everyone stumbled on some moment in time where they felt like they were playing a part.
Of course, even if that were the case, Elijah still felt isolated in it. If feeling abnormal was so damned normal, no one could have proved it by him. It was easier to just not speak to people in general instead of trying to decipher what it was that they wanted from him that he'd inevitably be unable to deliver. He saw things. He saw people in all their sizes, shapes, and colors.
And despite the way people often complained to the contrary, very few people actually wanted other people to see and to see them as they truly were. So, Elijah did his best to oblige them.
If he saw, he kept it to himself. In fact, he'd actually gotten rather good at keeping to himself. Which was why he'd told his very normal, very down to earth parents that he was going out to the movies with some nonexistent friends. It got them off his back about being social and it got him some down time to himself.
Although, he was seriously beginning to regret his choice in hideouts. Too many people. Of all kinds.
He heaved a sigh and threw his head back, accidentally connecting with someone else in the process in the crowded coffee house.
"You okay?"
"What?" Elijah asked rather stupidly, rubbing the back of his head. Turning, Elijah looked up to see a boy his age looking down at him. He had two canes, his hands on the rubber grips to support himself as the upper part of the canes formed a cuff around his forearms. And given how tender the back of his scalp felt, Elijah imagined he'd connected with one of the canes instead of with the boy himself.
"Yeah, I'm fine. T-totally fine," he managed to stutter out, flustered as the boy quirked an eyebrow and gave him a mischievous grin. Elijah blushed. He was dressed much nicer than Elijah in a black felt coat, khakis, a warm looking green sweater and scarf. His curly blond-brown hair probably looked a lot nicer than Elijah's own wet scraggly locks did as well.
"Well, well, don't we have a high opinion of ourselves?" The boy winked and shuffled off as Elijah scowled at his back. For someone who had two horns that snuck out of his head just above his hairline, he had a lot of balls, Elijah figured.
The scowl deepened farther as the boy sat down at a table with a bunch of other teenagers, pointed at Elijah, and the entire group laughed.
Of course, the table was entirely peopled with "spirits" as Elijah called them, but it still didn't make the situation seem any less embarrassing. He took another sip of his coffee and tried to discreetly watch them.
Long ago, when he'd finally learned not to tell everyone that he could see people with antlers on their heads and seaweed in their hair, he'd divided all the strangers he saw into categories. "Normals" looked like him and were like him. Kind of. The "spirits" were divided up into all sorts of different categories that seemed to have a great deal to do with nature and elements, although each spirit had their own unique set of features, just like normals.
The table that Handicapped Boy sat at was peopled entirely by spirits. There was a girl with long flowing blue-green hair and incandescent skin. One of the boys had a small set of antlers and three fingers on each hand. Another boy had dark tanned skin, flame red hair and what Elijah had long ago termed snake eyes that marked him as more of a desert spirit than the woodland or sea spirits that usually populated this part of town. He was also gesturing towards Elijah, waving an orange cap in his hands as he leaned over to whisper in handicapped boy's ear.
"He's looking over here at you," Ben whispered in Tier's ear, tickling it with his forked tongue. Glaring, Tier tried to shoo Ben away as he fought down a blush. So Tier thought the scruffy looking, depressed kid was cute. Was that really a crime his friends had to mock him for?
Of course, that was a dumb question, because they liked mocking him. And they liked mocking the way he always found the normals so attractive.
"I think you should try sticking to your own kind, Tier," Cassie snorted with a giggle as the cute normal turned back around to ignore them. Tier sighed heavily and glared at her. "I'm just saying. There's no way he'll ever have a prayer of understanding you or your family or us. It's just the way it works." She held up her hands in defense. "There are a lot of us who swing your way. You don't have to resort to a normal to find love. If you want I could set you up." She wiggled her eyebrows invitingly.
"Ew, don't take her up on it, Tier," Charlie butted in. "The last girl she set me up with bit my neck and it took a week for the marks to heal up. My mother had kittens and made me wear turtlenecks until it was gone," Charlie joked, getting a punch to the ribs from Cassie in return. "Hey, do you know how hard it is to get turtlenecks on over these?" Charlie pointed to his antlers, and they all collectively groaned.
"If you don't quit talking about them, I'm gonna shoot you and mount your head on my wall," Ben snorted while managing to hiss at the same time, his forked tongue flicking out in mild irritation. While they were fascinated by Ben's hissing accent, his pretty slitted eyes and his sandy brown skin; Ben seemed to be living in antler envy each time Charlie thought to brag about his rack. Or, at least, that was how Tier had chosen to see it.
"Shut it, the whole lot of you," Tier managed after downing the rest of his coffee. "It doesn't matter anyway. He didn't seem too interested." Sighing, he picked up Ben's orange cap and slapped it on his friend's red hair before sliding his arms back into his canes.
"Oh, I don't know about that," Ben whispered again, and Tier flinched as the tongue tickled his ear again, "he's headed over this way."
"Hi," the normal stated bluntly, and Tier had to kick Cassie under the table to keep her from giggling.
"Hello," Tier returned politely, despite the fact that Charlie had kicked him, hard, under the table. It was a bit difficult to keep a smile on his face though since it hurt, and he watched as the cute normal's face fell a little bit.
"Um, I've got this project for school, and they want us to take photographs of different parts of town and the people we see and I was wondering if I could take your p-picture." To say that the normal looked extremely uncomfortable asking that question would be an understatement.
Charlie, though, who was something of an attention slut, enthusiastically nodded. "Sure! We'd love that!" From the way Charlie winced, it was pretty obvious to Tier that Ben had kicked the antlered boy under the table.
The normal blushed, but his eyes never left Tier, and this time Tier was able to give him his biggest, brightest, flirtiest smile as the boy held up a digital camera and took their picture. "Say, we're headed to a party, maybe you'd like to come?" The question slipped right out of Tier's mouth before he could stop it. From the glares on his friends' faces, he could tell they were not happy with his extending the invitation.
"I dunno," the normal said both surprised and uncertain. Cassie, of course, looked triumphant at that.
"You probably wouldn't like it," she flipped her long seaweedy hair over her shoulder and literally looked down her nose at him. "Besides, it's on the other side of town and our car doesn't have enough room for another person."
Since that was such an out and out rude lie, Tier had no problem at all kicking her under the table, hard. She winced, but the damage was already done since the normal was looking at all of them in disgust. "Don't mind her, she's not used to being around other people," Tier tried to apologize, only to have Ben smack him upside the head.
"That's okay, I'm not big on parties anyway," the normal returned quietly before abruptly turning on his heel and stomping out of the café all together.
"Now look what you guys did!" Tier turned angrily on his friends. "He was interested!"
They all looked mildly apologetic, but Cassie probably said it for them all when she shrugged with, "Tier, he's a normal. It never would have worked, anyway."
Elijah looked into the LCD screen of his digital camera and sighed. It had been an expensive camera, but it had been money well spent since it was the only way he could see spirits the same way that everyone else saw them. The boy with the antlers just had normal brown hair and the normal number of fingers. The boy with the reptile eyes had hazel eyes and his hair was more of a muted red brown instead of the bright flaming red that it had been previously. The snotty girl was pale, but her skin didn't shine like a pearl in the picture and her hair was long and brown and without the slightest trace of seaweed. And the handicapped boy looked just as he had before, but without the horns as his honey brown eyes shined in the picture.
Putting the camera back in its case, he put the case in his backpack and then hunched his shoulders and pulled his coat tight around him. It was freezing outside, and the bus wasn't going to come for another half an hour, but Elijah didn't feel like waiting inside. Sliding down onto a bench, he let out a tired sigh. He didn't want to go home either. If he came home any time before eleven thirty there would be a thousand questions about why he was home so early, who he'd hung out with, why he wasn't currently hanging out with them.
And it would all spiral out of his control until they were questions about why he'd lied, why he wasn't partying with other kids his age, why he couldn't be social like everyone else, and the inevitable did he want to talk to someone about it.
Which no, he certainly did not. He'd have thought they'd simply be happy with the fact that he wasn't out on the streets doing drugs or something. But no, of course not. It wasn't his fault that he found the high school football games mind numbingly boring or that he didn't see the point in spending the night driving aimlessly around town with people he'd never exchanged more than a handful of sentences with.
Maybe he'd just get off the bus a couple stops earlier and just hang out at the grocery store and steal a couple of grapes or something until it closed.
"Look, I think I'm just going to go home." Tier hobbled behind Ben as they filed out of the coffee house. He still mildly pissed at his friends. It wasn't that he couldn't see their point, because he could. A relationship with a normal was somewhat self-destructive. There was a whole part of him he'd never be able to share, and even if he tried, convincing a normal that there really were people out in the world like him- people who had horns and antlers and funny colored skin-would be impossible.
"Oh get over it, Tier," Cassie snorted, reaching back to tug on Tier's curls. He glared at her, readjusting his canes. They'd known each other since they were kids, so it was hard to stay too mad at her, although if she kept rubbing in that she was taller and older, he might have to take revenge.
"Ooh, I think he's stalking you!" Charlie's squeal was only a couple decibels. And Tier managed a glare at him and gave a small smile to Ben when Ben smacked Charlie upside the head.
The normal, who was indeed sitting on a bus bench not too far from them, glanced their way, and Tier tried not to wince as he rolled his eyes at Tier and the group. "Could you guys be any more rude and obnoxious?"
"No, I like being rude and obnoxious. It suits my personality," Charlie preened, and again Tier was glad that they'd adopted Ben into their group as Ben threw an arm around Charlie and pulled his stupid antler head into a chokehold.
"Shut up, idiot," Ben hissed laughingly into Charlie's ear and Tier caught the normal watching the whole exchange as they walked past. Tier tried to give him a sympathetic smile, but he only got a look of mild irritation in return.
"Tier," Cassie leaned over, her blue-green bangs tickling Tier's ear, "he's staring at you."
"Only because he wishes all of our rude asses would spontaneously catch fire," Tier snarked back. The snow was coming down hard now, blowing in his face, and in general, convincing Tier that partying was the absolute last thing he wanted to do tonight. Not that it would be many more people than him, Ben, Charlie, Cassie and a couple other friends. Neither Tier nor Ben were big on huge parties. Cassie could party until the sun rose, and Charlie would bump and grind with anything that walked for a couple of hours. It was only out of respect and a very long and involved relationship with Tier that they agreed to tone it down to a smaller, more secluded group on occasion.
And Tier really didn't see what it would have hurt to invite the normal with them to see a movie at Angelo's. They danced with all kinds of normals at the clubs. He didn't see how this was so wildly different. It was just down the street, and the normal really hadn't seemed like the kind of guy who would have overstayed his welcome. "Well, your normal is stalking us. What do you see in them anyway?" Ben leaned over, whispering in his ear. Taking a small peak over his shoulder, Tier saw the tall normal with his head ducked, and his hands stuffed in his grungy looking brown jacket as he followed a couple dozen feet behind them.
"I just don't see why I have to narrow my options. I'm an equal opportunity type guy," Tier smiled widely.
"Not when the only ones you'll look at are normals," Ben rolled his eyes and bent down to whisper in Tier's ear before elbowing him. Usually it wouldn't have been a big deal, but the snow that was falling was just covering a layer of ice that had formed earlier in the day, and Ben's elbow accidentally caught him in the arm, sending his one cane skidding.
He stumbled hard, getting tangled up in his canes and falling into the street. He turned to yell out his irritation at Ben as he picked himself up off the ground, only to have someone slam into him, sending them both skidding across the street as there was a rather loud squeal of tires.
Tier tried to get back up, but with his canes, it was hard and his feet weren't cooperating with the slippery ice underneath the snow. Not that it mattered because the normal had picked him up and half carried him to the other side of the street, setting him down on the sidewalk there before bending over and blowing out a shaky breath.
"Oh my god, Tier!" Cassie pretty much screamed her way across the street with everyone else following closely at her heels. "Are you okay?"
"Fine," he bit out tersely, rearranging his canes. Cassie was white as a sheet, and Ben looked incredibly guilty. "What happened?"
"That car fishtailed and almost hit you," Ben told him. "If he hadn't tackled you when he did," Ben trailed off and shuddered.
"You were almost a pancake, Tier," Charlie finished for Ben with his usual tactlessness.
"Ben," Ben held his hand out to the normal. "Charlie, Cassie, and the gimp you saved is Tier." Ben pointed to each of them in turn.
"E-elijah," the normal stuttered slightly as he shook hands with Ben while the other stayed over his forehead.
"Well," Cassie said diplomatically, "we're headed just down the street to a friend's, you might as well join us. Angelo's about your size and you can change into some of his clothes," she blithely offered.
Elijah seemed bewildered by the prospect and hesitated as Cassie turned to lead the way. "I dunno, I just thought I'd head home." They all swung around to stare at him. The attention made him fidget.
"No!" Charlie shouted, making everyone but Tier jump in surprise. "You have to come back with us! We owe you a wizarding debt." This, of course, was followed by groans and Ben smacking Charlie.
"Ignore Charlie, he's a freak," Ben stated the obvious.
"Promise we won't bite," Tier said quietly, hobbling next to Elijah, and offering him a hand up. Elijah took it gingerly and lifted himself up without using Tier as leverage and let go once he was up on his feet. "Are you okay?"
"Yeah, just a little shook up," Elijah shrugged before bring his hand down from his forehead, revealing a rather nasty gash. Dropping a cane, Tier immediately reached up and tugged on Elijah's shirt until Elijah obliged him in bending down to his level.
"Why didn't you say you were hurt?!" It wasn't a huge gash, but it was about an inch long and bleeding at a pretty steady clip if Elijah's bloody hand was any indication.
"It's just a scratch," Elijah mumbled.
"Right, and it's just gushing blood because you nicked an artery in your forehead," Cassie rolled her eyes, pulling his face closer to her as she poked at the wound. Given the way Elijah was wincing, Cassie was being her usual less than gentle self.
"Hey Godzilla, I was here first," Tier elbowed her. "Besides, your little ham fingers are hurting more than helping."
"My little ham fingers are about five seconds away from giving you a fat lip, Tier. Back off."
"Look, I'm fine, really." Elijah held up his hands, trying to get them both to back off. And as he was doing so, Tier could see the blood trickling down the side of his face.
"Hey, my sister Jael has her practice not too far from here, a coupla stitches and he'll be fine," Ben intervened smoothly. Embarrassed, Tier snuck a glance at Elijah who gave him a weak smile in return. Of course when Elijah started to walk Tier noticed a limp too.
"I'm really sorry," he said soft enough for Elijah to hear as Ben started to lead the way. "And thanks for saving my life."
Elijah grinned at him. "You're welcome," he murmured back just as softly.
00000
Elijah never would have followed the spirit kids if he hadn't seen the Shadow. Granted, it was only in the last couple of years that he'd started seeing them, so it wasn't like he'd had to have this particular phenomenon picked apart by a shrink. However, they were one of the few things that actually did make him question his own sanity. He could handle seeing people with slitted eyes and forked tongues, because spirits saw other spirits the way he saw them. It was obvious in the way that they acted around each other and in some of the conversations he'd eavesdropped on over the years.
But Shadows? No one seemed to see them but him. Which begged the question, if he was the only one to see them, did they actually exist or were they merely a figment of his imagination?
They looked solid, but when they passed under lights or turned just a certain way, Elijah could see right through them. They weren't people seeing as how they could pass through solid objects. Although vaguely humanoid in shape, they never tried talking or communicating in any way that Elijah could figure out. They could dissipate into the air like smoke, but they could congeal into oily masses. Elijah wasn't too sure what they were seeing as he'd never been able to actually touch one, which led back to the sanity question.
He just knew that when he saw them, good things were not about to happen. Particularly and especially to the spirits in the area.
And of course, once he'd managed to stop the cute Handicapped Spirit from getting flattened, the Shadows that had been tailing the group dissipated into thin air.
Tier, he reminded himself as he tried not to fidget too much on the exam table. The cute spirit's name was Tier. And really, the exam room was almost too tiny for everyone to be crammed in here.
"So, Elijah," Tier started only to seemingly forget what he was saying half way through as he looked over at Elijah. He couldn't help but grin, particularly at the rather indiscreet elbow nudging Tier got from Charlie. And then there was the blushing.
"How old are you?" Cassie asked, jumping up on the table beside him and elbowing him in the side.
"Seventeen." He tried not to stare at her skin and the way the fluorescent lights were shining off it and almost blinding him. He imagined that in direct sunlight, she could give a person cataracts.
"Ooh! Jailbait, Tier my friend," Charlie hooted, getting himself a smack upside the head from Ben as he walked in the room with another, older, spirit. The sister doctor, Jael, Elijah could only assume. She shared Ben's bright red hair and slitted eyes. She had the sandy skin too, but on Jael, there were patterns that ran down her forearms and over the backs of her hands.
"Let's take a look at that, shall we?" Jael poked at the gash on his forehead.
"I think he might have done something to his ankle, too," Tier chipped in before Elijah could object.
"It's fine, really. Just a little tender is all. I just stepped on it wrong," Elijah tried protesting. The gash he could hide behind his bangs, crutches were not so easily concealable. And since his ultimate goal in life at the moment was to avoid playing twenty questions with the parentals, crutches were out of the question.
"So," Dr. Jael looked at him, grinning, "some stitches and an X-ray, huh?"
Elijah sighed and thumped his chin against his chest. "Whatever."
"You know, it looks kinda bizarre when you're watching someone else do it," Tier grinned as he tapped on Elijah's crutches with a cane. Elijah, for his part, turned red and ducked his head. "Do you need to call your parents or anything?"
"Ah, no, not yet." And given the face Elijah made at the mention of them, Tier assumed that they weren't always his favorite people. "They think I'm at a football game with friends."
"Oh, did you have friends you were meeting?" Cassie asked curiously as they got their coats, scarves and gloves on. From the way Elijah seemed to shrink into himself, Tier figured no. Cassie, though, seemed to figure that out too and blew out a long sigh. "You wanna come with us to Angelo's to watch a movie?" she asked almost grudgingly.
"Yeah," Elijah said softly, giving her a confused glance, "that's okay. I don't want to be in the way. I'm just gonna head home."
"No, nonononono," Charlie shook his head, coming up behind Elijah and dumping Elijah's old corduroy coat on him before smashing Ben's orange hat on Elijah's head. "Do not let Cassie's crabbiness get to you. She's like this anytime she's proven wrong." Which got him at a smack upside the head from Cassie. Sometimes Tier wondered why Charlie's brains weren't completely scrambled. Although, the things that came out of his mouth did make him wonder on occasion. "Come on, little dude, you're coming with us. We'll call your parents at Angelo's."
"Look, you guys barely know me."
"So? You saved my life. If your evening's open, we want to hang. Get to know you better. We don't have body odor, I swear," Tier teased, reaching over and tugging on Elijah's ear. "Well, maybe Charlie does, but we love him anyway, and he's free entertainment."
"What about your parents? Angelo's parents?" Elijah shot him a doubtful look.
"Oh little dude!" Charlie reached over, pinching an unamused Elijah's cheeks.
"Make him stop doing that."
"What my dumbass friend here is trying to say," Tier laughed as Ben rolled his eyes and pulled Charlie off of Elijah, "is that we're in college. Angelo's got his own place that he shares with Charlie. We call it Angelo's place because Charlie's a huge moocher. Besides, it's right around the corner, and it's closer than the apartment I share with Ben and Cassie."
"Oh," and Elijah was looking a little overwhelmed. Tier imagined that he'd assumed that they were all the same age. "Won't Angelo mind?"
"He's cool," Ben grinned, pulling them all outside. "Don't worry. He's always up for something new. And with this story, he'll be eating out of the palm of your hand." Of course, as Tier reflected on it, that might be because Angelo loved oddities. And a normal who had risked life and limb to save one of them was right up there. Chances were, they were never going to get to the movie with all the drilling Angelo was going to want to do on Elijah.
Although, they were going to have to do something to keep Angelo's current obsession from getting out of hand with Elijah around. It was hard enough getting their own kind to put up with it, but a normal who wasn't going to have the slightest clue what the hell Angelo was babbling about?
Maybe they could pass him off as some kind of science fiction freak. Who liked to make up races of people from separate dimensions who fled to escape persecution in their own worlds thousands of years ago. Geez, he knew what the hell Angelo was talking about, and it still sounded both geeky and bizarre.
Okay, maybe he should just tell Elijah that Angelo was in therapy or something. Reaching up, he dusted the falling snow off his hair.
"You okay?" Elijah asked him, concerned. Tier felt his face heat up under the attention. He knew his friends didn't get it, this obsession he had with normals. They were the reason he had to use canes in the first place. But there was just something about them, something about this one that fascinated Tier.
"Yeah, we're almost there. Angelo's is right around the corner." Tier smiled. Ben was on one side walking sedately with them, while Charlie and Cassie were up ahead, skipping or having a seizure. It was hard to tell. "Um, about Angelo."
Elijah raised an eyebrow.
"He's nuts," Ben jumped in. Stealing a bit of Tier's thunder. "He has a thing for sci-fi wackiness. It's okay to laugh, we all do."
"Uh-huh," Elijah nodded his head, looking more uncertain by the moment as they reached the door. Since Charlie had the key, they pretty much descended on Angelo without warning. Angelo, being Angelo, took it well.
"Hey! Mi amigos! Who's the new gimp?" Angelo looked curious as he pulled on a shirt while everyone else was taking off their coats.
"Elijah," Elijah said a bit bashfully.
"He saved my life," Tier butted in, suspecting that it wasn't something Elijah was going to offer up on his own. In fact, Elijah gingerly sat down on the couch and looked like he was trying to do his damnedest to blend in with the paisley as Charlie and Cassie vied to be the one to tell Angelo all the details.
"Hey," Tier plopped down on the couch beside him. "It's been one hell of a night, huh?"
"You can say that again," Elijah murmured. "Although, I suppose I should thank you guys. My parents are unbearable if I'm home before ten on a weekend." Of course, once he'd said that, Elijah looked like he wished he could take it back. "My parents think I'm anti-social," he gave a humorless laugh.
"Well, you could really flip their lid and tell them that you're staying the night with friends," Tier suggested innocently, sliding him Angelo's phone.
"I couldn't," Elijah started doubtfully.
"Of course you can!" Charlie pulled Elijah into a chokehold and gave him a noogie.
"You have to stay, man," Angelo added, plopping down on the couch on Elijah's other side. "It's not every day that this rag tag group actually attracts heroes. Hell, they have a hard enough time trying to attract people they actually like. Besides, Tier's probably beside himself since you're a cute nor-"
Tier, Charlie, Cassie and Ben all pelted him with whatever was closest to them, which ended up being a throw pillow, popcorn, the phone and a tennis ball. Used to such tactics, Angelo ducked.
"What I meant to say before I was rudely interrupted, is that you're a," Angelo stopped up short, and Tier glared at him, "a um, what's the word I'm looking for Charlie?"
"Little dude?"
"Er, no." Angelo gave him a confused look. "You're a, well, hey, I can't tell a lie. Tier finds tall, badly dressed guys dead hot."
"Okay, Pinocchio," Tier picked up another tennis ball and threw it again at Angelo. "You're an ass." Next chance he got, he was going to do something incredibly mean and horribly embarrassing to Angelo. It would probably involve Angelo's underwear too. At least Angelo had the good grace to look guilty over it. Although, the damage was already done. Elijah was beet red.
"For the sake of all our sanities, I'm sticking in the movie now." Cassie breezed past them with a DVD. "Gimps on one side of the couch, idiot boys on the other, and I get the recliner."
"You got the recliner last time!" Charlie protested.
"You snooze you lose," Cassie offered in a singsong voice as she plopped down in the big fluffy chair opposite the one that Ben had already claimed and tossed a bewildered Elijah the clicker. "On with the movie, maestro!"
Elijah looked around him uncertainly. They were all asleep. Fifteen minutes into the movie and it was like the sandman had come through and sprinkled dust on everyone else but him. Charlie was curled up on the floor, his antlers caught in an afghan and drooling. Angelo, was spread out on one half of the couch. Tilting his head to the side, Elijah tried to figure him out.
Angelo had fangs. He looked like a freaking saber tooth tiger. And since he was half slumped on Elijah's shoulder and snoring, Elijah decided it wouldn't hurt to touch. Just once. A few tentative taps did nothing, other than prove to Elijah that they were real teeth. Elijah had never stumbled across a spirit with fangs before. Although, he had come across one a couple years ago that had tusks, so he supposed it probably wasn't all that strange. Angelo's hair was pure white, and his skin had really faint black stripes. And just in case that wasn't weird enough, the guy had his lip pierced.
It disgusted him every once in a while, the way his parents picked on him for being weird. There were people out in the world a lot more bizarre than him. It wasn't his fault they couldn't see them. Besides, bizarre didn't necessarily mean bad. Angelo seemed like a nice enough guy, being cool with having four people who didn't even live here just randomly crash in his living room. Especially given the fact that he didn't know Elijah from Joe Schmoe on the street.
Tier had slumped on his shoulder about fifteen minutes ago, and as far as Elijah could tell, he was out cold too. And since the movie was now over and late night television wasn't that interesting, Elijah grabbed the one book within reach and gently shoved Angelo off of him. The one disadvantage about fangs, as far as Elijah could tell was that they produced even more drool than what Charlie was managing on the floor with the afghan.
Tier, okay, so Tier was a little different and he didn't necessarily mind the way that Tier's arm was slung carelessly around his waist or the way his head was resting on Elijah's chest.
It would never work out, of course. Him being a normal and Tier being a spirit.
Besides, the last thing he wanted to do was come out to his parents and introduce a handicapped boyfriend. Just in case he hadn't been to enough shrinks in his life. He wasn't telling them a damn thing about anything until after he'd moved out and they no longer had the power to force him to talk to degreed strangers.
Course, who knew. Maybe things could work out for the better here. They'd actually kind of befriended him. A little. Maybe this time things would be different. Maybe he'd actually be able to go out on Friday nights and tell his parents that he was meeting up with friends who would be actual living breathing people.
He snorted softly to himself. It was a nice fairy tale.
He turned the book over in his hands. The Pilgrimage. Given the fact that the book smelled like someone's nasty old gym socks and that the words one the first page were handwritten in flowery looking calligraphy, Elijah figured it wasn't going to be light reading. Lovely, maybe it would put him to sleep since everyone else was zonked.
However, thirty pages later, he was enthralled. The Key, the Gatekeeper, the Traitor and the Guardians. It was the world's oldest science fiction novel. Better yet, it was a science fiction novel about spirits and about a normal who could see them. What wasn't to love about this book? Settling down in the couch cushions, he rested a hand on Tier's head in order to get in a more comfortable position.
And it just seemed kinda natural for his fingers to seek out Tier's little stubby horns. They were about as big as his thumb, and just peaking out above Tier's curly brown hair. They were cute. And what was the harm, really, in rubbing them if Tier was sound asleep? It wasn't like he'd ever know, right?