If Wishes Were Fishes

by Meredith Katz

  Poly, M/M, contemporary paranormal romance. Featuring an anxious psychic, his ghost boyfriend, and their deer-antlered lover. A story about family, communication, and learning to let go of the past… and about trying to get along with your immortal boyfriend’s persnickety grown-ass kid whose lover has gotten himself trapped in the form of a fish.

  A standalone sequel. Reading Empty Vessels is encouraged, but not required.

  ***

  After dealing with unruly Terrors and haunted dolls while trying to graduate from university, Keith just wants a break. His psychic abilities have got him in as much trouble as they've got him out of, though they also helped let him protect his two boyfriends—Lucas, a ghost, and Hiraeth, a deer-antlered cryptid—so he can't complain that much.

  When Hiraeth's son appears looking for help to remove a curse that's been placed on his lover, Keith is pretty sure his anxiety over his powers is nothing compared to how he feels about trying to get along with his boyfriend's family.

  If Wishes Were Fishes

  Sixth Sense Investigations 2

  By Meredith Katz

  Published by Soft Cryptid

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner without written permission of the publisher, except for the purpose of reviews. Purchase only authorized editions and do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrighted materials. Thank you for supporting the author’s rights.

  Edited by Nicole Field & Aveline Reynard

  Cover designed by Dian Huynh

  https://dianhuynh.artstation.com/

  This book is a work of fiction and all names, characters, places, and incidents are fictional or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual people, places, or events is coincidental.

  Second edition May 2020

  First edition published in Happiness in Numbers by Less Than Three Press February 2019

  Copyright © 2019, 2020 by Meredith Katz

  Printed in the United States of America

  Digital ISBN 978-1-989646-18-2

  Print ISBN 978-1-989646-19-9

  To Aveline, my life and love.

  Thank you for supporting my inexplicable

  metamorphosis into a brightly-colored tropical fish.

  The Sixth Sense Investigations Series

  Empty Vessels

  If Wishes Were Fishes

  Other Works by Meredith Katz

  Beauty & Cruelty

  The Cybernetic Tea Shop

  How Saeter Robbed the Underworld

  Smoke Signals

  Only Human

  The Cobbler's Soleless Son (Pandemonium 1)

  Behind Bars (Pandemonium 2)

  Hair to the Throne (Pandemonium 3)

  If Wishes

  Were Fishes

  Meredith Katz

  chapter one

  Keith Marose's room at his parents' house was, by any way of measuring it, larger than his dorm room at Stonybridge University. At the moment, though, it felt incomparably smaller.

  "Ughhh, I'm trapped in a cocoon of lieeeees," Keith groaned aloud, muffled by his pillowcase. It had been washed since he'd last slept in it, and smelled and looked just fine. But to his other senses, the ones that the accident had awakened, it was still stained by the tears he'd shed into it over the years, shadows of old terror sticking to it and sliding off like a thick oil.

  It had been ten minutes since Keith had tried to get a breather from his parents’ overprotective but well-meaning love and had ducked up to his room to 'grab a book to take back with him to the dorm'. But that was an excuse that could only take so long, and he knew he had to head back down soon.

  The heart of the problem was that it was his room in his parents' house. As much as he loved them, he had nothing in common with them, and the fact that he’d started seeing ghosts and otherworldly monsters in his teens was only part of that. Whenever they (accurately) suspected he was still seeing them, they began to worry—which was understandable, no matter how much Keith hated to be the cause of it.

  His visions had started after the accident. He'd been crossing the street, unaware of the car barreling toward him. The next thing he knew, he was on the ground, unharmed, having been shoved out of the way by a total stranger who had taken the impact for him.

  No wonder his parents had thought that him starting to see things was just the result of trauma. They’d done their best for him in that horrible situation—got him a therapist, tried to keep talking to him about it, and checked in on him after he'd moved out for school. And admittedly, it had fucked Keith up pretty badly. There were days still when the idea of going out and seeing other people was just impossible, where having to get out of bed and do anything made his chest tight and his breathing short and his head ache—

  But those days weren't that frequent now, five years later. And the ghost, Lucas, the man who'd saved him… well.

  "A cocoon of lies, huh? Yeah, you really are all wrapped up in it. What could you even say to them? 'What've you been up to?' 'Oh, you know…'" Lucas hovered at the end of the bed, which didn't bend under his insubstantial weight. He paused for several beats too long. "'Definitely not saving the Otherworld and practicing my psychic powers.'"

  "Lucaaaaas," Keith whined plaintively.

  Lucas made an amused yet sympathetic noise, leaning over and pushing Keith's messy black hair off his pale forehead with a hand that had no more strength to it than a cold breeze. "Yeah, yeah," he said. "I mean, I get it. But they missed you."

  "It's just complicated," Keith muttered.

  Lucas was Keith's constant companion, and if neither of them had wanted that at first… things were better now, this many years later. And he couldn't talk about any part of that with his parents. They would think the truth was a sign of a backslide at best.

  He’d even skipped seeing his parents over Christmas break, except for Christmas day itself, and knew his excuses had sounded horribly vague. But within the last few months, Keith had started dating both Lucas and the Horned Boy, one of the so-called monsters he'd also started to see after the accident; visions aside, how could he explain that he’d wanted to spend the time with his new boyfriends? He wasn't even out to his parents about being gay, let alone poly, let alone all of the supernatural part of it.

  Even if he revealed one part, he couldn't tell them about the rest, and it made the idea of talking about any of it choke in his throat. The last time he'd tried to figure out how, his anxiety attack had lasted two days.

  "Keith?" his mother called up the stairs. "You found that book you were looking for?"

  He grabbed one off the shelves at random. "Yeah!" he called back. "Be right down!"

  And then he turned back to Lucas, giving him a plaintive expression. "I'm… sorry."

  Lucas didn't ask about what. Around his family, Keith couldn't talk to him, look at him, give any sign that something was up. At school, he had a reputation for weirdness because he was always looking at things that couldn’t be seen, or talking to Lucas whenever he could get away with it.

  But nobody there cared about him, not really, while his parents longed for him to be recovered. For him to be normal again.

  "It's cool," Lucas said gently. "I'll be here anyway."

  He had to be. He couldn't go too far from Keith, bound to him as his anchor to this world. But Keith tried to take the words as intended and held out a closed fist to him.

  Lucas fistbumped back, a cold pressure, there and gone.

  ***

  Halfway through dinner, the phone in Keith's pocket rang. Rather than answer it, he completely froze.

  Neon Hitch's voice sang out another few lines about bad dogs and probabl
y fucking them before Keith's mother asked him, "Aren't you going to answer that?"

  Keith contemplated the possibility of astrally projecting to get out of this situation, but fainting at the dinner table probably wouldn't help anything in the long run.

  "Yeah, uh," he said, knowing that there was literally no way to avoid the uncomfortable questions at the end of this. It was the ringtone for Hiraeth's number—which he'd set for Keith and which Keith hadn't gotten around to changing back. Not answering would be suspicious. Saying the wrong thing to Hiraeth would too, and he couldn't even imagine how it'd go if his parents overheard any of Hiraeth's side of the call.

  But he wanted to talk to Hiraeth like he wanted to talk to Lucas, who was watching him with raised and expectant eyebrows from across the room, and he could make only one of those things happen here and now.

  He swiped to answer. "Uh, hey?"

  "Hello, love," Hiraeth said. "Busy?"

  "Kinda," Keith said, hyper-aware of his parents pretending not to listen to his half of the conversation. "I'm eating dinner. At my parents' place."

  "Oh, I'm sorry to interrupt, my darling! I forgot. Must be getting old," Hiraeth joked in that lilting voice of his.

  Once, Hiraeth had implied he'd been around in the foundational days of the ancient Greek city-states. Keith managed not to make too much of a face at the phone. "I'll call you back later?"

  "Sure, though it's nothing much. Just wondering if you're free tomorrow?"

  "I should be," Keith said, hoping for once that he wasn't going to be asked out on a date. He really wasn't sure his poker face was up to it, not with both his parents examining their salads with exaggerated interest in front of him. "Why?"

  Hiraeth said, "I'll give you the details later, but my son's coming into town tomorrow and I'd love to introduce the two of you to him."

  Keith managed to choke on air.

  "What?" he hissed, almost forgetting where he was.

  "Son. Visiting. Going to show you off," Hiraeth said with good-natured patience.

  "Your—" He cut himself off from repeating Hiraeth’s words at the last moment.

  "My eldest," Hiraeth said, in a tone as if he were clarifying things rather than actually raising way more questions. "Anyway, call me back later, I've drunk so much coffee today trying to track some things down at the shop that I don't think I'll be sleeping tonight regardless of when you call."

  "I…" Keith's parents were looking at anywhere but him in an attempt to give him a polite facade of privacy, having exhausted the salad's opportunities. "Yeah. I'll call you back later."

  "Or you could just come over tonight," Hiraeth said.

  Keith wondered how much of the lewd tone of Hiraeth's voice could be heard in the room, even if his exact words couldn't. "Bye," he said forcefully.

  He hung up and dropped the phone next to his plate. "Sorry about that," he said, a bit weakly. "I forgot to put it on silent, didn't mean to interrupt dinner—"

  "Oh, no, it's fine," his mother said quickly. "You never used to get calls!"

  "I know, I know," he said, giving her an awkward smile. "Don't rub it in."

  His father grabbed the pepper and shook it out sparingly over his otherwise-unseasoned potatoes. "A girl?" he asked, too-casually.

  Well, at least that implied that Hiraeth's voice probably couldn't be heard. Keith felt his shoulders hunch a little defensively. "No," he said. "Not a girl."

  "Too bad," his father joked lightly. "But I'm glad you're making friends. Someone from school?"

  "No, he's—" The scenario felt like it was spinning out of control: things he could say, things he couldn't say, what excuses he might have to make, what bits of the truth he could sneak in. "He's not from school. We met at the place he works. Just… a friend."

  Two truths and a lie. He suddenly felt tired. Lucas's expression was a mix between laughter and horror, though he hid it a moment later, burying his face in his hands.

  "Well, that's good, though," Keith's mother said. "It's just so nice you have friends. You can invite him over to play any time, you know!"

  "Mom," Keith protested.

  "I know, I know, I guess that's embarrassing, you in your twenties and all," she said. "But kids your age never eat well, so if you ever want to bring him by for dinner, he's welcome here."

  It'd almost be worse to introduce him and later have to admit they were dating. "He's… a vegetarian.”

  "I can cook vegetarian," his mother protested, even though her usual—and, in fact, perhaps her only—approach to vegetables was 'boil, butter, and add a pinch of salt for flavor'. "It'll be fun to try something new!"

  Keith's dad laughed. "Don't embarrass him too much, Nan," he teased. "You can't coddle everyone he knows."

  She stuck her tongue out at him.

  Something about the byplay between them made Keith feel even worse, wistful and longing and afraid. He couldn't address that, and so he just ducked his head over his food and mumbled, "Maybe later."

  chapter two

  It was well after dusk by the time that Keith and Lucas stepped outside, but despite the heightened risk of encountering the sort of things that only moved around in darkness, Keith found himself immediately relaxing. He breathed the cold, rainy air in deeply, and shivered.

  "Sorry," Lucas said. "Am I standing too close?"

  "No, you could stand closer." It had been a long time since Keith had minded the cold spot that was Lucas's presence. He reached out for that bond he knew was between them and focused on giving it a tug. He couldn't do much more—at least, not yet, not consciously. But like everything else he'd been learning to manipulate, it was just energy, and so he could at least do a little.

  Lucas let out a surprised laugh, eyes lighting up as he stumbled a few steps toward Keith, as if he had grabbed Lucas's hand and yanked him closer. Just like he'd wanted to do. "Keith…!"

  Keith took a moment to just appreciate him. All ghosts were nearly invisible even to Keith's sixth sense, Lucas's transparent brown skin and dark polo shirt nearly vanishing against the darker backdrop of suburban bushes, but Keith could still see how handsome he was. Tall, with his strong features and warm eyes, present and there despite his intangibility.

  He gave Lucas a little smile, almost shy. "Hey," he said.

  "Hey," Lucas echoed back, voice gone a little rough with pleasure. He nudged his cold hand against Keith's, and Keith held it as best he could, feeling his fingers pass through the space where it was.

  They walked in silence a short distance, heading for the bus stop, before Lucas squeezed his hand again. "So, what was the call about?"

  Flushing a little at the memory, Keith said, "Hiraeth's kid's coming to town, and he wants to introduce us."

  "He's got a kid?" Lucas almost sounded impressed, or maybe taken aback. "Is the kid already there? Or—"

  "Tomorrow," Keith said. "He said to come over tonight anyway. Before his son showed up."

  Lucas grinned, a glimmer of mischief in his eye. "Yeah, I bet he did."

  "Maybe just to get us up to speed on what to expect?" Keith suggested, just a little slyly.

  "What to expect, huh…" Meeting Keith's gaze with a faux-solemn expression, Lucas raised his hand and made a jerk-off motion.

  Bursting into laughter, Keith swatted a hand through him. "That too. C'mon, pipe down, bus is coming."

  "Hey, you're the only one who can see me," Lucas said innocently. "What harm does it do?"

  "Everyone can see me blush, so…" Keith scrunched up his face at him, then schooled his expression again as the bus doors opened.

  The ride passed quickly; it was late enough for the bus not to be crowded and for nobody to question the fact he had an empty seat beside him, one he listed into slightly as if tired as he did his best attempt to rest his head on Lucas's shoulder. He was downtown in less than half an hour, heading not to the bus he'd normally transfer to so he could head back to his dorm, but walking instead do
wn Antique Row.

  Hiraeth's shop, Dear Desires Antiques, was out of the way and easy to miss for most people, set back a little from the road with its shop front shadowed. But it was clearly marked to those with Otherly senses, with a literal glowing supernatural arrow slapped down on the ground. It was even more obvious to Keith's second sight in the evening than it had been in the light of day when he'd first seen it, and it had brought him up short then.

  Hiraeth didn't mind selling his antiques to humans, but he had a large special collection of items meant especially for Others like himself, and they were the ones whose attention he tried to grab.

  Keith hesitated, staring at the faux-Tudor-style front of the shop, his feet suddenly turned leaden.

  "Keith?"

  "It's nothing," Keith said. "It's stupid. I know his son isn't even there yet, but you know, just—"

  Lucas wrinkled his nose at Keith. "It's not stupid. I'm nervous too."

  "—You are?" Keith swallowed around his dry throat, searching Lucas's face. Lucas rarely seemed nervous about anything; he was about as chill as a ghost could be, calm and determined, a rock in a world Keith always found to be stormy.

  A bit bashful, Lucas rubbed the back of his neck. "Yeah. I mean, my relationship with him is still finding its feet, and yours got started while I was… gone.”

  Keith remembered all too well. The moment that Lucas had been attacked, had vanished, and Keith had run like a coward. How Hiraeth had held him, recognized his grief and what it meant, and had offered him comfort.

  At the time, Keith hadn't imagined he'd somehow end up with both of them, or that they'd both be into each other enough for this to be what Lucas was worried about.

  Lucas was still talking, staring awkwardly down at his feet. “I can only… develop my relationship with him when you're around. I mean, I can't exactly go anywhere without you and—don't get me wrong, it's good! But a bit different. You're, you know… you started first, so you're levelled up on dating him compared to me, and—especially considering that, what's his son gonna think of me?"