a nocturnal conversation.

Devon

Hours later, Rafael wakes to Devon's voice. But something in the tone of it tells him she isn't talking to him. She's talking softly, like she knows he's asleep, but he hears a gentle laugh at the very end of something. He is barely awake for the first thing he hears. Eyes opening, he sees her bare back. She's sitting up now, sitting on the edge of the bed like it's a chair, her hands on the tops of her thighs. She's got her eyes open.

Her voice, no longer laughing as it was a second or two ago, has a somewhat wary quality: "What do you mean?"

There is no one else in the dark room. The curtains are closed. The door is locked.

Wariness bleeds into tension, perhaps even anger, in Devon's words: "I don't like this. Leave me alone."

Rafael

Somewhere along the way, girl has become irreplaceable to him. So near and dear to his beating heart that to sleep beside her like this, arms wrapped around her, her body bare and warm close to his, is some of the deepest comfort he knows. He's tired from a long day on the road. Tired from the way they've fucked. Warm and relaxed from that long hot shower at the end of it all. His brain switches off. He sleeps.

But not until morning. In the dead of night he is awakened. Girl is speaking, though softly. He thinks at first she's on the phone, perhaps to her mother. That would make sense. The time difference. The distance. But there's no phone in her hand, and her hands are in her lap. She's sitting straight and pretty at the edge of the bed, like she's at a fancy dinner, like she's some schoolgirl under the thumb of a strict headmistress.

Her skin is still bare. And now her voice is changing. And he sits up in bed, squinting, blinking, scrubbing sleep out of his eyes.

"Devon?" He reaches over, clicks his lamp on. "Who're you talking to?"

Devon

His voice seems to break some spell she's under. She's silent for a moment, but something in her supremely straight back softens. Her shoulders round. Her breathing changes, like someone just waking. She breathes in, looking behind her. Bleary-eyed, she winces and flinches from the lamp, then squints at him and smiles.

Crawls over to him, curling up at his side again, as snuggly as she would be if she woke in the middle of the night to find he'd stolen the covers and she needed to steal back some of his warmth.

"Mm," she murmurs. "Turn the light off," she complains. She acts as if she didn't hear his question. "M'tired. S'too bright."

Rafael

He's quite awake by then. That softening of her spine, the way she turns and sleepily crawls back to him -- it doesn't soothe him. It makes him warier.

"Who were you talking to?" he repeats. He doesn't turn the light off. He doesn't lie down again either.

Devon

Devon's brow wrinkles. Her eyes are closed, but she peeks one open, looking up at him. At least his head blocks most of the light.

"What?" she says, sounding confused. "I wasn't talking to anyone. I was sleeping. Til you turned on the light," she adds, with the sort of mock accusation that would, under other circumstances, be less unnerving.

Rafael

He just stares at her.

"You were talking. A moment ago, you were sitting right there," he points, "and talking to empty air. You laughed. Then you said 'what do you mean'. Then you said you didn't like 'this', whatever 'this' is, and you told someone to leave you alone."

Devon

Devon sighs, both eyes opened now, looking as tired as she claims to be. "Babe... I don't know. Maybe you dreamed it. Maybe I was talking in my sleep." She wraps her arm around him, looking a cross between concerned and a little frustrated. "I'm tired, and as far as I know, you just woke me up with a light in my eyes. I just want to go back to sleep. All right?"

Rafael

That he's unsettled is obvious. That she isn't alarms him all the more.

"You didn't sound like you were talking in your sleep," he insists. "You sounded like you were talking to someone only you could see and hear. Do you remember anything? A dream, even?"

Devon

Devon closes her eyes. "Babe," she repeats, and now frustration is overtaking concern, has overtaken it, is a ripple of tension through her voice. "I hear you. I get it. But I just told you: I don't know what you're talking about. I just woke up, and now you're making it so I don't know if I can go back to sleep. Can you just... leave it? I'm tired."

Rafael

Now he's frustrated too. "Okay." He clicks the light off. "Go back to sleep. We'll talk about it in the morning."

Devon

What was between them, just a few hours ago, seems broken. And it hurts her, to have fallen asleep one way, to be woken thus, to have to try and fall asleep again like this. She's pissed off at him for blaming her for his weird-ass dreams or interrogating her over talking in her sleep. She turns on her side, her arm sliding off his abdomen, her back to him. It's not that different from how she fell asleep the first time. Only now, she isn't stroking the back of his hand.

All the same: she does sleep. It takes longer, and she's rather miserable for a few minutes, lying in silence in the darkness, but

sleep does come. Always, inevitably, for everyone.

--

Their alarm goes off at nine. Even with broken sleep, Devon got enough hours that she wakes yawning, and the yawn has the satisfied sound of someone rested. She sniffs, stretching, and -- as though nothing ever happened -- she rolls over, searching for Rafael in the warm sheets, trying once again to cuddle with him.

Rafael

He lies awake for some time after that. Long after she is asleep, he is still awake. Watchful. Listening. Listening not only for her voice but for anything else -- a sound, a sight, a glimmer of a hint to tell him who or what it was she spoke to earlier.

Nothing comes. And eventually, finally, without quite even realizing it himself,

he falls asleep.

--

The alarm wakes him. His eyes snap open and he startles, unaccustomed to waking in this rude manner. It's a few seconds before he realizes what it is and swings his hand out, smacks blindly at the clock until it falls silent.

By then she's moving closer to him again. And he lets her, because of course he does. He's troubled still though, frowning at the ceiling as she slowly wakes.

Devon

Nothing comes in the night. There's no afterimage in the shadows, no scent to tell him who -- or what -- Devon was talking to. Maybe she was just having a vivid dream, talking in her sleep. As far as he knows she never has before, but that doesn't mean it couldn't happen.

He does know that he didn't dream it. He didn't imagine her perfectly straight spine, her hands resting on the tops of her legs like she was arranging herself for presentation, or the way her voice crept towards tension, then anger,

as she talked to shadows.

--

Devon finds him, and holds him, snuggling up to his side and tucking herself under his arm like she's never, ever been mad at him, never ever in the history of Devon. She strokes his side fondly, breathing in his scent, long before she ever willingly opens her eyes and peers up at him.

"Brekkie?" she asks, since they set the alarm planning to go downstairs for the free breakfast before getting back on the road. Her foot wiggles against his calf.

Rafael

That soft little question brings him back to himself. He stirs like he's awakening all over again, looking down at her where she cuddles against his side.

"Yeah," he says softly, his voice hoarse from disuse. He breathes in, stretches. Yawns, none too fragrantly, and pushes back the covers to swing his legs to the floor.

Morning sun on his bare back, bare ass while he crosses to the bathroom. He brushes his teeth and splashes water on his face, closes the door long enough to take a piss and washes his hands after. Gets dressed by degrees, putting on clean socks and clean underwear out of his backpack, reusing the pants from the day before. Changes his shirt, though it's almost indistinguishable from the first -- different shade of grey, is all.

A little hesitantly: "You ... remember anything from last night?"

Devon

Devon grumps a little when he pulls away, getting out of bed, but she decides to take advantage of it, rolling over and dozing a bit more while he washes up a bit. She doesn't get out of bed again until he comes back, sitting beside her or maybe just standing next to the bed.

She peers up at him. A beat. A slow smile. "Remember coming with you. Twice. Almost a third. Got too sleepy."

Rafael

He's not sitting. He's standing, pulling his shirt on, frowning at her answer.

"You woke up in the middle of the night," he says. "You sat there ramrod straight and you talked to nothing at all. When I asked you who you were talking to, you told me I was dreaming and then went back to sleep.

"You don't remember any of that?"

Devon

Her dark head, all that black-Irish hair, stains the pure white of the pillowcase. She looks up at him, waking in degrees as he tells her about last night.

He asks her if she remembers it. Any of it.

Devon is quiet a moment. Then she shakes her head, slowly. She doesn't even remember waking.

"What did I say? To nothing?"

Rafael

Relieves him a little that she reacts. That there's something there this time, some click of circuits connecting. Something more than denial and unnerving lack of concern.

He does sit now, sinking down on the edge of the bed with something like a sigh. "I only caught a little of it," he says. "You were laughing. Sounded happy. Then it changed, and you said something like -- 'what do you mean?' And that you didn't like whatever was happening.

"That's when I talked to you. And you snapped out of it, like you were sleepwalking. But I don't think that's what it was, because then you were just ... I don't know. You were grumpy. But you also just didn't seem to care. Weren't worried or freaked out at all.

"It was weird. Felt wrong."

Devon

Her hand moves from under the covers. She brings it out, reaches over to him as he sits beside her, in the hollow made by her thighs, her belly, her arms. She holds his hand, if he's willing.

"Well... I could have just been talking in my sleep, babe," she says gently. "But if you say it felt wrong, I believe you. And it is weird that... I don't know. It sounds like you woke me up. But I don't remember that, either."

She frowns. "Maybe... I should do a reading about it, or something."

Rafael

"You sounded tense. And angry. Like someone was -- doing something to you. That's why I can't just let it go."

He takes her hand. Of course he does, just like he'd welcomed her nearness earlier in spite of it all. His hand covers hers, grips.

"You should," he says. "And maybe talk to your friend. The one we're going to see."

Devon

It's the tension in his hand when he holds onto her that she notices. She glances at his hand, holding hers tightly. She hears it in his voice, too, in the words he chooses: someone doing something to her. That's why he couldn't let it go.

Two years ago, a bit more, and she would have wiggled her hand free, to hear that. Doesn't want to be caged, does she? Doesn't want to feel like he'll never let go. But that's not what it is. That's not what makes his shoulders so tight.

"I will," she says softly. "Then we'll see."

Rafael

He looks at her. Quick glance over a thick shoulder. Some of the tension leaves his brow, if only barely. He exhales, and his grip loosens a notch.

"Okay." A small pause. "Breakfast first? Know it takes something out of you, reading."

Devon

Devon smiles at him. She wants to be reassuring. After all this time with him, she thinks she understands that it's never been about possession with him. Never. He cannot stand the thought of losing her. Even when he didn't really like her, when he was so sure she didn't like him that he tried to make certain she never would, the thought of something terrible and final happening to her was a thought he couldn't bear. This morning, from the way he held her hand to the way he talked about someone doing something to her, she knows how unsettled he must be,

even if she can't remember last night, and the tension in his voice as he asked her what was going on.

Her fingertips stroke the back of his hand. She nods at what he says, glad that he understands, but also unworried: it's been like this for most of her life, really. Magic takes something out of her. It took a lot out of her coven in New England, all those generations ago. It takes something out of her new maybe-friend Ursula, too. It's just the cost of what they do, channeling such power through fragile mortal bodies and diaphanous mortal souls.

So: she gets up. She wiggles her hand free and gets up on her knees, the sheet pooling around her legs, and wraps her arms around him for a moment, holding him close. Her hair is a tousled mess; she smells more like him and his sleep than anything else. She kisses his jaw, just slightly scratchy, and then slips away again to get ready. To piss, and wash up, and arrange her hair in a couple of braids, and put on eyeliner like it's war paint. Devon, despite having no particular issue with b.o., does not re-use her clothes from yesterday but puts on cutoffs from a pair of black jeans washed so often they turned grey, the edges frayed and the denim worn so thin it's as soft as cotton. She puts on a blue tank top over her bra, an enormous t-shirt with a blue-eyed wolf on the front, the neckline and hemline and arm holes all chopped up so it drapes off of her shoulders in a way more reminiscent of a Roman tunic than anything else.

Bracelets and bangles and earrings and socks and boots and all of it, then. All before she's ready to go downstairs and pile a couple of plates full of sausage and eggs and toast and a fucking Belgian waffle with whipped cream and strawberries. She'll eat a quarter of it at most.

She'll eat more after she reads.

--

They take their food back upstairs with their big paper cups of coffee and juice. Devon eats wolfishly, always has, hunkered over her plate and not terribly conversational when there's food to be had. This is one of the things they have in common: a willingness to eat together, sit together, be in the same space, and not talk. Especially if they're hungry.

But after she's broken her fast, Devon goes to wash her hands free of salt and oil and syrup, and then she closes the curtains. Makes the room dim again. Goes and digs into her backpack, pulling out her cards, wrapped in what they call a 'fat quarter' at fabric stores. She doesn't bring them back to the table but perches on the edge of the bed they slept in, spreading open the cloth as she unwraps the cards from it. She's sitting like a teenager, one leg draped down the edge of the bed, toe of her boot brushing the carpet aimlessly, her other leg cocked, tucked in with her foot touching the opposite thigh. Her bracelets and the like clack together as she starts shuffling her cards, her hands quick and deft and familiar, the cards softened in her hands and rough at the edges from such regular use.

Her eyes find him again, after wandering about the room.

"Might help if you ask me questions," she says, like she just thought of it.

Rafael

For a moment there, feels just like they're at home, rising together lazily on some unhurried Sunday. Girl puts on her warpaint, puts on her distinctive fashions that he loves so much. He smirks at the wolf. That supposed to be me? he wants to know -- but then of course it's not. He doesn't have blue eyes.

She does, though. And they're so brilliant outlined in black. He kisses her before they go down to breakfast. Slides his arms around her waist, under that slashed-apart shirt, lifting her against his body for a moment while their mouths meet.

--

Big meal for both of them. Companionable silence. He eats mostly meat, drinks grapefruit juice. When she's done she gets her cards out, and he doesn't sit across from her. Feels wrong to sit there. Reading isn't really for him, and anyway: the magic in those cards is not the magic in his bones. They have a healthy mutual respect, his wild magic and her old magic, but it feels wrong to skirt too close. He loiters by the window, sitting on the windowseat, sun warm on his back.

Looks a little surprised when she asks him for a question. He blinks, then says the first thing on his mind: "Who was talking to you last night?"

Devon

'Course not, she informs him, regarding the wolf, pointing to it with a finger that has chipped blue enamel on it, this one's grey. Which it is. Blue eyes, grey fur -- the sort of wolf you see on a t-shirt, but not the sort he turns into. He's larger, for one. He's white as snow.

And his eyes are green.

She goes easily into his arms when he pulls her close, her toes lifting off the ground a bit. She smirks up at him as he wraps his arms around her, her hands opening over his biceps. He kisses her, or is leaning down to kiss her when she elongates her spine and kisses him.

Anyway: they kiss, lingeringly, boldly, like they are unbothered by things like scentlessness and witchcraft, orphanhood and isolation, infertility, or strange voices in the dark. That's far from true. They are both bothered by all these things, to varying degrees and at different times. But right now, right when they're kissing,

they are fearless creatures.

--

Big meal for both of them indeed, especially Devon, and even though she only eats half or so of what she got. When she gets up, she does notice he doesn't follow her to the bed where she sits, but she doesn't remark on it. She doesn't realize how he feels about it, thinks maybe it's because of that one time early on when she did read cards about him, about the two of them, and... it didn't go well. Started a fight, if she recalls correctly.

She shuffles. She looks at him. Says what she does. He asks his question, and she gives a little nod. She lays her cards face down, cuts, and pulls one from the middle of the deck, laying it on the cloth before her in the center.

It's a deck he's seen before, her main one: black and white lines on the back, mostly black-and-white drawings. Lots of animals and trees and the like; no human faces. Maybe Rafael doesn't know that most decks have human faces, or anthropomorphized animals rather than things like this. Maybe he does; he's visited her at her various shops enough times to see walls and shelves full of hundreds of different tarot and oracle decks. But this is the one he sees her with most often.

The card she drew is of a young owl, a thin black sword clutched in its talons, in the midst of a dive. The dynamism and energy of the card is forceful, targeted. And the card announces itself in script at the bottom: the son of swords.

Devon looks at it, thinks on it, picks it up, rubs her thumb over it.

"A knight," she says, her shoulders rounded down, her voice thoughtful but not yet faraway. She's staring at the card, then looks at Rafael, or... at a point of light coming in through the drapes. "A... fierce and calculating warrior... but far from their king."

Rafael

"What does this warrior want with you?"

Maybe he's supposed to ask abstract questions. If so, he missed the memo. He's a literal creature, thinks concretely. Doesn't even call it a knight, see. Just a warrior. That makes sense to him, in his literal world. Knights don't exist anymore.

Devon

If this were a normal reading -- the sort she gets paid for at her shops around the city -- then such direct questions would be harder to read for. Not impossible. She's had people ask her if they were going to pass their emissions test or not. But this is the other kind of reading Devon can do, the kind of true seeing, real divination, where the picture on the card is only a gateway into whatever message she's being given from...

from god only knows what. Devon herself has no idea if her abilities come from Gaia, or some inner fire, or something else entirely.

She lays down the first card, back in the center of the cloth. She draws the next card, places it -- after a moment of thought -- above the Son of Swords. This one is of the same suit: a sword, held upright against a black sky rent by lightning. A rainbow serpent without tail or head is wrapped around the hilt in the sign of infinity.

"Knowledge," she says, a little taken aback. "Information." She's frowning. Without prompting, she draws another card, laying it to the right of the Ace she just pulled. This one is reminiscent of walking alone in a forest, looking up... and seeing Luna above, silent and unknown. Devon inhales.

"About you." This has made her tense. "About what you are."

Rafael

Across the room, the wolf is frowning too. His arms were folded across his chest; now they unfold, and he stands.

"Why?"

Devon

This time, the card Devon pulls is laid beneath the knight, the warrior, whatever it is: a fox, curled around a sword, one eye open. Six swords above.

"The knight is also a thief," she says, and looks up, over at Rafael.

Rafael

He comes closer. Still doesn't pull a chair over to sit across from her, but instead circles to stand over her shoulder, looking at the cards with her.

"What does it want to steal?"

Devon

It's starting to become noticeable: even with her warpaint on, even though she ate first, Devon is looking a little drawn around the eyes. Her brow seems set in a permanent furrow. She isn't drained enough that his nearness makes her flinch, not yet, but when he comes closer he can almost see the energy she has already used, hovering outside of her skin, dispersing with the breeze of the air conditioner.

Her head tips slowly to one side. They look at the cards, all those swords and then that one shining moon. She reaches for her deck, and draws another card, laying it beside the seven of swords she drew last.

It's another major arcana. This time the card almost glows with a lightness and innocence that the other cards in the spread lack. A watercolored, rainbow star gleams in a dark sky, surrounded by other tinier, twinkling stars, shining light below. Devon's expression changes briefly to something almost wistful, rather tender.

"I... don't know what this means," she confesses. "Innocence? Or... dreams? Faith?" She shakes her head; none of the words fit. All of them bother her with how they don't quite fit. "Sorry, babe. I'm not sure."

Rafael

He senses her fatigue. Senses that shift in her expression too, her mood -- her confusion, her uncertainty.

He puts his hand on her shoulder. Cups her head with the other hand; bows to her, kisses her atop her head. It is tender and sweet, his concern silent but palpable.

"Just one more question," he says. "This warrior. Is it your friend? Or someone else?"

Devon

Devon is tucked under his jaw, in a manner of speaking. She leans into it, as though asking him to stay there, to guard her, though she doesn't notice she's doing it and isn't conscious of her desire to have him like a shield at her back. She doesn't consciously feel exposed, but that awareness will come,

when she is not so keenly focused on something else, far away and unseen.

She draws a final card. It's pretty: a sunset. The silhouette of three birds on a branch, with three cups below. Devon smiles.

"It's not her," she says, with some comfort underwriting her breath. She points at the three shadows, the birds hanging out together on the branch at day's end. "That's us. You, me, Ursula." She sighs. She sounds so relieved. "It's not her."

Rafael

She is not the only one relieved. He feels it too, though perhaps for a different reason. He's relieved her friend -- one of the only true friends he's ever known her to have, and certainly the only other witch she's ever met in this time, this life -- did not betray her.

That would be an injustice he could not stomach. It would be a betrayal he could not forgive, even if she could.

So he wraps his arms around her, tighter. He kisses her again atop her head, breathes a moment. She is scentless, but it hardly matters anymore. Sometimes he imagines he knows her all the same. Somehow.

"Good," he murmurs, quiet. "Glad."

Devon

Something there, when he sniffs her hair, inhales her the way you do when you love someone very much. He's felt it before: not a smell, not quite. Something else, beyond the five senses his body knows. Something similar to the pull of north when he's in wolf form, the way he knows which way to run, or when to leap from the shadows at his prey. Some other sense, nameless. This is what he feels, perhaps even interprets as a scent, when he lowers his nose to her hair as her magic is rising from her, leaving her.

"Yeah," Devon breathes, in agreement. No telling if she would have forgiven it, if Ursula were not on their side. No telling if forgiveness would even be on her mind, or if, quite simply:

her heart would be broken.

She scoops up her cards between her hands. She shuffles the ones she drew back into the stack, careful to separate them again, to cleanse them of whatever attachment they briefly shared with the subjects of the reading. She makes them neutral again, fanning and shuffling and cutting the cards over and over until she feels satisfied. Then she lays them down in the cloth, wraps them up, ties the ends over them like a kerchief. It's a tidy little packet, but she doesn't move to shove it back in her backpack again.

Devon just flops backward on the bed, looking at the ceiling.

"Can we get ice cream when we get back on the road?" she asks a moment later, like she doesn't have a huge breakfast to finish. She swivels her head to look over at him. "Soft serve? Like Dairy Queen?"

There's a beat.

"A butterscotch dip cone," she adds, like she has just nailed down the thing that will make her feel like herself again.

Rafael

Quick little laugh at that. Slower grin, spreading. He leans over her, hands braced, dipping down to kiss her again. Eyes open. Mouth soft.

"Yeah," he says. "Sure. We'll get one on the way out of town. I'll drive."

Devon

The way she kisses him back is different than it was when they went down to breakfast. Her eyes close. Her lips are softer. She doesn't lean into it as much. She's tired. Of course he'll drive; she'll have her dip cone and probably pass out for a while, hugging her pillow despite sleeping plenty last night.

With a soft yawn, she says: "Gonna text Ursula when we get on the road, so she knows we're on our way." She thinks a moment. "Won't mention last night. Could make her start asking stuff about you. Might have nothing to do with her, anyway."

--

At some point, he's able to get her up. Devon stuffs a few things in her backpack. She nibbles absentmindedly on breakfast leftovers, licks syrup off her fingers before they head out, leaving the keys on the dresser to check out. They head back to her car, and he moves the seat back, and she climbs in beside him.

She is asleep before they find a Dairy Queen.

nebraska.

Devon

Denver to Milwaukee is the least interesting road trip that Devon and Rafael have ever taken. And at the end of their road they won't see Peru, they won't stand in the Amazon, they won't dine and drink and fight and fuck in Brazil. They are going to drive through dry, empty, flattened out country, which will only get green and rolling and growing again when they hit Iowa and Illinois.

But still: Rafael likes to drive. Devon certainly doesn't mind. He gets so tense and tightened up and withdrawn when they've flown together; she doesn't imagine he likes being that way any more than she likes being around him when he's that way.

This way: he drives for long stretches with her reclined in the passenger seat, her bare feet on the open window, her head on her arm. She sleeps a lot when he drives, as though the car rocks her gently off to dreamland. She has learned not to offer to drive to give him a break, because he seldom agrees, but tells him she's bored and wants to drive now, at least for a while. That's when he relents, and takes up her old seat, while she puts on her sunglasses and turns up the music and floors it.

They are in her car. The one he got her. She wanted to take it; said they were officially breaking it in.

--

One of their stops, roughly halfway, is in Lincoln. They get dinner, they stretch, and decide to push through to Omaha and stop there for the night. Devon taps out some texts to Ursula as Rafael is paying their dinner bill, and they drive on until they reach a DoubleTree by Hilton off of I-80.

Rafael

Flatlands, from Denver all the way to eastern Nebraska. Nothing but fields -- barren high plains at first; then low, fertile lands full of rustling corn. A couple stops in between, food and water and toilet. Once at a rest stop overlooking an endless ocean of crop, beneath a sky so blazingly blue they almost forget it can be any other color.

She drives in the middle. He naps, then wakes. She listens to music and drives very fast. He puts his feet up on the dash, the seat slid all the way back. The sun sets behind them, casting their shadow onto the blurring highway beneath their tires.

Well past nightfall when they make it to the DoubleTree. There are cookies waiting for them at check-in, because why not. They get a room on an upper floor, away from the elevators. Somewhere along the way, wolf learned to ask for such things.

They have little luggage. He has a large backpack with a couple changes of clothes, that shiny new Surface of his. She has ... that bottomless bag, probably. He's tired, leaning against the elevator wall on the way up, yawning. As they head down the hall to their room, he drops his arm around her shoulders the way he does, heavy and familiar.

Devon

Devon looks like she's hardly going anywhere. She carries the satchel he gifted to her, the one she insisted he share with her because the gift felt like too much, like a responsibility she wasn't ready for or an honor she didn't deserve. But somewhere along the line, she got used to it. It suits her, and she treats it with respect. And in return, it keeps her light on her feet, unburdened, without the baggage she clearly dislikes carrying on her shoulders.

She eyes him as he yawns, her eyes twinkling. She collides into his side with a gentle thump when he wraps his arm around her, resting her cheek on his chest through his t-shirt. She isn't terribly tired yet. She waits while he sticks the key card into the door lock, slipping away from him as he shoulders the door open.

The room is clean, spacious, well-appointed. It's not an old hotel. It's not like some of the road motels they've stayed at because that's all that was available on their road trip. Omaha is, as far as the midwest goes, a large city. Of course it has DoubleTrees and the like off the main highway heading east.

Devon walks in, stepping and wiggling out of her boots, putting the satchel on a pillow, both claiming that pillow as her own and giving the satchel momentary pride of place. She sheds articles the way she always does, and within moments there is a stack of scattered bracelets on the desk, boots akimbo on the floor, a pile of necklaces on the nightstand. She starts shedding clothes, too, pulling her arms into her short sleeves and dragging her short little dress up off her body, leaving the loose belt that was around it hanging off her hips, her hot-pink underwear. She forgot a necklace: it drapes between her breasts, which are clad in purple-trimmed black. She peels off the thigh-high fishnets she was wearing without sitting down, tossing them somewhere when she's done.

Standing there in underwear and belt, she looks at herself in the mirror, inspecting her skin, ruffling her hair.

"Do you think if I called the front desk they'd go get me some Biore strips?" she wants to know. "My pores are super gross," she adds by way of explanation, leaning over the dresser to look closer at the mirror, peering way too closely at the pores on her nose.

Rafael

Girl's like some sort of terrestrial comet. Sheds glittering baubles and soft little coils of fabric in her wake like icedust flung from a runaway star. Wolf watches her with some amusement; for his part, he pretty much kicked his shoes off and flopped down on the bed.

Soon enough she's halfway naked. She bends over the dresser, examines her pores. Behind her reflection, darker because he's farther away, wolf is smirking at her. Also quite visibly checking her out.

"Maybe if you pay them extra. But why can't you just scrub them out with soap?"

Devon

Girl has that tiny ass of hers. Not much to call voluptuous about her, or even curvy. Pert. Perky. But mostly: skinny. Almost lanky. No telling how she got those tits of hers, other than a happy accident of genetics.

"It's not the same," she insists, regarding pore strips. She turns around, hands on the edge of the dresser, ass leaning against the dresser, looking over at him.

"How come your skin's so perfect?"

Rafael

"Because I scrub with soap," he deadpans.

Devon

Her eyebrows lift. "I don't think that's how it works," she says, pushing off from the edge of the dresser, walking to the foot of the bed. "I think it's because Gaia doesn't want her warriors looking like pimply teenagers, that's all."

A smirk. "Especially her silvery favorites."

Rafael

He smirks back at her. "And what exactly about me is silver?"

Holds out his hand too.

Devon

Devon's head tips. "Blood, coin, and tongue," she says.

Her hands dent the covers as she brings her weight to the edge of the bed, her feet leaving the ground. Her belt hangs off her hips still, thumps on the tops of her thighs. She comes no closer.

Rafael

"Tongue?" He's amused. Also oddly flattered. "Never thought of myself as a good talker."

And beckons. And holds out his hand again.

"You coming here or not?"

Devon

Looks good like that, she does. Tits hanging in that tight black bra, hair hanging down, eyes ringed in black. Her blue eyes glint at what he says to her, and her eyebrows slide upward for a half-beat with something like amusement, but she doesn't explain why.

She feigns coyness a moment longer. Then slinks up the bed, crawling towards him, between and over his legs, til she's on all fours over his lap and his chest, her face inches from his.

"Didn't mean the way you talk," she whispers.

Rafael

So his hand doesn't take hers after all. It remains extended, but the fingers curl; his knuckles skim her taut stomach as she crawls over him.

"Oh," he says. And now he's smirking again. That grazing touch passes to and fro. Then, as though following some natural course, some inevitable evolution of events, he reaches around to undo her bra.

"Think you should deal with your pores tomorrow," he opines. "Think we should just fuck tonight."

Devon

Touches her sometimes like he has a right to her. Sometimes makes her want to remind him that he doesn't have a right to her, doesn't own her at all, has to earn it. Other times it's a comfort, a homecoming, a gentleness between them.

Warm.

Like now.

The bra strap unclips behind her. The whole thing loosens, but does not fall.

Devon flicks one of her eyebrows upward. "Do you, now?" she murmurs, but of course the question is a rhetorical one. Her eyes are on his lips.

Her mouth is on his lips. Slowly at first, but pressing, warm and insistent,

opening to something more lush, more humid,

as the straps of her bra slip off her shoulders.

Rafael

He can only stand that slow, lush kiss for so long. Only so many seconds elapse, so many beats of the heart, before all at once he's rising against her, the thick musculature of his torso clenching, his hands big and rough on that narrow lovely face of hers.

He turns her under him. This shouldn't surprise her anymore, if it ever did. He pulls that bra off her in one grab, tossing it on the nightstand. Now he rears back. Now he puts those hands on her breasts, enclosing them altogether in the span of those palms, those fingers.

"Yeah," he answers, quite belated. "Yeah, I do."

Devon

His chest touches the dangling cups of her bra first, and a half-breath later, she feels him pressing himself against her body. She feels his hands on her face and shrugs slightly, loosening that bit of lingerie till it falls, slapping gently across his torso and binding her wrists loosely to either side of him.

It gets untangled and tossed aside somewhere in that roll of his body, the way he puts her on his back on that fine, expansive white bedspread. Devon looks up at him, those black-rimmed blue eyes, smirking softly while he caresses her breasts, plays with them, sends little shivers of enjoyment down her body.

"I want to be on top," she murmurs to him. "Feel like riding you tonight. Yeah?"

Rafael

Growls at that. Lowers his mouth to her breasts, his eyes on hers, nuzzling ferociously, biting gently. He pulls her panties off too, pushing them to the end of the bed. Pulls his shirt off, loosens his jeans.

Turns on his back again, landing with a thump. His hands are on her hips, bring her with him. With her back on top he reaches down to finish with his pants, getting the belt open and the button, the fly. Denim's heavy, drags the bedspread with it a ways as he kicks his jeans off the bed.

Devon

Devon laughs softly at the growl. She's negotiating; that's what that upward inflection at the end means. He doesn't answer her. He rubs his face over her breasts, which she likes. He suckles and licks and scrapes his teeth over her, sets them tenderly into her flesh, and she giggles, though more with pleasure than amusement. The giggle trails into a sigh as he peels her underwear off. And look: isn't she helpful? See how she lifts up her hips for him, draws her legs out of the warm fabric?

He rears up a bit, pulls his shirt off, undoes his jeans, gives them a shove as he turns over. Devon grins. Up til now she wasn't sure where Rafael had landed, in regards to positioning. She is grinning as he hauls her over him, opening her legs to straddle him, smiling down at him as he works his jeans off. She

isn't helpful, this time. She just sits there on top of his thighs, an obstruction to his attempts to disrobe, making him lift her up so he can push them all the way down. She just perches there, smirking at him, eyes twinkling.

But sooner or later he's naked, too. And she smiles, softer now than a grin, leaning over him. Her hands are on his abdomen, moving heavily up his chest as she comes back to start kissing him again. They never properly made out before they started fucking, what is now years ago. No dates. Not really. And she likes kissing him quite a bit. She likes pressing her naked body against his chest in a hotel room by the highway, kissing him until she's wet.

Rafael

Such a contrary creature. Such a wicked witch. He gets his pants off anyway, unhelpful girl notwithstanding. His boxers follow. Even his socks.

They're naked atop that nice bed. They can afford a better hotel than this, even. They can afford whatever the hell they want, almost, but truth is that sort of wealth is still uncomfortable for both of them. They don't need that much. They need very little, really, beyond a safe den and a hearty meal and a good amount of liquor.

And one another. There's that, too.

His skin reacts to her touch, a spreading nerve-net of sensation. His body reacts too, muscles tensing and releasing, cock hardening. She's kissing him until she's wet but he's hard well before then. He doesn't rush her. Has learned not to. Has learned some modicum of patience, it seems.

So she's the one to initiate tonight. She's the one to take him in hand and work him inside her. He's ... well. Not passive, no. But receptive. His hands open on her thighs to feel her. Grip as she rides down. He leans up to her if she hasn't already leaned down; kisses her mouth, and then her neck, and then buries his face in the hollow of her throat. His heavy arms close around her. He holds her there for a moment, very close, rather tight.

Then he sinks down again, grunting. His arms loosen. He finds her hands and threads his fingers through hers. Lets her do as she pleases.

Devon

He's never had to tell her how it feels when they finally come together. She's never needed to ask. It's writ plainly across his face, and in the tension of his grip, and in the way he buries himself against her even as he buries himself inside of her. If they could get closer, they would. And when the closeness of him inside of her body is somehow not enough, she kisses him again, and they share even their breath. She shares every gasp with him, every soft cry, every trembling moan.

Perhaps the reason she wanted to be on top tonight is evidenced in how she fucks him: slowly, almost to the point of being maddening for the poor man who loves her. She spends quite a bit of time rocking on top of him, working herself up mostly through rolls of her hips and long, grinding swivels. She only starts bouncing on him, fucking him in eager earnest, well into it. Maybe it's because they're in a hotel and maybe it's just her mood, but she doesn't get terribly loud tonight, doesn't holler and scream and let her voice ring off the walls.

He can hear her, though. He can hear every hitch in her breath, every whimper. He can hear it in her gasping when she gets close to coming. He can feel it when he puts his hands on her tits again, urges her on, feel it when it finally hits her. Her body tightens up around his, against his, and goes perilously still for a protracted moment before collapsing into shakes and quivers and this fast, breathy fuck as she rides her orgasm out on him.

Wants him to come inside of her tonight. Tells him so, gasping the words as she's still at the peak of her own pleasure. And sometimes she wants him to and sometimes she doesn't but that hardly matters: hearing her say it, panting come in me, come inside me, fucking come in my hot pussy in his ear is... something else entirely.

They roll over, at some point. They don't disentangle. They're both tired, and Devon even says she wants to take a shower before she goes to sleep, but... he's hardening again, filling her up again, and she slides her thighs up his legs and wraps her legs around his waist and clutches at his back when he fucks her again, faster this time, harder, the two of them falling apart together, all over again.

--

The bed is a bit of a mess by then. Devon, mooch and lazy thing that she is, goes to shower. Rafael -- perhaps he dozes a bit, before he can move again. Strips the duvet off the bed and tosses it to the floor. Joins her in the shower,

joins her in bed a bit later, the room kept cool by the soft hum of the air conditioner,

their bare skins kept warm by heartbeats, by blood, by rage. They sleep heavily, and deeply, and wonderfully. Devon rests her hand atop his hand where his hand rests over her body, holding her close.

ursula.

Devon

Some time ago, Devon asked Rafael if he could help her get a laptop. This was an interesting turning point in their relationship, an axis they have been turning on lately: one where she doesn't just go out to buy herself something with his credit card without asking, and (perhaps more notably) one where she asks him for something without it seeming to eviscerate her to do so.

Neither of them are particularly adept at asking for help. Neither of them like to feel indebted. Rafael handles it his way; Devon handles it hers. But tell your partner you might have a kid with that you need help with something and ask directly if they will help you has not, traditionally, been how they handle things.

This is likely how he discovers that she has either been using something of his lying around or the library or just her phone for internet access, and that it has not made much of a difference in her life as it is, but, you know, lately she has sort of wanted her own computer. And she's saving but the good ones are expensive, right?

So he helps her buy a laptop. This is not like the car: she already has picked out what she wants, and then one day after shipping and handling: Devon has a laptop. She begins putting stickers on it, and gets a sleeve for it, and carries it around in that satchel they share. He begins to see her sometimes, tapping away at it. They still watch Netflix together in the living room, though.

Well: once or twice on her laptop, in his bed, because they are lazy.

--

It's early evening. Rafael is just waking up, or has been up for a while and is eating, or is simply: somewhere. And Devon comes over to him, carrying that laptop on her forearms, looking tense.

No, not tense: excited. Restrained. But almost solely from the look in her eyes, he can tell her heart is pounding.

"I want to show you something. All right?"

Rafael

She wants a laptop.

She gets a laptop pretty much immediately. They go to Best Buy and they pick one out, and then they buy it. Actually, they buy two. It turns out what wolf has lying around is some ancient cheap beater-machine from before he was Rich (tm), sole benefactor of his savage, kingly, late mother's vast estate.

So: two laptops. One for him and one for her. No cutesy his-and-hers cases. Just two sleek, silvery, shockingly expensive surface pros, top of the line, half computer, half tablet.

She has a laptop after that. And she puts stickers on hers, protects it with a sleeve. He leaves his bare, but he leaves it at home and uses it rarely enough that it hardly suffers any wear or tear. She uses her laptop with greater frequency. He never spies on what she's doing. Never even occurs to him.

Occasionally they watch Netflix on it. Because they are lazy. And because they are in bed. And because he's a voracious one; likes to fuck her. Why would he leave the bed?

--

Early evening. Wolf's eating. It's a burger, meaty and red, coarse-chopped fries on the side. His chef is learning his taste: nothing fancy, plenty of red meat, potatoes. Occasionally something finer, more exotic, more healthy still appears. Wolf's chef hopes to expand his horizons. Or maybe hopes to keep things interesting for girl. Or maybe wants to prove to girl, to wolf, to himself, to everyone, that he's capable of more than just ... this stuff.

Anyway. Wolf's eating and girl comes over. He puts the burger down when he sees the look on her face, but it's not bad. He thinks it's not bad. He wipes his mouth and holds his hands out for the laptop.

"Yeah. Let's see."

Devon

He gets a sleek, silvery, shockingly expensive surface pro, top of the line, half computer, half tablet. Devon gets the one she picked out. Stubbornly, even a bit defiantly, she gets the one that she picked out that she can pay for half of, and then puts stickers on it, and

watches Netflix on it with him, even though his is nicer. But his is all the way over there.

--

Devon sets her laptop down on the island, past his plate, rather than putting it into his greasy hands. She sits beside him on the barstool, tapping the space bar to make the video queued up on the screen start playing.

It looks like some sort of home-made music video. Rather good production quality, for a DIY, but that's getting surprisingly common these days. The technology is available; the means to learn the technology is accessible. Some surprising people are churning out surprisingly good content.

The song doesn't matter; Devon has the volume so low it's barely audible as anything other than 'some kind of song'. The video is already half over at the point she had it paused at. There's a young woman on the screen, a little younger than Devon, with auburn hair and a white, Victorian-esque dress on. Her face is mostly obscured by camera angles and her hair, but she's walking across a grassy field, and the grass is springing up around her bare feet. Little wildflowers are springing up from around her bare feet, too, tiny sprouts that unfurl into blossoms in a flowing timelapse.

The girl in the video kneels down at a dry, brown, dead flowerbed, picking up some of the fallen stems in her hands, cupping her palms around them. As the song crests through Devon's laptop speakers and the girl opens her hands, the flower inside bursts forth, petals radiant with new color and life.

It is a super hippy-dippy music video with the sort of imagery best left to a basic bitch's secret wedding Pinterest board.

Devon taps the space bar again, the enormous purple blossom still filling up the video screen.

"So..." she begins, exhaling: "that isn't an effect."

Turns to look at him, gauging his reaction. "I mean the grass and flowers. It's not special effects."

Rafael

She shows him... some sort of DIY hipster music video. Wolf is frowning. He doesn't get it. Not until the camera catches the plants growing beneath the starlet's feet. There he flicks a glance at girl. Back to the screen.

They watch the rest in silence. Until the pause. Until the blooming purple flower.

He leans back. Still frowning, though she knows him well enough by now to know it's only because he's thinking. "How do you know?" he asks.

Devon

"Been talking to her," Devon tells him. "For a while. Since I've been... looking for others."

There's a pause, and then she just launches into it: "Her name is Ursula. I just... came across her on Tumblr, and then her Instagram, and we started commenting and messaging a lot, and then emailing, and... we just gradually got more honest about our witchcraft.

"Plants grow when she touches them," Devon says, sounding a bit in awe of it, despite her own abilities. "And like in the video: she can even bring dead plants back to life."

A heavier pause, then a breath: "She can heal. She said she's only done it a few times, and usually it doesn't work, and it takes so much out of her she's scared she'll end up in a coma or something. But the way she describes... energy. The flow of it. How things happen when she doesn't mean for them to, and how she makes things happen when she really means it. I know she's not lying. I don't think anyone could describe it the way she did if they haven't felt it."

Like Devon has felt it.

"So... can we go to Wisconsin?"

Rafael

Wolf huffs softly. Might call it a laugh, except it's a sound more of wonder. Maybe even admiration.

"Found yourself another witch," he says. "Yeah. Course we can go to Wisconsin. When do you want to leave?"

Devon

Devon shrugs.

Rafael

"We can go tomorrow," he says. "Give you some time to pack. And prepare."

Devon

Now Devon grins. "You sure?" she asks. Her excitement has less tension in it. Now it's just energetic, vibratory, filling her voice.

She doesn't give him a chance to answer, though. She leans over, her hands coming to rest lightly on either side of his face. She kisses him, softly. Sweetly. Smiles at him when she draws back.

"I'll tell Ursula."

And she's off, swiveling around on the barstool and pulling her laptop over to send a message to her new friend,

the other witch.

shower. tribes. cuddling. conversations.

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