Irene Didn’t Blink. Didn’t Smile. Didn’t Rise To Meet The Bait Like So Many Did — Like Briar

Irene didn’t answer at first.

She just stood there, half turned, coat stretched between them like a line drawn in wet chalk — fading, but still there. Allie’s words landed softly, but they lingered, like pollen in her lungs. You’re a pretty thing. She huffed out something like a laugh, but it was quiet, more breath than sound. The kind of sound that wanted to be disbelief but came out something gentler.

There was no way Allie knew what she was saying. Not really. Not when she looked at Irene like that — like there was no blood on her hands, no sharp edges tucked behind her ribs. Like this world could still be something soft, and Irene someone who could hold it without breaking it.

The rain kept on falling, slower now, steadier — but the sky hadn’t eased. Thunder growled in the distance, low and mean, a reminder that the storm hadn’t finished making its point. Irene glanced up, jaw tight, then down again at the soaked hem of Allie’s dress, the way she shivered under the weight of the cold even while smiling like she belonged to it.

“You’re gonna get yourself struck by lightning if you keep dancing around like that,” Irene muttered, and there was no bite in it — just that soft, tired kind of affection she didn’t hand out freely. “Not a poetic way to go, Allie. Moment’s over. Come on.”

She pulled the coat tighter around her — around them — and her hand lingered at Allie’s back a second longer than necessary. A quiet thing. A steady thing. Something close to safety.

Irene looked at her then, really looked, like maybe she was trying to memorize the shape of someone who still believed the world didn’t bite. And maybe that was why she didn’t say the hundred things clawing at the back of her throat — all the reasons they shouldn’t be here, shouldn’t be close, shouldn’t pretend like pretty things could live long when they weren’t careful.

         allie shakes her head, it’s the easiest thing in the world. of course irene isn’t dangerous, matching with her is even less so. it’s natural, it’s perfect, it’s lovely. it’s the perfect day for it, even if the storm turns angrier, wilder, less forgiving for girls who are afraid of them. or at least, girls that are supposed to be afraid of them. allie’s not scared, now. she has irene. and this time, she doesn’t stiffen, or pull back, or watch her with a cautious, careful eye that makes allie feel like there’s a wall between them, even when she’s right next to her. now, allie tries, and irene’s letting her in. even if it’s almost, a whisper of a touch, a slight feeling- a catch of softness, like allie’s closing her eyes and running a finger along her surface. it’s something, and allie holds onto it. the fondness stays in her eyes, watching irene’s reaction to the flower. she’s not mad, she’s not angry, she’s not going to shove allie in the water and leave her behind. allie hadn’t done anything wrong, she hadn’t hurt her.

         it’s why she listens, it’s why she only pouts, doesn’t protest or argue when irene draws them away. her eyes only plead for the whimsy to return for only a moment, before she’s swept under irene’s coat. it had only been the slightest offer of closeness, and she takes it eagerly. it’s only then that she’d considered she had, maybe, been shivering from the cold, and had yet to notice. 

         because there, closer to her friend, it’s warm. she realizes then, the state of her, sopping wet and shoeless. there’s no regret, but she does feel bad for irene’s coat. allie goes, finding it easy to clear a way through the storm, so long as she wasn’t alone, so long as it wasn’t her idea. irene wants her to be safe, so she will. she wants her out of the danger. and, despite their completely separate definitions of danger, allie wants that too, because she does.  “ are you kidding? of course it is! i’m bare-footed, and you’re a pretty thing. ”  she giggles, her finger going to touch the yellow bloom tucked behind her ear, making sure it doesn’t fall.  “ we’re here, we’re meant to be here. if we weren’t meant to, we wouldn’t be. ”  maybe she can get her dance with her, after all.

Irene didn’t flinch at the mention of imprisonment. Just blinked, slow and tired, like the word didn’t surprise her — or maybe like it just didn’t matter here. Plenty of people came through this town with things trailing behind them, and it wasn’t her job to follow any of it home.

“February,” she echoed, half to herself. That would’ve been after she got here. After she’d unpacked more than she meant to in a house that still felt as empty as the moment they walked in. She hadn’t touched her inheritance yet. Back then, she thought she’d be in and out, keep her head down, move on. Not still here, not letting the town get under her skin.

She caught sight of the tattoos when she moved — didn’t stare, didn’t ask — just noted the language like you do a warning carved into stone. Then her eyes dropped to the parcel. The mix didn’t surprise her, though the mention of wombs did. Irene’s jaw shifted slightly — a faint, reflexive tension — but she didn’t rise to it.

“Appreciate the warning,” she said, tone steady. “Won’t add it to the tea. That blend’s for the everyday folk. Not the kind looking to sink too deep.”

A pause. She finally reached forward and pulled the parcel the rest of the way toward her, careful not to jostle it too much.

“I’ll tag it for storage,” she added. “Stephens’ll know what to do with it, if it’s meant for her.” Her voice softened a little, though not by much. “She doesn’t write much down. But she remembers everything. Like a bad habit.”

Irene let the silence sit for a beat, then looked up again, brow just slightly furrowed. “She teach you much? Or were you mostly here for the night shift?”

"Briefly, when I came hitherto from imprisonment." She has always taken little and less care in masking her nature as something not altogether mundane. She makes no bones about either her nature as a witch nor at her prickly nature. She invites conflict, because conflict often feeds that which needs be fed. Besides, she's among allies here in Tumataru;

"Took my leave come 'round February, working the late shifts here for the nightfolk and latecomers. I find shop work dreadfully boring even if the goods aren't, much more fun, dancing for wandering eyes." She rests a hand, dotted with old ancient tattoo-work - symbols and glyphic signs that will make sense aught anyone else but her - on the parcel she's set down and slides it down the counter.

"Hemlock, hogsweed, and a bundle of oily snakeroot that might find home in your Dreamless Tea. Take care though, only a dram of that if you do, lest you accidentally fallow the womb of some poor woman who simply seeks help for night terrors."

She hadn’t meant to stop.

The road was half-eaten, gouged by rain and salt, the edges soft and unreliable. Her boots sank just enough to be irritating. She’d been walking for a while—no destination, no plan, just a direction that felt better than turning back. Her hood was up, scarf pulled too tight at the neck, fingers stiff in her coat pockets.

The truck looked like it had tried to reason with the shoulder and lost. She might’ve kept walking, but the shape in the driver’s seat moved. Jolted, more like. Then a voice—muffled, defensive.

Irene stepped closer. Not enough to be intrusive, but enough to be seen clearly when the driver twisted toward the window.

“Congratulations,” she said flatly, lifting her voice just enough to carry through the rain. “You’re not dead.”

Her eyes skimmed the truck; stuck good, probably been here a while, cab fogged slightly, the kind of tired that lingered even in posture. Blanket around his shoulders, so either cold or trying to comfort himself. She didn’t care which. She wasn’t judging. Not really.

“You planning on becoming one?” she added, eyes steady. “Because you’re about three hours from the road washing out completely. Give or take.”

She didn’t reach for the door, didn’t crowd him. Just waited there, a half-soaked figure with wind-tangled hair and a stare like she was the one who’d summoned the storm.

“You got anyone coming?” A pause. “Anyone who can make it through this?”

There was no rush in her voice. No panic. Just the kind of tired patience that came from already knowing the answer.

who: open where: the side of the road

He manages not to fully skid off of the shoulder of the road, the emergency brake coming in clutch at the very last second. The engine groans a little as Kevin puts the truck into park before shutting off the engine entirely. Rolling the window down, he sticks his head out the window and can tell that the back wheel is stuck in the mud and there was no way it was getting out without help. His head is mostly drenched when he pulls it back into the cab and he sighs, banging it gently against the headrest.

His phone is open on the center console next to him, Kali's message still flashing brightly across the screen.

"Get off that man's dick and go home."

He had missed the message at first, mostly because he was on the man's dick, but he doesn't really think that extra 90 seconds would have mattered that much in the grand scheme of things. Either way, he and his truck are now both stuck in the rain, and he can already feel his joints reacting to the drop in air pressure. It feels like sandpaper rubbing against his bones, and he leans over to his glove compartment to grab his stash of edibles. He sure as hell wasn't driving anytime soon.

Since he's unable to run the engine, he reaches into the back seat to grab one of the blankets he keeps for Saturn. It's got dog hair all over it, but it smells like her so he wraps it around his shoulder and tries to find a comfortable position in his seat. He sends a couple texts out, to people who might be wondering where he is, but there is a big fat red "!" letting him know that nothing was being delivered. With his battery only at half, he sighs, turning off every app he wasn't using to try and preserve it for as long as possible.

Kevin's not sure if he falls asleep or lets the weed lull him into a comfortable doze, but he jumps when he hears a knock on the driver's seat window. His knee cracks uncomfortably from the movement, and he grunts as he shifts, looking out at the blurry figure in the storm. "I'm fine!" he tries to shout through the window. "It's dry and I can wait it out!"

Irene didn’t sit right away. She hovered by the kitchen island instead, letting the smell of the takeout do most of the work as Sammy rifled through it, eyes already brighter for something warm and edible. It helped to have something to do with his hands — she could see it in the way his shoulders relaxed, just a little, just enough.

The light through the window was slipping golden across the floorboards, catching in her hair and her coat like dust. She let it settle in the silence for a few breaths before answering.

“He’s not worse,” she said first, which wasn’t the same thing as better, but also wasn’t nothing. Her voice didn’t waver, didn’t hedge — just delivered it straight. Measured. Quiet.

She finally pulled out a chair and sat across from him, shrugging off her coat like it weighed too much. The sleeves of her shirt were pushed up just far enough to show faint smudges of ash and something glittery — residue of something that wasn’t quite spellwork, but close. She didn’t explain it.

When she looked up again, her eyes were rimmed darker than usual. Not in the dramatic, witchy way people always assumed. Just… tired. Deep-set, like sleep had been a luxury out of reach for more than a few nights. But her face didn’t crack. It never did.

“He’s not alone in there,” she said simply. Her fingers ghosted over the side of a napkin, folding one corner with idle precision. “That matters.”

She didn’t say what it had cost — not just the magic, but the time. The strain. The hours spent crouched beside a still body with salt lining her lashes and the smell of scorched rosemary in the walls.

And she definitely didn’t say how wrong it had felt to sense Riven’s signature in the sandscape of Shiv’s unconscious — familiar and twisted and present. That stayed between her, Shiv, and Thera.

But she met Sammy’s eyes across the kitchen table, and there was no flinch in her voice when she added, “He’s going to be okay.”

There was a steadiness to the words. Not bravado. Not blind optimism. Just a thing spoken because it was true — even if she couldn’t tell him how she knew. “You know I wouldn’t bullshit you,” she said softly. “Not about something like this.”

And maybe it wasn’t enough to erase the circles under her eyes or the tension she still carried in her shoulders. But it was the best she could offer, short of dragging him into the dream herself — and she wasn’t ready to open that door to anyone else. Not yet. Too fragile. Too... unfinished.

She let her gaze drift toward the back window, where the twins shrieked over some messy game involving sticks and a bucket of water. The sound didn’t ease the coil in her chest, but it grounded her.

“You’re doing the right thing, staying with them,” she said, voice softer now. “They need you more than he does, in this moment.”

A beat.

“But when he wakes up, he’s probably going to ask what took you so long.”

That, at least, earned a tiny smile — thin and crooked, barely there, but real.

“How are you holding up?”

The front door didn’t need to be locked, not when the twins were running between the front and back yards faster than he could follow. He’d taken to pacing in the kitchen, only occasionally glancing out the window to make sure his step-siblings were still making potions out of mud and leaves in the backyard, his mind on other things. 

The situation with Mr. Shiv was a royal fuck-up. Two weeks, and he’d let himself think that he was just on an extended hunt. He should have raised the alarm days ago, should have at least asked around! He should have done something, not just— 

A voice from the hall pulled him out of his train of thought. Irene was standing in his front hall, a takeout bag in hand. 

Irene was nice. Good to work with, if a bit spooky and ominous. After getting the news of Mr. Shiv’s injury to Ms. Kennedy and Mr. Castillo, she was the next (and only) person he told. It wasn’t that he didn’t trust any other hunters, just... Irene was a lot more discreet than them. He couldn’t really picture Nico reacting in a calm and measured way to the news that a hunter in a coma was being taken care of in a shop run by a witch for the past two weeks. Irene, at the very least, was discreet and clever, and was nice enough to lurk in the threshold so she could easily turn and leave if she wasn’t wanted. 

She was wanted. Especially with food, an easy reminder that, yeah, he had definitely forgotten to make himself lunch when he’d made the twins their sandwiches earlier. It was easier to ignore his body’s signals to eat and rest when he was worrying. ”Sorry, I didn’t hear you, come in! Yeah, I got distracted, thank you.”

He ushered her in, over towards the chairs around the kitchen island, where he was able to keep an eye on the twins out the windows as they spoke. He shrugged away any attempt to ask after his own well being, instead focusing on picking over the takeout food gratefully.

“You saw him? Any changes? I dropped by the day I got the note, he seemed like a 4 on the Glasgow coma scale, which is, uh...” He trailed off. A score of 4, after two weeks? That was more often than not a sign to start getting a funeral plan in order. “Bad. Really bad, for an injury. Magic might make it better, or different, but by regular medical scales, he should be in a long-term ward. Is he doing any better? Responsive, moving, even reacting at all to touch or noise?”

Irene doesn’t look at her. Doesn’t need to. She just stands there for a second, letting the quiet settle. The weight of the question sits somewhere low — not heavy, not sharp, just… familiar. And when she answers, it’s not guarded or cold. It just is.

“My mom’s sick,” she says, plain and low. “So I read a lot.”

She doesn’t offer more than that. Doesn’t fill in the gaps or paint it prettier than it is. Just lets the silence take what it wants from it. There’s always been power in not explaining. Her eyes drift to the open door, to the sky that’s gone soft with dusk and too many unknowns. And she sighs. Not annoyed — not really. Just the tired kind. The kind that comes from caring more than you meant to.

Because she shouldn’t. Not like this. Not for someone who leaves pieces of herself in every corner of a room like she hopes someone else will pick them up. Not for someone who believes too easily and follows too far. But Irene’s never been good at drawing clean lines. Especially not when the danger’s real. Especially not when the girl looking up at her still thinks the night is something that’ll let her pass through it untouched.

“Fine,” she mutters, pushing the door all the way open. “Let’s go.”

She doesn’t wait for thanks. Doesn’t say anything when their shoulders brush or when Allie keeps close enough that Irene can hear the soft drag of her sleeves with every step. “Just so we’re clear,” she says after a few blocks, tone dry but not distant, “This isn’t gonna be a thing. I don’t do nightly strolls.”

Still, she glances sideways. Just once. Just long enough to make sure the shadows behind them aren’t walking too.

        “ oh, sorry. ”  the pinch between her brows falls, slowly, the confusion melting into a fuzzy, almost acceptance. of course she believes irene, why would she lie? allie has this habit of leaving heaps of heavy hope in the arms of others, at least irene doesn’t have to carry them anymore. she refuses to let disappointment find her, and instead she finds something else to be excited about. she just works here, irene’s not a witch, it’s mostly just retail and she’s right but- the knowledge still has to be there, doesn’t it? it’s another bundle of questions that tucks near her heart, wraps around irene’s name.

        don’t sell yourself short. out of a few words, allie finds the world waiting for her. it’s so nice, the kind of nice she doesn’t deserve. because, really, it’s not true. she isn’t good for anything more than wishing. she keeps trying, it’s why the journals pages keep finding things to fill them. that’s her trying. to learn, and to grow, to be something more than lost. but it makes more sense the other way, for allie to stay a lost little thing. irene deserves more than speechlessness, but allie doesn’t want to argue anymore, and she can’t find anything to pull on, so she hopes her eyes say enough.

        her eyes flicker to watch the other’s movements. she puts space between them, fidgets with the little things around them irene’s trying to leave, allie, you have to let her go home-  “ how did you learn about it all? ”  she winds, unwinds a strand of her hair around a finger as the question cuts through, clear as the breaking day. like a sunlight that streams through an exhausted room, she can’t stop it. the curtain of curiosity won’t go back to where it belongs. she doesn’t mean to keep her here, daisy chained, really. she promises, she doesn’t. 

        allie holds out her hand, tries a soft offer that she hopes is just a gentle touch of clingy, not so much that it’s suffocating. irene always closes up when anything’s about her, and she’d barely made it through one wall, she can’t pry open another tonight. she doesn’t want to, anyways, you’re supposed to be let in. softly, allie tries, instead,  “ walk me home? ”  because she’s forgetful, because she slips into bouts of whimsy that has her ending up lost, because irene knows that, and she’s kind. another night, when allie hadn’t already messed up, they can try the other way. and it’ll be irene’s turn to share, again.

tag drop.

Irene didn’t answer right away.

Instead, she just watched her—this slip of a person who moved like sunlight had stitched itself into her seams, even soaked and barefoot in the middle of the storm. Irene’s mouth twitched again, that not-quite-smile hanging on like it was waiting for permission.

“I’m not chasing anything,” she said, voice low and even. “I’m just walking.”

The rain had picked up, steady now, but she didn’t move to shield herself. Just let it bead and roll off her coat like she’d forgotten it was supposed to bother her. Maybe she had.

She glanced at Allie’s bare feet and added, “You’re gonna catch something worse than a broken neck out here, though. There’s mud in the drains and runoff like soup.”

A pause.

“But you look happy.” Not a question, not quite an observation —just a simple fact, dropped between them with no particular weight. Like Irene had noticed and decided it was worth naming. She shifted her stance, hands still buried deep in her coat. “Can’t decide if it’s comforting or dangerous.”

Her gaze flicked up to the sky —not the clouds, not the wind, but something behind both. Whatever it was, it wasn’t close yet. But it would be. “I’m not the kind who runs from storms,” she added, more to the sky than to Allie. “But I don’t usually dance in ‘em either.” Finally, her attention dropped back to Allie. Something in her expression had softened —barely, but there. Like moss on stone.

“...Guess there’s a first time for everything.”

         she feels the witch before she sees her, in between some jump and twirl when she catches a warm familiarity in the breeze. the wind’s growing sharper, and she’s not if it’s from the storm, or if it’s stemming from the magic that’s coming just a whisper closer. allie’s reaching for her before she realizes, welcoming her in before allie finds irene’s name written on the signature. allie perks up towards the sound of another voice, eyes bright and searching, her voice even brighter against the rain.  “ break my neck? ”  there’s a lot of things you can break while dancing, but she’d never thought about her neck. allie’s never been careful, but she doesn’t think she could manage that. clumsy, and delighted, she recognizes the voice as a friend. “ oh, irene! you’re here! ”

         with her shoes in her hand, allie nearly skips forward to greet her. even rain-soaked, there’s a warm excitement that blooms inside her. it might’ve been cold, but that didn’t matter nearly as much. besides, the sun was still peeking through, just a little bit. even if a storm was brewing, something big enough to scare her away, she could still enjoy the last glimpses of sunlight.

         “ oh my gosh, are you kidding? i love the rain! ”  her hands fasten, earnestly, behind her back as she rocks forward. with wide, curious eyes, she watches irene.  “ what else would i be chasing? oh, are you a rain chaser? ”  she hadn’t thought so, but she always sorta’ thinks irene’s chasing something. maybe not the rain, but something.

Irene didn’t move. Just listened, hands still shoved deep in her pockets, shoulders angled slightly against the wind. The rain was lighter now, but it came in sideways, the kind that soaked under your collar no matter how tightly you pulled it closed.

She nodded once at his mention of a tow, but it wasn’t quite agreement. More acknowledgment. Heard.

“Not stupid,” she said finally, voice even. “Just stubborn. Which sometimes passes for brave if no one looks too close.”

Her gaze drifted past him, to the road beyond. It was unraveling at the edges, the kind of damage that didn’t look like much until it took a full axle or a boot clean through. She didn’t need to see the tires to know they weren’t moving again without help.

“You don’t have to explain it to me,” she added, after a beat. “I’ve seen people hold onto worse for less.”

She stepped a little closer then — just enough to keep from having to raise her voice. The kind of proximity that said she wasn’t going anywhere just yet, not unless something forced her hand.

“Tow might get here. Might not.” Not cruel, just honest. “You’ve got time. But not forever.”

Her baby blues met his, steady through the streaked window. “If it gets worse, and it will, I’ll be back this way before it goes fully under. You don’t want the rescue team in this town. They charge in favors.”

A pause. Not a threat. Just a truth laid flat.

“I’m not here to drag you out.” She tilted her head slightly. “But I’m not gonna pretend you’ll be fine either.”

Then, almost as an afterthought, like she was offering a breadcrumb instead of a lifeline. “There’s a diner about a mile and a half back. Runs a generator when the lines go out. You change your mind, you’ll make it there if you leave before sundown.”

She let that hang. Didn’t push. Just let the storm speak for a minute instead.

He would never again say that people in Port Leiry didn't give a damn because what the fuck. At least this one doesn't seem insistent in doing something drastic like breaking his window and dragging him out, but he doesn't want to give her the chance. He watches warily as she stands in the storm, unbothered like the weather isn't raging around them and threatening property damage and loss of life.

But the way she leaves him be allows him to let his guard down a tiny bit. He's too tired to fight. He understands why people want him to get out, hates that he's placing an additional burden on them they don't need. He tries not to think about if the worst does happen, and the guilt these people might feel. Maybe not the bear, but Autumn and Lis. They knew. They would know if he was swept away, but he clings to faith because it's all he has.

"A friend is calling a tow," he tells her, and that is the truth. Whether they'll be able to make it through is anyone's guess. "Look, I know it's stupid and ridiculous but-" he sighs. It feels like losing the truck would be losing the last part of his past that reminds him why to keep pressing forwards. "I can't walk in this storm. It's the only option I have." The only option he's willing to take.

There’s no hesitation. No flinch. Just a faint twitch in her jaw as he beckons — and then she’s moving.

Irene doesn’t waste the breath to answer him with words. Not yet. Not when she can let her body speak instead. She’s been talked over, under, around, and through more times than she can count, but this—this is different. He asked. He wants to see. So she shows him.

The first step is light. The second isn’t.

She closes the distance fast, low and clean. No windup. No warning. Just a quick strike for the shoulder — testing. Not to land it, not really. Just to see how he moves. How fast. What part of him gives first.

He’s solid. Of course he is.

The hit doesn’t need to land. The next one might.

She pivots, foot sweeping behind for balance as she drives her weight into a sharp elbow meant for his ribs. There's nothing showy in the motion — no wasted flourish. It’s the kind of fighting built in close quarters, learned between secondhand breaths and hard floors. The kind you don’t train for trophies. Just survival.

Still, even in the rhythm of it, even when she’s already resetting her stance and looking for another opening, the echo of his words lingers.

You believe they are not one and the same?

She exhales through her nose, a sharp puff between movements. Doesn’t break eye contact.

“I think people confuse getting stronger with never losing,” she says, steady, even as her feet shift again. “That’s not better. That’s just ego in a nicer jacket.”

Another feint — a shoulder this time, meant to draw his guard. If it works, her other hand’s already rising to follow through.

“I’m not here to win,” she adds, quieter now. “I’m here to learn how to stay standing.”

There’s no challenge in it. Just truth, clean and hard.

If he expects her to break, he’ll have to work for it. Because Irene’s not here to impress anyone. Not with power. Not with pain. Just with the fact that she keeps getting up. And right now, her fists are talking just fine.

She rises in his opinion an entire notch in the silence of her obedience. That is the height of all she could attain. Forward she comes, bare feet ghost the tatami. Miyazaki evaluates; she has no reservations about where she is. A nod, no bow. Respect, veneration and figments of honor. It's enough to placate the hydra of Miyazaki's temperament from making this hunter his meal. Nine versions at minimum that could greet her at any given moment. From the jaws of appetence to the patient humility, fed only when the rest sleep.

No extension in the hands, then. She would like to bloody the knuckles of her own punishing expression. Tetsuya sees no other reason she would come, if not to be better. She is gravely mistaken to believe that the art of the bo, or the legendary use of a katana would ever mean it is easy. He almost laughs, not out of amusement, but mockery to know that hunterkind has fallen so far from their origins.

An order he loathes, but they had once been a reckoning force. Miyazaki does not shy away from recognising an opponent worth their guile.

This one looks haunted. Shouldering a world she cannot carry.

Is this a hunter at its most humble?

A hum that's cut short echoes throughout the dojo. She is confounded. But he would like to know where that notion of that separation has come from.

"You believe they are not one and the same?" To be less breakable, is to be better. It is a crass, lazy term for it. Tetsuya could break her, shatter the bone inch by inch with every violent blow of the air, watch her crumble in a grotesque display of body displacement. Maybe he would put her back together, afterwards. But only if there is the fire in her gaze that burns brighter than her pain.

Miyazaki steps towards her and her plaintiff stance. He will not be naïve to believe she does not have training. He releases the hands from where they are behind his back, lifts one casually in a soft beckoning motion towards himself.

"Show me."

That's where she can start.

She turns.

Not fast. Not like a threat—though it wouldn’t take much for it to become one. Irene moves like a knife being unsheathed; deliberate, clean, sharp in all the places that matter. Her coat, still damp from the earlier downpour, clings to her like a second shadow, dark and unbothered by the chill. Wind tugs the hem sideways, wraps it round her calves like a whisper with teeth. Her gaze, when it settles on him fully, is calm. Heavy.

She could say a hundred things. Could speak in old names that burn when uttered, pull threads of his mind until they fray at the edges. Could reach through the smoke-thick parts of him and make him believe he never had a mother, never had bones, never had a name at all.

But she doesn’t.

Instead, she watches him with the kind of patience you only earn by standing still in rooms you were never meant to survive.

“Relax, pup,” she says, voice even. Low. Almost soft, if it weren’t for the iron underneath. “I’m off the clock.”

She lets that settle. Lets it dig its own little trench between them, full of unspoken meanings and unshed blood. She’s not reaching for anything —not a blade, not a curse, not even her temper— but her presence sharpens anyway. Like the weather around her is just waiting for an excuse.

“I don’t make messes unless I’m ready to clean them up.” A small tilt of her head. “And you’re not on my list.”

Her eyes don’t blink. Not right away. She studies him like she’s reading between the cracks of his ribs —finding the rot, weighing the ruin. The growl still hums in his throat like a taut string, but she doesn’t flinch. Doesn’t feed it either. Just stands there, steady as an altar stone, watching the storm behind his eyes with the kind of practiced detachment that only comes after watching men turn into monsters and monsters turn into corpses.

And then, finally, her mouth ticks up. Just a little. Not a smile. Something colder. Wiser.

“How’s it going?” she echoes, answering his dig with a shrug that carries far more weight than the gesture suggests. “Pretty well, actually.”

She nods toward him, slow and deliberate, like he’s a metaphor made real. “I’m not the one laughing at the thunder like it’s a god worth worshipping. So yeah. Guess I’m doing better than that.”

The air between them thickens, not with magic —though it’s always there, threading through her like smoke in a closed room— but with intent. Something that doesn’t need words. Irene could kill him. He’s fast, sure. Dangerous. But she’s lived through worse. She’s built worse. A hunter, yes —but a different breed than most. Not a zealot. Not a sadist.

She doesn’t want to skin him. Doesn’t want to watch him bleed.

But if he made her, she’d do it clean. Efficient. Kind, in its own quiet way.

Instead, she looks past him, back toward the distant rooftops where real nightmares fester, the ones with names she does keep on a list. A place where her attention should be.

And then back to him.

“You done barking?” she asks, voice quiet again. “Or are we still playing the big bad wolf routine?”

         césar’s saintly, for his teeth don’t feel the purchase of her neck beneath them, a bite to snap bone. still, he salivates for it. he displays a manner of control he, honestly, hadn’t thought possible. look at that, chiquita, you’re bringing out the best in him. his nose tells him human, but his eyes and ears tell him something more. humans don’t make threats like that, they don’t say your kind. it’s a gamble between a random, overly aware human and a hunter, weighing heavy on the hunter side. césar, for once, comes to the most reasonable conclusion. a low, deep growl rises in his throat, building underneath his jaw. he’s not a good enough dog to not respond to violence. her’s had come in words, so césar follows.

         “ watch it, chiquita. your pretty knives can’t stop a bite, and all it takes is once … ” she could kill him, sure, but césar’s always been a huge fan of mutually assured destruction. now, he’s not sure just what they teach in hunter school, but the curse brings a violence that tends to sneak up on you. it’s cocky, but he’s seen it time and time again. that, too, only takes once.

         there’s probably another world in which he takes her words in their finality, ignores her and leaves everything else unspoken and lost to the wind. and that world, césar’s not cursed, his father’s not dead, and warwick doesn’t send knives through their own skin. instead, when she speaks, all he hears is a child. all he hears is him. it makes him laugh, again, and he turns back towards the sea. i don’t smell like nightmares. you do. no matter how cold she is, how ice-firm her tone, césar hears the passion, how badly she wants to be believed. boo fucking hoo.  “ oh, yeah? and how’s that going? handling them? ”