Chapter 24 Small Angry Cloud
Killian followed Cyrus with his gaze as the Fate paced in front of the bed, his patience more than wearing thin.
In fact, it took a serious effort on his part to not snap when Cyrus once again stopped, looked at him, appeared to be about to talk, before going back to pacing.
Killian, however, did not bother to hold back when the man did it again a few moments later.
“You have five seconds to tell me what you saw, or face the consequences of pissing me off,” Killian said calmly, the second the Fate went back to pacing.
Cyrus spun back towards him, eyes wide in alarm. “Baby, you don’t understand! It’s a lot.”
“Five.”
“My brain is still making sense of it!”
“Four.”
“Just give me—uh—five more minutes!”
“Three.”
“It’s just so hard to say what I saw out loud!”
“Two.”
“Maybe I can write it down? Would that work?!”
“One.”
“MERCY!”
Ender grabbed things for his tray as he moved through the food line, at the same time, Soren continued to follow behind and lecture him.
“You shouldn’t be up,” the Harpy grumbled again.
“I heal fast.” And he did. Ender was hurting, but he’d likely be good as new in a few days, which based on that morning, was very bad news for everyone fucking there.
“You’re limping, holding yourself stiff, and you look exhausted. You need to rest. I could have brought you food.”
Resting was in fact a bad idea, as it risked dreaming. He really should tell Soren how far the second dream had taken him into the memories, but as he opened his mouth, he found himself hesitating.
The truth was, just because the second dream had gone further than normal, it didn’t mean they didn’t still have time.
Ender could wait. At least, he could wait until the next dream, and see just how fast it was progressing each time.
Because the first dream had been normal, aside from how early it was, so who knew.
Either way, Ender would be able to gauge how much time they had left after the next one. Maybe—fuck…
“First of all, I’m not limping. Also, you can’t seriously tell me you expected me to wait for you to show up? Comms are down, remember?”
“You could have at least waited at the table while I fetched our trays. Also, I was literally on my way when you waddled…”
Ender frowned when Soren trailed off, the man’s gaze seeming to be drawn to something behind him. Glancing back, his eyes widened, and a startled laugh slipped out of his mouth as he caught sight of what the Harpy had to be looking at.
Cyrus, no doubt having just entered the cafeteria through the door across from the line, was somehow walking with his head held high, even with the small, angry gray cloud hovering just above him, raining down steadily onto him.
With his tight curls plastered to his head, and water streaming down his face, the man was soaked through, and currently squeaking with each step.
The bottom of his pants looked to be stuck to him, but it was hard to tell how the rest was due to the long puffy coat he had on.
The Fate was also leaving a trail of wet in his wake, and seemed to be unbothered, or was just expertly ignoring all of the stares as he walked to the back of the breakfast line.
Ender snickered. “Someone pissed off the pretty Siren.”
“I’d say so, damn.” Soren chuckled.
Smirking, Ender grabbed one last roll for his tray, before hurrying—okay, he was definitely limping over to Cyrus, but he was not going to let that get him down!
His smirk widened as he came up behind the Fate, and Ender cheekily said, “Pissed off the pretty Siren, did yah?”
Cyrus jumped at his words, the man dropping the two trays in his hand as he spun around.
Ender’s brow rose when the Fate stood there staring wide-eyed at him, like he’d spotted a ghost. His brow rose further at the dark reddish-brown flush that spread across the larger man’s cheeks.
Pure shock taking hold when, beyond all logic, without saying a word, Cyrus ran away, taking his small rain cloud with him.
Soren, who had followed him over, slowly asked, “Um…what…was that?”
Ender stared silently until the door the fleeing man had disappeared through closed, blocking his view down the hall, before saying, “I don’t know…but I’m guessing it has something to do with the rain cloud.”
Cyrus stumbled into the room, barely catching himself on the door frame to stop his fall. He winced as he straightened up and met Killian’s unimpressed gaze.
Standing there, arms crossed, the Siren said dryly, “I see you failed to get us food.”
Swallowing, he took a step inside, and the rain stopped the second he did, the cloud disappearing.
“I…fuck—” Cyrus let out a string of curses, before finally managing to blurt, “It was Ender! The vision! We were fucking Ender. And—” He swallowed again.
“—he was in the cafeteria, behind me, so I ran!”
Killian stared, his jaw dropping for a moment, before shaking his head and almost breathlessly rasping, “We—” The man pointed between them. “—were having sex with ENDER?!”
“YES!” he cried. “You see why I was having a hard time getting it out?!”
The Siren stared at him, his brow pinched and looking so very baffled. “And you’re sure it wasn’t just a—”
“Yes! It wasn’t just a wet dream. For fuck’s sake, I know the difference!”
Killian walked over to the bed and plopped down as he took a deep breath. “You’re sure…?”
Cyrus wiped the water off his face with his hand, before going over and sitting down next to the man with a sigh. “Yes…I am sure.”
“Is this…because I lived?” Killian grimaced. “Maybe you were meant to be with Ender?”
He flinched, his hands clenching into fists. “Killian, if you had died, I would have followed you.”
“Cyrus Bartholomew Grimm!” the Siren hissed, shoving him hard. “Don’t ever say that again! Don’t even think it!”
He said it because he meant it. The thought hadn’t crossed his mind before, or even when he’d been changing Killian’s fate, but he knew it was true. If Killian was gone, Cyrus would be going with him. The truth was…he couldn’t see a life without the Cryptid.
Cyrus wrapped a soggy arm around the Siren, who protested, but didn’t pull away.
“I don’t think it has anything to do with me being destined to be with Ender.
You being alive had to have opened the path up.
It would have never happened if you had died, because Ender wouldn’t be here right now, and what I saw definitely happened here…
I recognized this room, the covers, and the bare minimum bed. ”
“Do you see any other paths?”
Cyrus tried to look, doing his best to remain completely unaffected as he saw flashes of the same future as before, but when he looked to the threads, and tried to follow the ones he knew led to Ender…he didn’t see a damn thing.
He sighed. “It appears I’m only seeing what they want me to see, and that’s apparently nothing other than what I saw before waking up.”
“Well, shit,” Killian groaned. “I mean…have you ever been interested in adding someone else to our relationship before?”
“The thought never even crossed my mind,” Cyrus said honestly, and without hesitation.
The Siren huffed. “Well, it hasn’t really crossed mine either, but apparently, we are about to. So, like, it had to have crossed someone’s mind!”
“I changed your fate…and others by default. It’s possible this has nothing to do with past thoughts, and more a vision to influence our decisions towards doing what the threads want us to.”
“Which is apparently doing Ender,” Killian scoffed. “What exactly did you see?”
His face heated as he looked down into the man’s gaze.
“Besides that, you dork!” The Siren huffed, smacking his chest.
Cyrus chuckled. “Well…” he trailed off, frowning at what he realized once he pushed past the bizarreness of them having sex with someone else. “Ender was crying.”
“Crying?” Killian grimaced, his nose wrinkling.
“Yeah, and he was pleading.” Cyrus’ brow pulled, while he kept reviewing what he saw. “He sounded afraid.”
The Siren flinched. “Of us?!”
His eyes widened. “No! It wasn’t anything like that. He sounded…heartbroken. He was…cold. That’s what he said. It was like he was begging us to hold him…to feel safe?”
“That doesn’t sound like Ender at all, yet…”
“Yet?” he asked, one brow raising in question.
“He kept asking what drugs we had, and it didn’t sound like he was asking because of the pain.
I mean, it sort of lines up, you know? We’re nearing the day the Gorgon population went from many thousands to…
what, a few hundred? Well, I’m not actually sure of the numbers now, but it’s basically extinction level, unless they’ve finally managed to solve their fertility issues. ”
Cyrus’ eyes widened, as he quickly checked the date on his watch. “I don’t know how I forgot… It's only a few weeks away.” He grimaced as he had a thought. “They seemed worried.”
“What?”
“Ender and Soren, when we were talking about the ships being damaged, and the drugs, they both seemed worried. I mean, Ender was also clearly angry, but it was more than that.”
Killian frowned. “You’re right, they were definitely worried about something, and we can only assume, with the date being so near, that it has something to do with it.”
“The man came up behind me to tease me about the rain cloud, but even though I panicked and ran away, it still registered in my mind that he looked stressed, and tired.”
“This time of the year can’t be easy for them.”
“Them?”
“Ender and Soren…”
“Have they been together that long?” Cyrus grimaced. “Shit…isn’t Ender with Soren?”
Killian giggled, opened his mouth and then giggled again. Then, with a smile that set him slightly on edge, the Siren said, “Who knows? But they probably aren’t together in that way, considering Ender wouldn’t even cuddle with the man.”
His eyes narrowed at his boyfriend. “What do you know that you just decided not to tell me?”
The Cryptid’s smile widened. “Nothing at all.”
Cyrus rolled his eyes at the obvious lie. “Moving back to the topic at hand… How do you feel about it? Possibly sleeping with Ender, that is?”
“I…” Killian trailed off, the Siren’s smile slowly dropping and turning into a frown. “I don’t know.”
Yeah, that was pretty much where he was at—fuck…