PART THIRTEEN-HUNDRED-AND NINETY-FOUR

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Saturday

Barris finally found Rory lip-locked with a woman who was straddling his lap with her already short dress hiked up past her hips. Another kissed a line up the back of his neck while Rory curled an arm around her head to keep her there.

He’d only been off the realm-damned phone a minute or two at best!

Barris pocketed his phone to free his hands. “Alright, ladies,” he said, clapping them together once before taking the wrist of Rory’s restraining arm and giving it an extra hard squeeze to get his nephew’s attention. “Party’s over.”

The wince broke the kiss but didn’t shake off the lust-filled, ambrosia-heavy glaze in Barris’ eyes. “Heeey, B2.”

Barris was really going to have to find out what that meant. Later. “Ladies, off.”

 Although the rings prevented the divine command from sticking in their minds, it still carried enough oomph that the woman in his lap lifted up and shuffled half a step back. The woman behind likewise backed up, which was good, because they wouldn’t have enjoyed what would have happened next if they hadn’t.

“Oooh, another Nascerdios,” the woman in front purred.

“No.” Fuck no, to be precise. Despite being unofficially off the market, it’d be a cold day in Antenora before he satisfied himself with any of Rory’s cast-offs. The loss of the woman in Rory’s lap revealed his pants had been unzipped, but they hadn’t gotten so far as to pulling his dick free.

Thank fuck for that.

With all the surprise hybrids that had been turning up lately, they didn’t need another.

He hauled Rory to his feet, wedging himself under the boy’s arm to prevent the drunken fool from faceplanting. It didn’t help that the idiot’s pants started sliding down his legs.

Two steps later, he was back in his office on Ocean Front Walk. Again, he drew on his innate, retrieving his phone and calling his oldest brother.

“What?’ Llyr snapped, which meant things were still tense where Ivy was concerned.

“I need to borrow your basement for a few hours.”

“Why?”

“Rory’s wrecked himself on ambrosia, and unless you want him telling the world about Sam, I need somewhere that can contain him until he sobers up.”

“Fuck.” The growl was no less than he expected. “Fine. Ivy’s in our room upstairs, so make sure he stays down there. I don’t need her finding out about the sublevel.”

“Done.”

Two steps later, they arrived in a room that wouldn’t have been out of place in the dungeon of a medieval castle. Chains hung from the walls, and although there were no instruments of torture to be seen, the atmosphere let it be known that people had screamed in agony down here.

No one would know from the modern multi-storey building above that this basement level even existed. Their mother had raised them to always keep a violent backup in reserve.

“Awww…noo, no-no-no,” Rory dropped his weight and pushed backwards away from the wall Barris dragged him towards.

“Relax, kid,” Barris said, knocking his feet out from under him and helping him to the floor without hurting him too much. Certainly nothing he couldn’t walk off in under a minute. “This is happening.” He then grabbed Rory’s right ankle and hauled it the last few inches to the nearest leg manacle.

Rory rolled onto his stomach and tried to do a combination of crawling away and mule kicking his uncle, neither of which happened. In seconds, the leg iron was clamped and bolted into place. “Aawwwwww!” Rory whined and kicked at the chain, then he pulled on it as hard as he could until Barris pushed him back the other way.

“Stop it!” he commanded, after grabbing his nephew by the lapels and getting into his face. “You’re staying here until you sober up, and if you’re smart, you won’t fuck yourself up so badly that you can’t race next weekend in the process.” He held his nephew’s gaze until the younger man finally relaxed in his grip.

Like with all Mystallians, it took a while.

“Hatechu,” he slurred, turning his head away.

It broke Barris’ heart to hear those words from his nephew, even if it was a childish reaction and not one he actually meant. “I know. Keeping you prisoner here like this goes against everything in me, too. This isn’t just for your Uncle Llyr. It’s for your own good as well.”

Rory tried to glare at him, but it collapsed into a painful squint. “Why?”

“Because if you end up with kids, you’ll be dropping off the racing circuit for at least two decades to raise them.” Barris held his fingers up to emphasise the number. “And you haven’t finished getting your first taste of that fame yet.”

“Mum didn’,” he slurred petulantly.

It always came back to this. No matter how much fame, freedom, or recklessness Rory wrapped around himself, eventually the conversation circled back to the mother who’d left him behind.

It was why they didn’t belong amongst the mortals. Not like this. In divinity, establishment gave them purpose. It stopped them from dwelling on things they couldn’t change. Rory wouldn’t need to make do with the mortal accolades.

Barris sighed and twisted to sit on the floor beside his nephew’s legs with his back against the dungeon wall. “We’ve been over this, Rory. Her innate makes her flighty. If she’d kept you with her, it wouldn’t have ended well for you anyway. Children need stability—the comfort that comes of knowing they’re safe in their own home. She couldn’t give that to you, and she was Mystallian enough to own it. Your innate is racing, and it would cripple you just as hard if you had to stop what you’re doing to raise kids.”

Rory rolled onto his back and stared at the stone ceiling. “’m jus’ like m’ mum,” he said, so quietly that Barris wasn’t sure which of them he was talking to.

“We all carry aspects of those who came before us. It’s the nature of divinity.” Barris patted Rory’s leg. “I need you to stay here for two seconds and not hurt yourself. I’ll go and get you something more comfortable to lie on than the concrete floor.”

“Don’ botha’,” Rory mumbled, draping an arm over his eyes.

Barris frowned. Even drunk, Rory was always over the top and jubilant. The centre of everything, no matter what. Case in point, the scene they’d just left before coming here.

 This…was different.

“Talk to me, kid.”

“No.” But then to contradict his answer, he dropped his arms to his side and struggled to lift his upper half with his elbows. “Go’n look after Un—cle L’rear.” He then squinted. “L...L’relier.” He closed his eyes. L-l—”

“Llyr,” Barris supplied.

Rory dropped his weight to the floor. “Yeah. ’e’s the one who keeps gettin’ shit on by the universe f’r no reason.” 

It was Barris’ turn to squint. “What?”

Rory rolled onto his side, effectively putting his back to Barris. 

Barris was half-inclined to haul him back and finish the conversation, however the position Rory had rolled into was close enough to the recovery position, meaning if he threw up, he wouldn’t choke himself by being on his back.

Without touching Rory again, Barris slid to his feet and realm-stepped away, appearing inside his set of apartments in the Prydelands. He went into his servant’s quarters and stole one of the mattresses from the bed. These were only ever used when he was in permanent residence, and he hadn’t lived there for almost two centuries.

Columbine’s staff kept everything ready to go in the meantime, which meant the mattress was either brand new, or close enough to it.

He also grabbed a clean chamber pot that had also not seen any use in over a century and realm-stepped back to Llyr’s dungeon with both items. “I do not envy the hangover you’re going to be feeling this time tomorrow, boy,” he said, after lifting his nephew into the air and kicking the mattress into place under him. He then laid Rory across the mattress, adjusting his shoulders so that his head stayed tilted enough that he wouldn’t choke if he got sick in his sleep.

Lastly, he placed the chamber pot close to Rory’s head.

 “This is to throw up in,” he said, in case the boy was too far gone to think for himself. “If you throw up on the floor, your Uncle Llyr will make you clean it up, even if he has to take it out on your hide first.”

“F’ck that,” Rory slurred, and draped an arm partially over the pot. His eyes were clenched shut, like he was fighting back tears. “’ll let ’im…y’know,” he added quietly.

“What?”

“When’e…when h’s girl…after. He c’n take it out ’n me, ’f-fee wants.”

Barris closed his eyes, battling his own emotions. Over his immortal body would Rory become Llyr’s punching bag for no reason. “If it happens, it won’t help,” he said quietly.

“I d’n care. No’really. Mum might ev’n see me th’n. Mebbe she’ll shedda tear ‘r two at me fun’r’l.” He huffed a sad snort. “Thad be s’mth’n.”

Barris’ eyes snapped open and he stared down at the forlorn look on his nephew’s face. Oh, hell no! Unfortunately, now wasn’t the time to read Rory the riot act. “Get some rest, Rory. We’ll table this for when you’re sober.”

Rory’s sigh was almost comical. “Joy,” he huffed again, though the weak sarcasm lacked any real bite.

After a minute of silence between them, Barris asked, “Rory, what does B2 mean?”

His nephew’s drunken snicker-snorting did little to instil him with confidence.  

* * *

((All comments welcome. Good or bad, I’d love to hear your thoughts 🥰🤗))

I made a family tree/diagram of the Mystallian family that can be found here

For more of my work, including WPs: r/Angel466 or an index of previous WPS here.

FULL INDEX OF BOB THE HOBO TO DATE CAN BE FOUND HERE!!

It happened on an ordinary evening, the kind that shouldn’t have meant anything.

The club meeting had ended, laughter and chatter spilling into the hallway as people left in small groups. The room smelled faintly of old paper and chalk dust, the air still holding the ghost of poems read aloud. Outside, the corridor hummed with a low, dying energy, laughter tapering off, footsteps fading, the hum of fans spinning lazily above.

Aarna and Aarav lingered, walking slower than the rest, the way they always did. Their steps found a rhythm of their own, unspoken and familiar. The building was mostly empty now, the echo of their voices stretching down the dim corridor.

Aarna was talking about her younger brother, how they’d argued again over music, both too stubborn to back down. Her hands moved as she spoke, animated, alive.

“You’re lucky you don’t have siblings,” she said, bumping his shoulder lightly with hers.

“Yeah,” Aarav replied without thinking, a faint smile tugging at his mouth. “But then… I’d never have someone like you either.”

The words slipped out before he realized what he’d said, soft, unguarded, too honest.

They hung between them like a held breath.

Aarna slowed her steps, her brow creasing slightly. “What do you mean?”

The hallway seemed to narrow. The air turned dense. Her eyes found his, curious, unafraid, but something in her gaze made the space between them electric, tender, dangerous. Aarav could hear his pulse in his ears, feel the words rising again, desperate to explain themselves, to mean more than he dared.

For a heartbeat, she looked at him longer than usual, not startled, not smiling, just quiet, as if turning his words over in her mind. Aarav felt the air tremble, fragile as glass.

“I just mean…” he stammered, forcing a laugh that sounded brittle. “You know, you listen to me. You care. It’s nice. Like family.”

Aarna’s expression softened, though something unreadable flickered behind her eyes.

“You say things in such strange ways sometimes, Aarav,” she said quietly, almost amused, almost thoughtful.

He managed a smile, pretending to shrug it off. But inside, panic and warmth tangled together in his chest. He could still feel the weight of the words he hadn’t meant to speak, the truth that had slipped out before he could hide it again.

They walked the rest of the way in silence. The sound of their footsteps filled the air where his confession almost lived. Every few seconds, he replayed the moment, her tone, her look, the breath between question and reply. The silence stretched, not awkward but sharp, cutting through the hum of the evening.

When they reached the gate, she smiled and said goodbye, her voice light again, as if the moment had passed. But for Aarav, it hadn’t. Not really.

On his walk back to the hostel, the air felt heavier. The night hummed with the sound of crickets and the distant chatter of students, but all he could hear was the echo of his own voice, and the quiet that followed it.

Later, alone in his room, he opened his notebook. His hands trembled slightly as he wrote:

The heart is a clumsy keeper of secrets.
It slips,
spilling truths between words
when I least expect it.
And she looks at me,
not unkind,
but as if she hears an echo
she isn’t sure she wants to follow.

He stared at the lines until they blurred.

It hadn’t been a confession, not quite. But it was close enough to remind him how fragile the line was between friendship and something more.

And how easily, with just one wrong word, it could shatter.

Book 1 Chapter 15: A Table with Three Legs

The ceiling had gone pink overnight.

Ray noticed because he was the only one awake, a state of affairs he was beginning to suspect was illegal. It was a patch about the size of a dinner table, directly over the bed, soft and translucent like the inside of a shell held up to a lamp. Something small and round and glowing drifted across it with the bobbing curiosity of a jellyfish that had nowhere to be.

"I'm noting that the ceiling is a different color," Ray whispered.

"It's the lanterns," Ruth said without opening her eyes. Her arm lay across his chest like a fallen log. Scarlet was on his other side with her hair in his mouth and one cold foot wedged between his calves.

"The lanterns are in the baths."

"They were."

The lantern went a shade deeper, regarded him with no face whatsoever, and passed through the plaster with great delicacy.

"I did not consent to being watched by a light fixture," Scarlet mumbled into his ribs.

"It was shy," Ray said.

"It was loitering. Also I'm naked, you're naked, she's naked, and I'd like it on the record that I have the best ass in this bed."

"Objection," Ruth said, eyes still shut. "Size ten feet. Nobody has ever beaten the feet."

"We weren't talking about feet."

"We're always talking about feet, painter boy. You just haven't noticed yet." Ruth rolled toward him, and the arm across his chest became a leg across his hips, and her mouth found the side of his neck. "Husband. I'm resting. It's different. But I'm resting in a way that has started to include you."

"I'm noting that I'm included," Ray said, and his voice cracked in the middle, because Scarlet's hand had gone south under the quilt and wrapped around him like it owned a deed.

"Oh, he's included," Scarlet said into his collarbone, stroking slow. "He's very included. Ruth, look at him, he's trying to narrate and he can't even get through a sentence."

"Don't stop narrating, babe," Ruth said, and slid down the bed, quilt and all, until her hair spilled across his stomach. "I love it when you narrate."

What came after was slow, because nobody had anywhere to be. Ruth took him in her mouth with the lazy, thorough attention of a woman who had finally been given a decent meal, and Scarlet kissed him upside down, ink-stained fingers in his hair, whispering filth against his lips about what she was going to do to the pair of them later. He tried to say something about the ceiling again and Scarlet bit his lip, not gently, and said, "Eyes on me, Raymond. The ceiling's had its turn."

"Make her say it," Ruth said, coming up for air, wet-mouthed and gold-eyed and grinning. "Make her say what she wants. She's been dying to."

"I don't, I'm not," Scarlet started, and went red to the roots of her black hair.

"You've been sketching my ass in the margins of that notebook for three days," Ruth said. "I've seen it. It's very flattering. Come here."

It turned into a tangle. Ruth caught Scarlet by the wrist and pulled her down, and the two of them kissed over Ray's hip like he was a piece of furniture they were both fond of, and then Ruth rolled onto her stomach with her fat perfect ass in the air, looked back over her shoulder at the girl beside her, and said, "Go on. Look as long as you like. Then put your mouth on it."

Scarlet made a sound Ray had never heard from a person before. She put her mouth on it.

Ray sat up against the headboard and watched his wife groan into the pillow with a goth girl's tongue buried in the cleft of her ass, her hips rocking back, her toes curling against the sheet, and he thought, very clearly, that he had been a serial killer's understudy for most of his life and none of it had prepared him for this. Ruth reached back blindly for him. He gave her his hand. She dragged it down between her thighs.

"Fingers," she said into the pillow. "Babe, please, I want you in me and her on me, I want everything at once."

"Bossy," Scarlet said, lifting her head, her chin shining. "I love it. Ray, get the lube out of my side of the nightstand, it's in the drawer under the pencils."

"Why is there lube under the pencils?"

"Because I'm a planner. Hurry up, she's going to start narrating."

It took some doing. There was a moment where the quilt ended up on the goat, who woke at the foot of the bed and gave all three of them a look of weary tolerance before going back to sleep. There was a moment where Scarlet's knee found Ray's kidney and Ruth's elbow found Scarlet's hair and all three of them were laughing too hard to continue. Then Ruth was on her hands and knees, and Ray was behind her with a slick hand on her hip, pushing into her slowly, and she was so warm, so tight, and she said "yes, husband, there you are," in a voice that was not entirely human, and Scarlet slid underneath her and got her mouth between Ruth's thighs.

"Oh, you're both going to kill me," Ruth said. "I'm very old. I'll be a dead field. I'll be a very happy dead field."

"You're not dying," Ray said, gripping her hips and moving harder. "I'm noting that you're clenching around me like you've got something to prove."

"I do have something to prove, I'm proving it, don't stop, don't you dare."

"Scarlet, is she," Ray started.

"She's soaking," Scarlet said, muffled and delighted, between licks. "She tastes like plums, Ray, it's so unfair, I'm going to write a letter to someone."

Ruth came first, with a long shaking cry that made the ceiling lanterns, a whole dozen of them now, drift in through the plaster like moths to a flame. She came on his cock and on Scarlet's tongue at the same time, and her gold eyes went wide and bright and a little frightening, and then she collapsed forward onto Scarlet's stomach, panting, laughing, shaking all over.

Ray held out for about four more seconds. Then Scarlet looked up at him from between Ruth's legs, with her black hair stuck to her cheek and her scarred face shining and her mouth a mess, and said, "Pull out and come on me. Both of us. I want to see it."

He did. It was not elegant. He came across Ruth's lower back and Scarlet's chest and one gloriously unlucky patch of quilt, and the sound he made was something between a groan and an apology, and the two women looked at the mess and then at each other, and Scarlet said, "Well. That's a lot of man."

"It's a lot of man," Ruth agreed, rolling onto her back with a sigh that shook the bed. "Come here, both of you. I want to be the pillow."

Above them the lanterns hung in the pink, a small silent audience, a few of them turning very slowly, politely, to face the wall.

The Day Market opened at noon, and Ruth was at the gate at eleven-forty.

"You're going to carry the bags," she told Scarlet, in the tone of a woman handing down a sentence.

"I am not a bag carrier."

"You've got wrists. Ray, you may come, if you like, but you walk two paces behind and carry the goat."

"I'm noting that I'm being ordered about," Ray said, shifting the goat under his arm. She had put on her paper flower and was riding with her chin on his elbow like a duchess being carried through a fair.

"Noted," Ruth said, delighted. "Is it a good noting?"

"It's the best one I've ever made."

The market ran the whole length of a wide stone street that sloped down to the river, and it was only half awake. Stalls were still putting up their awnings. A small round spirit with a sleepy mustache hung strings of dried persimmons. A woman whose head was a teakettle set out cups. The whole street smelled of charcoal and plum vinegar and something sweet and slightly burnt, like toffee that had been thinking about its life. Scarlet already had her notebook out and was drawing an awning, a hat, a long listening ear, her pencil moving so fast it seemed to be having its own conversation.

Ruth stopped dead in front of the fourth stall.

It was a plain wooden counter with a griddle and a hand-painted sign that said, in uneven red letters, GREASY SPOON (AUTHENTIC). Behind it a very tall, very thin spirit in a paper hat was flipping a patty with a spatula the size of a canoe paddle, and the smell coming off the griddle was so deeply, so perfectly American that Ray felt his knees go slightly.

"Ray," Ruth said, very softly.

"Yeah."

"That is a cheeseburger."

"That's a cheeseburger."

"I've only ever had them with you." She turned to look at him, and her face went soft and a little shy, the way it had once in a diner at two in the morning when she'd poked her fingers together and confessed what she normally ate. "At the Millstone, in the booth, with you across the table. That's all of them. Every burger I've ever eaten, husband, you were there for."

"Okay, so this is the first one without a booth," Scarlet said. "That's a big deal, you can't just order, you have to do it right. Ray, tell her how to do it right."

"Pickles," Ray said. "Extra. And the thing where they melt the cheese on the griddle first."

"Do it," Ruth told the spirit in the paper hat, in the voice of a queen giving an order to a general. "Three. No, five. No, three, I'm sharing, I'm a married woman. Three, extra pickles, the thing with the cheese."

They ate on the stone steps by the river with their feet on the warm step below. Ray, one step down with the goat, got handed things. Ruth took her first bite with her eyes closed and her hands shaking slightly, chewed for a very long time, and said, around a mouthful, "Oh."

"Is it okay?" Scarlet asked.

"Oh, it's sinful," Ruth said, and opened her eyes. "It's the same as the Millstone one and it isn't. It's in daylight. There's a river. There's a goat. Nobody's frozen." She was crying a little, in a tidy gold way. "I want to eat nothing else for a hundred years. I want a burger at every meal. I want to marry the burger."

"You're already married," Ray said. "To me. I'm noting that I've been replaced by a sandwich."

"You haven't been replaced, babe, you've been ranked. You're above the burger. Barely." She leaned over and kissed him, tasting of beef and pickle, and Scarlet made a gagging noise that did not in any way conceal her grin.

"Okay, but I'm going to need a second one," Scarlet said. "And you're going to share, because I've seen you looking at my fries."

"I'm not looking at your fries."

"You're looking at them like a woman about to commit a felony."

"I'm looking at them like a woman who eats felons, darling, it's a different look entirely." Ruth reached across and took a fry. "I'm having one. Out of love. Write it down."

Scarlet wrote it down. Ray watched her do it, a tiny precise line in her notebook that read RUTH TOOK A FRY (LOVE), and found that he had to look at the river.

"Can I tell you something," he said, and both women turned. "I'm, I think I'm about to say something out loud, and you can both tell me to shut up."

"We'd never," Ruth said.

"We would absolutely," Scarlet said.

"I've been trying to find the bit in me that's waiting for this to go wrong. And it's not there." He shrugged, awkward, with a goat under his arm. "There's a stall that sells a thing called a Fictional Hour, which is just an hour, and I'm fine with that. There's a bridge that says Bridge of Stories and it's got tags on it. I used to think the real thing was the only thing worth having. And I'm sitting on some steps, and a ghost gave me a sweet this morning, and you're both here, and it's, I don't know. I'm just really, really happy."

Nobody said anything for a moment.

"You're allowed to be afraid of it," Ruth said eventually, still looking at the river.

"I am."

"Good. It's company. It doesn't go away."

"Did you make that up?"

"Yes," Ruth said. "But I think it's true."

Scarlet had put her pencil down. She was looking at the little black pinkie on the inside of her wrist, the one the customs man had stamped, turning it in the light. "I'm going to ask a weird thing," she said. "And you can say no."

"Of course."

"If I, if I don't know what happens after. If I, if the pocket guide in my head runs out and there's just a blank where the next part goes. Is that okay? Is it okay to not know?"

Ruth took her hand. She took it slowly, and put it on her own knee, and said, "Darling, nobody knows. I've been alive since the first field. I don't know what happens next. I only know what's on the plate."

"It's a burger," Ray said.

"It's a very good burger," Ruth said, and Scarlet laughed, and wiped her nose on her sleeve, and picked her pencil back up.

They walked on, down the long street, past the stall that sold spare shadows and the stall that sold lost buttons and the stall, with a very long queue, that sold people their own names back at a markup in tiny envelopes. Scarlet stopped in front of that one. She stood there longer than she needed to. Ray, two paces behind with the goat, watched her take a small brown envelope off the counter, turn it over in her hands, and tuck it, unopened, into her jacket pocket.

"What's in it?" he asked, when the others had moved on.

"Nothing," Scarlet said. "My name, I think."

"Aren't you going to look?"

"Not yet." She grinned at him, quick and bright, and the grin didn't quite hold. "It's a lot to find out you've had one the whole time."

Ahead of them Ruth had stopped at the bottom of the street, where the market gave out and the river bent away, and stood looking at a bright, shifting patch of silver mist beyond a black iron arch. She stood there a while. Her hands were in her pockets. She did not turn around when they came up behind her, and she did not say what she was looking at, and when Ray finally said her name, she smiled at him, a small tight pretty smile, and asked whether anyone wanted another burger.

Scarlet said yes. Ray said he'd think about it. The goat, under his arm, sighed like a pair of bellows and went to sleep.