Chapter 3 Teddy
Teddy
Little Bird,
I can’t say for certain what it is, but it’s like you’re even more alive in my mind since I saw you again. It’s like I can feel your scent lingering on me. Like I can taste you all over again.
I can barely believe you were in front of me after all this time and I never even got to hold you. You were so careful to make sure we never touched. Like you were punishing me. Like you knew how much it would heal my soul and you wouldn’t allow it.
But I know you’d never be so cruel. You never had a cruel thought in that beautiful head of yours. So it might just be my own mind letting me know that maybe I deserve to be punished. Maybe I don’t deserve you after all.
I’d still be willing to do anything to be next to you again. I’d be willing to let the entire world stop to just have you in my arms for one second more.
I have so much I still want to tell you…
His fingers tightened around his pen.
The piece of stationery paper under his hand slid and rustled as the pen left a defeated streak across it. Not words. For the first time, he was all out of words.
He stared desperately at a box full of that same paper.
And each piece was filled to bursting with his words.
Words he wished he could speak out loud to the only one who’d ever heard what he was truly saying.
Words that didn’t belong to anyone else but his little bird.
Words that hurt and slashed open and healed all at once.
All gone now.
Stolen like their time together. Stolen like Wren’s breath on his collarbone and his fingers tucked into Teddy’s shirt.
He let the pen drop, leaning his head on his palms and squeezing his eyes shut to keep the memories at bay.
He knew them by heart now. The order in which they came. The intensity with which each of them flashed. The pain each one brought with it.
He deserved it. And he could take it. He would take it.
Just not right now.
He couldn’t right now.
His phone pinged and he resisted the urge to swipe it off his desk until it shattered. He glanced at it, anger and defeat swelling at the name on his screen. He knew he had to answer it. Knew there would be consequences if he didn’t but…
The door to his room creaked open behind his back.
“Family meeting,” Trace’s whiskey and smoke voice said.
He turned around, careless of his red-rimmed eyes and the hollowness of his expression.
Trace was the closest thing he had to a brother. He was the only one who truly knew what Teddy was going through, so he didn’t mind him seeing the state he was in.
He was met with the sight of Trace standing in the doorway to his room, leaning against it casually and nearly filling it entirely with his gigantic body.
Trace was a sight to be seen, for sure. He looked like the president of a motorcycle club, his dark hair pulled into a ponytail at the nape of his neck, tattoos covering every inch of visible skin the scars weren’t reigning over, a permanent scowl etched into his forehead.
And a set of knitting needles in his hands with a ball of fluffy yarn sticking out of his pocket. Not even a deadly curse could keep Trace from his project.
“I didn’t call a family meeting.” Teddy frowned.
“No. No, you did not. And that, in itself, is a problem.”
“What—?”
“We’re waiting for you in the living room. Come down whenever.” Trace left after that, his footsteps silent despite his size.
Teddy dragged a hand over his face and looked around the room in confusion.
He acted as the unofficial head of their team. As an interpersonal curse specialist, people were kind of his thing. He gelled well with them, he knew them, and so he took on the role of leading the team, making sure everyone felt settled and seen.
Family meetings had been his idea. He’d implemented them to touch base with everyone and be in the know about how they were doing with the massive number of cases they were buried under constantly. It was easier to solve a problem at its root then wait for a whole weed to grow.
This…this felt like the rug was being pulled from underneath his feet when he hadn’t even got upright yet after seeing Wren.
Was he the weed?
He stood up and brushed his hands over his knitted blue jumper and jeans to straighten them out a bit before walking out of his room. He headed down the wide, palazzo-style hallway that all their bedrooms opened onto and took the spiral staircase down, his footsteps echoing.
He heard their hushed voices before he entered the large, bright living room with floor-to-ceiling windows that arched at the top and a gigantic round sofa upholstered in white in the middle.
A sofa that held his entire team and was shadowed by a large banner in various shades of beige.
“This isn’t a family meeting,” he said, staring at the banner.
“Clearly.” Trace pointed to a chair positioned in a gap in the circle of the sofa. A convict’s chair. Facing his judge and jury.
“I don’t need an intervention,” he said, his voice taking on an edge he didn’t like hearing. But he was caught off guard. And hurt.
“That’s what I said,” Echo said from the right side of the sofa, sitting with their knees up, wrapped in a knitted beige cardigan that swallowed their small frame.
“You made the banner.” Teddy pointed to the thing with the word INTERVENTION hanging above their heads.
“I was forced into it.” Echo’s light brown hair quivered where it fell over their forehead and brows, nearly covering their brown eyes. “My life was on the line.”
“Nobody’s life was on the line,” Trace said, exasperated.
“He stole my medication!” Echo pointed to their left and Teddy followed the accusing finger toward the other side of the sofa.
“I did no such thing,” Eerie said, long legs crossed, pointed stilettos on his feet, a cobalt blue blouse with a large bow tied around his neck catching the afternoon sun. His jet-black hair was sleek and perfectly styled, his dark eyes expertly lined with sharp flicks.
“You are literally holding them in your hand,” Echo said. “Watching me as I wither away.”
“They’re vitamin gummies,” Heir said, leaning back on the sofa with his legs crossed in front of him and his hands relaxed on his washboard stomach. “Settle down, Pill Dispenser.”
“I’ll settle into my grave before my time, and you’ll all be sorry then.” Echo glared at them all.
“Give them here,” Saint said to his twin, extending his hand toward Eerie and wiggling his fingers with a gentle smile. Eerie sneered but placed the little plastic box on Saint’s palm, manicured nails scratching along the side of it as he let go.
Saint stood up from where he was sitting on the floor beside his brother’s legs and walked over to Echo.
“Here we go,” he said with a soft smile, placing the box gently into Echo’s hand when they stuck it out of their cardigan. They popped the box open and threw a gummy into their mouth, visibly relaxing while they chewed.
“You’d think they were lifesaving.” Heir shook his head.
“Vitamin deficiency can cause long-lasting issues,” Echo said, tilting the box toward Heir. “Take one.”
“I’m good. Ate all my greens, drank my milk, all that.”
“I feel like I’m being mocked,” Echo said, pulling the box back to themself and snapping the lid closed. “Am I being mocked?”
“Mocked is a strong word,” Trace said, placing his giant paw on Echo’s shoulder, making them slide down the sofa with the weight of it.
“Teased,” Saint said. “Lovingly. We’d never want anything to happen to you.”
“Coulda fooled me.” Echo sank back into their cardigan and flapped their hand around. “Go on, then. He’s been sitting there for ages, staring, and it’s making me jittery.”
“Air makes you jittery,” Eerie said, twirling one end of his bow.
“Your face makes me jittery.”
“Good.”
“See?” Heir said to Teddy, pointing at everyone. “This is what meetings look like when you’re out of commission and Stress Ball and Sleep Paralysis Demon are in charge of running the team.”
“Hey!” Echo said.
“I do like that.” Eerie smiled, feral and cold.
“All right, everyone shut the hell up,” Trace said. “Damir, we need to talk.”
“Yeah, I figured that out myself.” Teddy flinched internally at his official name being said out loud. He never felt like a Damir. It felt like a mask he was wearing. Someone else’s skin. “What I can’t figure out is this ‘out of commission’ nonsense.”
“Look.” Saint’s voice was kind and welcoming as always, but where it usually soothed Teddy, now it just made him wary. “We understand there are things about you we don’t know.”
“I’m not hiding—”
“Please,” Saint said, placing his palm on Teddy’s knee, “just hear me out.”
Teddy swept his gaze around the room and caught each member of his team watching him with a mixture of concern, fear, annoyance, and curiosity in their eyes.
He slumped back into his chair, crossing his arms over his chest.
“No need to be defensive,” Heir said, pointing to his stance.
“I’m not defensive.” He uncrossed his arms and tried to arrange them in a way that would convey relaxation. He ended up letting them flop uselessly by his sides.
Eerie quirked a dark brow at him before huffing.
“We know something went down in Slatehollow,” Saint said softly. His palm was warm through Teddy’s jeans, and he wanted so badly to be comforted by it.
The scent Saint carried due to his specialty in animal cursework sometimes had a familiar undertone. Never exactly the same. Never correct enough for it to truly work, but on good days, on days when Teddy felt grounded and calm and like he fit in his skin, it felt like a gift.
“A lot went down in Slatehollow.” Teddy swallowed hard against the tide of emotions rising inside of him. He wasn’t ready to talk about him. He wasn’t ready to let them all know. “I don’t know if you all heard, but a cursebreaker got cursed.”
“Don’t act dumb with us, man,” Heir said. “You came back all gloomy and have been moping around the house ever since. It’s not just about the fucking curse.”