by Alix Hadden
Zach reappeared, pulling his trousers on with a horrible grimace. "God, I can't go to work in these, I need to get home and change..."
"I'd lend you," Kir said, bemused by the sudden speed of events, "but..." But there was no way his trousers would fit Zach, who was both shorter and more heavily built than Kir.
"Yeah, no, it's fine," Zach interrupted. "Easier for me just to get straight home."
He pulled his hoodie on without putting a T-shirt on, then ducked out of the bedroom and into the bathroom to grab the bundled-up lump of his own T-shirt. Kir had no idea how he should be behaving at this point. Zach was clearly in a hurry, and this wasn't a time to start suggesting meeting up, or...? He got up and padded into the living room, where Zach was shoving his T-shirt into his messenger bag.
Zach turned to him, looking suddenly hesitant. "That -- I wasn't imagining all of that, last night, right?"
Kir was pretty sure he didn't mean the blow-job.
"I mean," Zach gestured down at the damp, grubby knees of his trousers, "I couldn't really be imagining that, could I?" Kir couldn't read his face. Doubtful? Weirded out? Of course it would be sensible for Zach to be weirded out.
"No," Kir said. "You didn't, you weren't...It was real." He winced slightly. It was real, and he shouldn't have told Zach about any of it, except he didn't have an option, did he? "The magery stuff, look, you know that isn't, you know, public knowledge?"
Zach's look was suddenly cooler, more distant. "It's all a big secret. Yeah. I got that, don't worry. Look. It was -- not the whole sink monster thing, but the rest -- it was great, yeah? I had a good time. I'm really sorry, but I have to go, I am going to be hideously late."
Kir shifted his weight, wondering if he should give Zach a hug, a kiss, even...but Zach was out of the front door with a bang before he could come to any decision.
He swallowed an entirely unreasonable lump of misery. Zach was going to be late for work. It was quite reasonable that he needed to run straight out of the door. And -- they'd said, another time, they'd said that, last night, but maybe Zach had decided overnight that this wasn't such a good idea after all, maybe he didn't want to say anything about it again. 'It was great, yeah' -- hardly the words of someone who was desperate for a repeat.
He gritted his teeth, and reminded himself that he hadn't wanted a repeat. This was supposed to be casual, because he didn't want to deal with a relationship with a non-mage. But now Zach knew anyway, didn't he? And god, some random shag finding out about this stuff was clearly even worse than telling someone you knew well. He put his head in his hands. And by that argument he ought to want this not just to be casual, except for the fact that that would be a shitty reason to get involved with someone.
Wanting to. That would be a good reason. Kir wanted to, now. Zach had helped last night, he'd been terrified but he hadn't just bolted straight out of the door. He'd tried to help. He had helped. Without Zach -- without Zach he wasn't at all sure what would have happened, but it sure as hell wouldn't have been good. (He would have managed. Of course he would have managed. He always managed. But -- but he was so glad Zach had been there.)
And then he'd stayed, and he'd still wanted Kir, after all that...Kir swallowed, remembering. Arguably, he did at the least owe Zach a blowjob. The idea made heat coil up through his stomach -- he'd barely gotten to touch Zach's cock last night, and he wanted to, badly. He had a vision of himself and Zach sprawled across the bed, Zach's hands in Kir's hair as he thrust into Kir's mouth... Now that would have been a far better way to start the day than this mad scramble -- if Zach had wanted it, which Kir didn't even know. But then, before he found out what the time was, he'd smiled at Kir, he'd looked pleased to be here...
He slumped onto the sofa and sunk his head into his hands. It was more than likely that Zach had just thought better of the whole thing. What with the mud-monster and all. And probably Kir should have set an alarm or something, or thought to check with Zach, or...well, basically, it was more than likely that he'd fucked the whole thing up entirely and should just leave Zach alone from now on.
Ah, crap. He couldn't face thinking this over any more. He was tired, and he had a horrible feeling that he'd screwed up, and also that had been the third damn thing. He really needed to focus on sorting that out, not to mention that bloody work deadline. He could text maybe Zach later, once he'd worked out whether he should and what to say if he , and in the meantime, he was going to have a very hot, very long shower, and then a very large mug of coffee, and then he would be in better shape to work out what the day needed to look like.
And he wasn't going to think of Zach, or of Zach's mouth, while he did any of it.
Once he'd had the shower and a large vat of coffee, he realised that probably the most important thing to do was to tell Ali about the latest attack, as soon as possible.
Conveniently, she'd already texted half a dozen times while he was in the shower, demanding an update on the date. The last two messages were in all-caps and claimed that he was ignoring her.
He texted back.
Jesus, Ali, calm down, I was having a shower okay?
She'd replied while he was still pulling his clothes on and thinking about what to say next.
JUST you? JUST a shower? ?? xx
He rolled his eyes, and tried not to think about the images that gave rise to. Water running down Zach's back, Kir's hands sliding over him...
FFS. Just me. Just a shower. Look though can we meet up today? Stuff to talk about.
Her reply was a bit slower this time. On shift til 3. That soon enough? Swing by the cafe? xx
3 is fine, Kir replied.
Which left -- he checked his watch -- five hours to kill.
Work really was the only sensible option. But it was difficult to concentrate on it with the various things that were swirling round in his thoughts. Every time he flashed back to Zach's mouth under his, Zach's mouth around his cock, he felt himself blush, his whole body getting hot. Was that a once-off? Should it be a once-off? Zach wasn't a mage, he couldn't be a part of that bit of Kir's life -- except that Zach knew about it all now, didn't he? So he could be, if not a part of it, at least someone who understood. Someone Kir could talk to without constantly self-censoring. But that in and of itself didn't make it a good idea to see him again, even if Zach even wanted to.
The fact that Kir badly wanted to see him again. That might make it a good idea. Or it might make it a seriously bad one.
When he tried to push his thoughts onto the matter of what the hell was going on with these mud-things, or rubbish-things, or whatever they were, it was no better. Fragments of ideas and possibilities floated round his head, but he got absolutely nowhere with pinning them down. And then he kept going back to Zach wandering out of his bathroom in boxer shorts and Kir's T-shirt and bare feet, and then it was straight back to the question of Zach.
Putting on headphones and focusing on his code didn't seem to help all that much.
At around lunchtime, he finally texted Zach, and after that he couldn't concentrate in favour of repeatedly checking his phone in case Zach had texted back. Which he hadn't. Probably because he was at work. Or possibly because he had, after all, regretted the whole thing. Shit.
Kir fetched up at the cafe at half past two, and drank two large coffees while he was waiting for Ali to finish her shift, after which he found it nearly impossible to sit still.
"Right then," Ali said, finally, coming over to the table as she stuffed her apron into her bag. "Can we stay here while you update me on everything and I eat? I didn't get a lunch break and I'm owed lunch."
They both knew how little Ali was paid, and thus the value of free food. Kir grimaced.
"Can I buy you a sandwich on the way back to yours?" he asked. "It would -- be better to talk in private. I think."
She frowned at him, her expression demanding magery?, and he nodded.
"Right," she said. "Sure. But you can get me a sandwich from the posh shop, okay?"
Once they got back to her flat, Kir, with a sigh of relief, began to update her on the previous night's events.
"Wait, wait," Ali said, around a mouthful of sandwich. "You got Zach back to yours?"
"Yes," Kir said impatiently, "and then we were interrupted by that bloody thing."
"How did he react?"
"He was pretty helpful, actually. Once he got over being all pale and terrified. And then once I explained, afterwards, he was pretty laid back about the whole magic thing."
"Ooh, a keeper there then," Ali said happily.
"For pity's sake, Ali. I'm trying to concentrate on the magic monster arising from the ground aspect of this, not the date part."
"But I am quite capable of multi-tasking, and I can concentrate on both at once," Ali said, taking another enormous bite out of her sandwich. "God, this is good," she said, slightly muffled.
"Well. Fine. Whatever. He was pretty helpful, and given that I couldn't get at the kitchen tap, it would have been halfway through the flat before I'd have been able to get to the bathroom myself for water. But, right, what the hell is going on here? It was clearly the same sort of thing that attacked you, both times."
"What happened afterwards?" Ali asked.
"I cleared up. Zach helped a bit."
"And about the magery?"
"Well, I said, so, magic exists, and he was..." Kir paused. "He just kind of accepted it."
"And then what?" Ali prompted.
"Well, that was it," Kir said. "No more monster."
"No, not about the monster. What did Zach do?"
"Ali!"
"He stayed!" Ali said in delighted tones. "He helped you defeat a magical mud-thing and then he stayed! Definitely a keeper."
"You say that like it's necessarily my decision," Kir snapped at her.
"Well," Ali said reasonably. "It's partly your decision. No use him wanting another date -- or even just another shag -- if you're not up for it, right?"
"Who says I'm up for it?" Kir said. "He's not a mage, Ali. He might know about magic now, but he doesn't understand it, and he probably doesn't want to." His throat felt tight.
"Now you're just being absurd," Ali said. "Yes, sure, it's hard if they don't know, and it's hard to know when it's okay to tell them."
"Is it okay to tell them?" Kir asked.
Ali rolled her eyes. "This whole business is held together by spit and string and people's individual decisions. Some people who aren't mages themselves know, in some circumstances. Generally they don't, and that's probably for the best. But -- like, if you get married or move in with someone or whatever, you're going to have to tell them, right? Which is fine. It's not as big of a deal as you're making it out to be."
"We've had one date," Kir said, his shoulders hunching a little. "Hardly a serious commitment."
"Yes, and you didn't tell him deliberately," Ali said, with exaggerated patience. "Which removes the whole problem, making everything much easier. So, like, hurrah? Happy rejoicing?"
"But what if he goes round telling people?" Kir asked. "I hardly know him, after all."
"Then everyone he tells will think he's lost it," Ali said. "Honestly, Kir, you are massively overthinking this. It's too late. He knows. It wasn't your decision, and it wasn't your fault. So. Why the hell wouldn't you want to see him again? I mean, unless you just didn't want to see him again, but you're not saying that, you're talking about the inadvisability of shagging non-mages, and that's just crap. I mean, it's not like there's all that many of us to choose from, frankly."
She sounded very slightly bitter herself, Kir noticed, and filed it away as something to ask about at some point. He sighed.
"Look. Can we please just talk about the mud-things, yeah? I honestly don't want to talk about this any more."
"Fine," Ali said, slightly grumpy. "Mud-things. Three appearances."
"And it is just the three, right? Matt said he hasn't seen anything. Did you talk to Priya?"
"Yes. Nothing. Although, talking of Matt, she was proper irritable at him."
"Really? Matt was saying that she'd been interfering with something he was doing, and gave him into trouble about it. He seemed to think it was unwarranted interference. He was really wound up about it."
"Well," Ali said with enthusiasm. "Isn't that interesting? Because what Priya said was that he called her in a panic, because he'd created a bloody great sinkhole in the middle of Shoreditch Park."
"He'd done what?" Kir demanded. "That wasn't -- well. He didn't actually say what he'd been up to, but he was talking about it like it was just some regular kind of project, not like he was digging holes in bits of London."
"She said the only saving grace was that he'd done it at about 4am, on a Tuesday morning, so even Shoreditch was pretty quiet. But he told her he couldn't fix it, and obviously it was a bit of an emergency, so she got an Uber straight over there and helped him fill it back in. She said it got a lot easier once the sun rose."
"What was he even doing, though?"
"She said he told her he was experimenting with ground energy."
"Huh," Kir said. "He was talking about that a bit when I saw him, too."
"Well, Priya said, fine, whatever, but how about you don't do it right out there in the open when you evidently don't know what the hell you're doing." Ali paused. "She was probably a bit blunt."
"Priya does tend to the blunt," Kir agreed.
"Also, belting across London at four in the morning isn't generally going to fill one with sweetness and light. But..." She waved an expressive hand. "Sinkhole. Shoreditch Park."
"Yeah, it sounds like she was justified," Kir agreed. "That is not how Matt told the story, let me tell you. He was super irritable about the whole thing, talking about her wanting to, I don't know, take stuff over or something."
"Bull-shit," Ali sang. "White guy bullshit. Sorry, I know you like him." She shrugged. "I like him too, mostly, but still. Bullshit. Anyway. Back on the matter in hand. No sign of anything elsewhere, it's just here. Three times."
"Near you twice, near me once. So it's not just about you." Which was a relief, at least. He hadn't liked the idea that something was after Ali specifically.
"What do we have in common?" Ali asked. "Besides magic, I mean."
"Huh." Kir got up from the sofa and started pacing the length of the room. "Actually, skip back a step. Maybe that is what we've got in common."
"But if it just went for magic, it would happen all the time, right?" Ali said.
Kir was chewing on a thumbnail. "But -- we don't use magic all the time, do we? Is there...how often do you use magic?"
"Every couple of days," Ali said. "Maybe. But -- hey, that's a good point. Did you use magic before the attack last night?"
Kir thought back. "Yes. I was trying to clear up a mess on the kitchen table before Zach saw it."
"And I'd just used magic in the storeroom, catching a jar that was going to fall."
"What about the alleyway?" Kir asked.
Ali hugged her knees, obviously thinking back. "Oh! Yes. The heel came off my shoe."
"But we've both used magic elsewhere over the last fortnight, too, right? I mean, I use magic in my flat all the time."
"When was the last time?" Ali asked.
Kir chewed on his lip, thinking back. "Actually, you know, I set that experiment up a week ago, but I'm not sure I've touched anything since. Huh."
"I don't use magic in the cafe all that often," Ali said. "I've used it elsewhere -- hell, I've used it in here," she gestured round at the flat, "but not in the cafe other than that time."
"And it's not showing up anywhere else in London, far as anyone can tell us," Kir said. "So -- could it be location-based, in some way?"
Ali nodded thoughtfully. "Something that's attracted to magic, but is limited in some way to particular areas. Except it's not an area as such, because there's no reasonable demarcation of area that includes your flat, the cafe, and that alleyway."
"Which is a shame, beca
use if we could work out the boundaries of it we'd know where to focus."
"And where to be particularly careful of magic, yes," Ali agreed. She sighed. "Hey, on the bright side, if it's to do with being attracted to magic, then at least we don't need to worry about non-mages coming a cropper."
Kir hadn't thought of that. She was right, it was a relief.
Ali had hitched her feet up onto the sofa, and was hugging her knees. "I wonder if there's anything that links those places, though. Something historical, or something recent. Foundations or something."
"My flat was built three years ago," Kir said. "I'm not sure that's long enough to have anything hidden in the foundations."
"There could be something underneath," Ali said. "Like the Cross Bones or something, you know, that graveyard they dug up near Borough."
Kir grimaced. "Death magic. Not my favourite."
Ali shrugged. "It's a thing, though, and we do at least know someone who does it. Maybe we should ask Jean to come take a look?"
"You ask her," Kir said. "She doesn't like me."
"That's because you shot your mouth off about death magic without knowing jack shit about it, and insulted her," Ali said, unsympathetically.
"I didn't know she was a death mage!" Kir protested. "And anyway, it was years ago."
"Sure, it was years ago, and you were still a thoughtless idiot," Ali said. "I mean, fair enough, you were a brand new mage and you were only about twenty, but you were still pretty annoying. You could still try apologising, you know."
Kir humped a shoulder, grimacing.
"Fine," Ali said, rolling her eyes. "I can go find her this evening, maybe, or tomorrow after my shift. I wish she had a phone and I could text her, but she doesn't like modern technology." She tapped her knees with the tips of her nails. "I think it's worth a go. But don't you think it would be a bit weird if it was that?"
"Well, yes, death magic is weird," Kir agreed.
"Oh, shut up. I mean, three quite separate sites, all connected by a burial or something like that."
"Didn't they used to do that with criminals?" Kir asked. "Hanging, drawing, and quartering, then bury the bits separately."
