Chapter 34
34
A nd can we see the monkeys, too?” Desi asks excitedly, bouncing up and down on her toes. “I want to see the monkeys!”
“Sure,” Ez says, ruffling her hair. “There are lots of howler monkeys in Costa Rica. We’ll go on a boat tour.”
Desi looks delighted. “Howler monkeys?”
Cass swats Ez’s arm. “Don’t scare the girl, Ez.”
Obie looks unimpressed. “You’re the one who’s scared of howler monkeys, Cass. Not Desi.”
“Because they’re intimidating!” Cass insists. “They sound like a freight train, Obie! An animal that small should not sound like death approaching!”
“I’ve never seen a howler monkey,” JJ muses, tilting his head to one side. “Or a regular monkey, for that matter.”
Desi gasps, clapping her hands. “JJ! You should come with us!”
“Nuh-uh,” Ez says, wrinkling her nose at JJ. “This is a ‘no parents allowed’ field trip. Auntie Ez and Uncle Obie only.”
“Aww!” Desi protests.
Cass fights back a smile. In the spirit of enriching young Desi’s education, Ez and Obie decided that they should start taking her on periodic field trips to see the world. After all, there’s only so much she can learn from within the confines of Cass’s safe house, and since Cass and JJ are currently wanted by both the Chain and the Sanctum, that responsibility thus falls on Desi’s esteemed aunt and uncle.
Apparently, the fact that Cass and JJ haven’t even officially started homeschooling her yet is irrelevant. Cass suspects that Ez and Obie just want an excuse to spoil their niece with tasty food, shiny trinkets, and new experiences.
Frankly, Cass can’t blame them. He’s a big fan of spoiling Desi, too. Now, he crouches down, spreading his arms out. “All right, sweetie. Be good for your aunt and uncle, okay?”
“Okay!” Desi says, hugging him tightly. “See you soon, Cass!”
“And take lots of pictures for me,” JJ adds, crouching down next to Cass. His smile is fond, and Cass’s heart shivers with it. “I want to hear all about the animals when you get home, okay?”
“I’ll take pictures of everything!” Desi promises, hefting her new camera proudly. It’s one that JJ bought for her with his own money, and Desi’s obvious excitement about it makes Cass’s chest feel warm. She clearly doesn’t have the slightest idea how to use it?—despite JJ’s best efforts, she keeps trying to tap the viewfinder like a touchscreen instead of pressing the shutter button?—but her dad got it for her, so she loves it anyway.
And the way JJ beams whenever she plays with it makes Cass want to kiss him on the mouth. But JJ does a lot of things that make Cass want to kiss him on the mouth lately, up to and including just walking into the room, so he’s nobly ignoring the impulse.
“Have fun, honey,” JJ says now, hugging Desi one last time before standing up and stepping back towards Cass.
“Thanks! I will!” Desi lifts her arms expectantly towards Obie. “Up-up?”
“Up-up,” Obie confirms, bending down to pick her up and perch her expertly on his hip. “We’ll be back just after breakfast tomorrow, okay?”
“Sounds good,” JJ confirms, and he waves. “Enjoy your trip, guys.”
“Keep her safe,” Cass orders.
Ez rolls her eyes. “We always do,” she says, and she flicks her wrist. A rift of warm purple-gold opens just behind them. “Later.”
“Bye-bye!” Desi calls over Obie’s shoulder, and within seconds, the three of them are disappearing through the rift and letting it close behind them, leaving Cass and JJ alone.
For a few seconds, they stand there in silence.
“So,” Cass says eventually. “Are you also a nervous wreck, or is it just me?”
“Oh, thank God,” JJ says, turning semi-frantic eyes on Cass. “Cass, she’s four! She’s a little girl! And we’re letting her go to a foreign country without us!”
“It’s just overnight,” Cass reassures him, and he immediately checks his watch. Just past nine o’clock in the morning. “Only twenty-three hours, fifty-six minutes, and thirty-two seconds until Ez and Obie bring her home.”
JJ’s teeth rake anxiously over his bottom lip. “Okay. And what, um. What are we supposed to do with ourselves until then?”
Perfect opening. Cass takes a deep breath, bracing himself. “Actually, I?—I was wondering if you wanted to go on a field trip of our own? Just you and me?”
For a moment, JJ looks startled.
And then he smiles. “Yeah?”
A little bit of the tension drains out of Cass’s shoulders. He nods firmly. “Yeah.”
“Sounds cool. Where do you want to go?”
“I might know a place,” Cass says evasively, and he quickly turns away, striding towards the kitchen. “How about we pack some lunch? We can make it a picnic.”
JJ jogs after him, intrigued. “So it’s not somewhere with a food truck within a one-mile radius?”
“It is not.”
“Sounds scandalous.” JJ flashes Cass a smile as he grabs two baguettes, pulls out the bread knife, and neatly starts cutting them. “I’m in.”
Affection twirls through Cass’s chest. They fall quiet as they arrange their sandwiches side by side, JJ stuffing his with leftover tortilla espa?ola and Cass piling his high with veggies and hummus, and it’s??—
It’s sweet. It’s domestic.
It feels like home. Honestly, this old safe house only started feeling like home once Desi and JJ arrived, livening it up with wyvern plushies on every cushion and the rhythmic sound of rattan on the punching bag and laughter floating out of every room.
Electrifying it with JJ’s solid body and precise movements and the way he parts his lips when he’s surprised.
This, in Cass’s mind, is a date. He’s officially taking JJ out on a date and trying to woo him as of today, as of this very minute. JJ might not be aware of this fact yet, but hopefully, Cass can work up the guts to inform him of it soon enough.
He thinks he’s been obvious enough about it already, really. Between the lingering touches and the held glances and the little acts of service and the deep conversations late into the night and??—
Cass thinks he’s been obvious enough about it already, but JJ isn’t a mind reader. Neither is Cass. And that’s the biggest reason why he has yet to tell JJ how he feels with actual words.
After all, Cass wants JJ forever, not just for one night. He isn’t worried about pressuring JJ into something he doesn’t want?—despite JJ’s initial reservations, he’s quickly become adept at using his new credit cards, and he knows that he has the means to survive on his own?—but he doesn’t want to scare JJ enough that he actually does take Cass up on that offer.
Doesn’t want to make JJ so uncomfortable that he decides to leave. Desi would be heartbroken, obviously, and Cass??—
Cass would never forgive himself.
“Hey.” JJ frowns at Cass as he finishes wrapping his sandwich in aluminum foil, holding out a second piece for Cass. “You good?”
Swallowing hard, Cass takes it. “Yeah. Yeah, I’m good,” he says, and he quickly covers his sandwich with the foil, shoves both lunches in an insulated bag, and pulls it over his shoulder. “We ready for action?”
JJ’s lips twitch. “Ready,” he confirms, and Cass squares his shoulders, snaps open a rift, and guides JJ through to what will hopefully be a new beginning.
JJ squints against the bright sunlight, raising one hand to shield his eyes from the glare. “This… looks familiar,” he says, turning in a slow circle to survey the clearing. Bright blue sky above them, ancient trees standing sentry all around. A rainbow of wildflowers determined to poke their heads out just days after the official start of spring. “Isn’t this where you brought me after we escaped the Sanctum?”
The place where I had a full breakdown? he adds silently, embarrassment curling through him. The fact that JJ’s hopeless crush saw him at his most pitiful is something he really didn’t want to think about on the day that same crush invited JJ on a cute picnic date?—or, more likely, a perfectly platonic field trip.
Cass, though, looks unperturbed. “Good eye,” he says, setting their bag down and stepping up next to JJ. “You like it?”
Firmly, JJ forces down the memory of choking back his sobs in Cass’s arms. He knows that Cass doesn’t judge him for it, so he probably shouldn’t judge himself for it, either. “I do. I’ve always loved nature?—my mom took me on hikes a lot, and my dad and I went camping a few times. Where are we?”
“Just outside of Redwater, actually,” Cass says. “We’re technically still within its borders, but we’re a few miles southwest of the town itself. It’s not close to any trails or marked on any maps, so almost no one knows about it.”
A secret clearing, just for them. JJ smiles. “That’s really cool. Definitely a great spot for a picnic. How’d you find this place? Exploring with Ez and Obie?”
Cass’s eyes flicker. “Actually,” he says, “I found it the day I was summoned from Tamaros.”
JJ’s heart stutters. “What?”
“This is?—?” Cass sweeps an arm around, his expression unreadable. “This is the place where I was summoned.”
JJ’s throat feels dry. He swallows hard, turning around to look at the area in a new light. He knows that most demons have a complicated relationship with the place they were summoned, that being scraped through a rift to Earth is painful, that severing their connection with Tamaros is traumatic, that being powerless to disobey their summoner’s commands can leave psychological wounds that last for centuries??—
“It’s beautiful,” JJ whispers, and he knows it was the right thing to say when Cass’s shoulders relax. “You like it here?”
“I do.” Cass looks up towards the sky, towards the soft white clouds and the treetops rustling in the breeze. “I didn’t at first, though. Actually, I hated this place for years?—almost a century. But demons usually feel called back to where they were summoned, feel it like an itch in their bones and a splinter in their veins, and I had to rift here every few years to ease the ache. It was…” He hesitates. “Exhausting. Mentally and emotionally. Like my soul wanted to grieve for everything it lost here, but just didn’t have the vocabulary to articulate it.”
JJ’s chest hurts. “What changed your mind?”
Cass smiles. “Ez and Obie.”
JJ frowns. “How so?”
“They did for me what we did for Desi,” Cass says. “They made me feel safe. Ez has always been an inspiration, constantly leveling up her spellcasting and improving her technique and never letting anyone forget it. Eternally ready to stand up and fight for what she believes in. And I know we all joke about how Obie is a senior citizen, but JJ, he’s ancient. Calm, unflappable, and always in control?—not to mention obscenely powerful. Standing next to them, I felt invincible. Standing next to them, I felt whole.” He meets JJ’s eyes. “I make it a point to protect my friends because they protected me first. I owe them everything.”
Vividly, JJ thinks about Roma and Chester and Bryant. “I can relate,” he says quietly. “We’re only as strong as the people who hold us up when we can’t stand.”
Cass’s eyes soften. “Exactly. You get it,” he says. “A few decades after we became friends, I just?—I just realized I didn’t have to fear this place anymore. I didn’t have to fear my past, or my memories, or the things that were outside of my control. Ez and Obie fought away all my nightmares, and I like to think that I did the same for them.” His gaze drifts back towards the sky. “The next time I came here, I just curled up on the grass in my true form and watched the clouds for hours. It was the first time I really felt like I belonged on Earth. Like it was really my home.”
JJ’s heart squeezes. “I’m glad,” he whispers. “Because Earth would be a hell of a lot less without you.”
Cass smiles back. “And I’d be a hell of a lot less without Earth. Earth, and?—and everything it’s given me.”
“Do you want to do that again?” JJ searches Cass’s face, trying to gauge if the question is appropriate. “Change into your true form and watch the clouds?”
Cass’s expression shifts. “Would you?—would you want to do that with me?”
“Sure. It sounds relaxing. I?—?” JJ cuts himself off. Tries again. “I like how everything is so much… slower… with you and Desi. It’s??—?”
It’s soft. It’s sweet. It’s quiet and gentle and peaceful. It’s everything I ever wanted, everything I thought I could never have. Everything I never thought I deserved.
You make me feel safe, too.
“I know it’s not how you usually operate,” he finishes instead. “So I really appreciate it.”
“It wasn’t how I used to operate,” Cass agrees softly. “But I think I might want to take life a little slower from now on.”
JJ’s stomach does something squiggly. “Yeah?”
“Yeah.” Cass’s lips twitch. “You remember my true form?”
JJ nods. “Blue tiger.”
“It’s not?—it’s not a tiger, lackey. Tigers aren’t even native to North America.”
JJ gestures dismissively. “Fine. It’s something blue and vaguely tiger-like.”
Cass rolls his eyes. “You’re insufferable,” he says, and then??—
Then, without warning, there’s a swirl of black smoke around him, faster and sleeker than JJ’s eyes can track. Within seconds, a familiar demonic tiger?—or tiger-like creature?—is peering back at JJ, head cocked to one side.
Fear instinctively trickles down JJ’s spine. Even beyond the evolutionary wariness of predators, he’s always been trained to recognize demons’ true forms, always been trained to recognize them and fight them and kill them??—
Kill them, before they killed him.
But this is Cass. Cass wouldn’t hurt JJ. He’s proven that a thousand times already, proven it beyond the shadow of a doubt.
JJ is probably the safest person in the world right now. He steps closer, mirroring Cass’s head tilt. “You don’t have stripes. I could’ve sworn you had stripes last time, but that could’ve been the sleep deprivation. So I guess you’re a blue… puma?”
Cass lets out a low, irritated growl. It’s deep and ominous and ageless enough to send a shiver into JJ’s very bones.
Decisively, he ignores the primal fear. “Oh, you’re going to get sassy with me about it? You’re the one who’s a cat of demonic origin, Chin. I’m just trying to wrap my puny human brain around it.”
Cass lets out a huff of air that JJ thinks might be a scoff. He prances haughtily over to JJ, lowers his head??—
And butts his skull against JJ’s belly.
JJ stumbles backward half a step. “Um, excuse you,” he says. “I was standing there.”
Cass growls in a distinctly long-suffering way, headbutting JJ again.
“Do you want me to pet you?” JJ guesses. “Is that what’s happening here?”
Cass lets out an annoyed whine, nudging JJ’s hand with his muzzle.
“Okay, then. I guess we’re doing pets,” JJ says, and gently, he runs his palms over Cass’s sleek feline head. To his surprise, he’s met by smooth, tough skin instead of soft fur?—almost like a shark or a dolphin. “Huh. That’s pretty cool, actually.”
Cass’s growl sounds more like a purr this time. His tail is even swinging back and forth contentedly.
Frankly, it’s adorable. “Oh, I get it now,” JJ says sagely, nodding. “You’re not a big cat at all, are you? You’re a big dog. You’re a big blue dog.”
JJ never knew that a giant blue cat could look affronted until this very second. Cass lets out another irritated rumble, and this time, he rams his head against JJ’s belly so hard that JJ overbalances and topples over, hastily slapping down his arms to break his fall.
“Oh, real mature,” JJ says, rolling his eyes. “Is that all you got, kitty-cat?”
Cass stalks forward with another snarl, looming over JJ with his massive front paws bracketing JJ’s head. He leans down, growling straight into JJ’s face, his enormous fangs mere inches from JJ’s throat??—
“Oh, very scary,” JJ teases, lifting a hand to rub between Cass’s ears. “Scary Cat goes ‘grr!’”
Cass’s snarl cuts off. For a long moment, he stares down at JJ.
And then he lets out an inscrutable snort. There’s a snort and a wheeze and a bizarre cough-snore, and suddenly, that billowing black smoke is around him again, whipping faster and faster until??—
“Scary Cat goes ‘grr’?” Cass sputters, gaping down at JJ. “You’re insane.”
JJ grins up at him, delighted. “Did I just make you laugh so hard that you had to change back to your human fa?ade?”
Cass glares down at him. It’s a very pouty glare. “Yes.”
“I’m not surprised. My comedic genius is unmatched.”
“Keep telling yourself that, Jackson.”
JJ huffs out another laugh, shaking his head, and all at once??—
All at once, he realizes that Cass isn’t just on his hands and knees above JJ.
He’s naked again, too.
And that’s fine. JJ saw Cass naked once before, after all. And Cass explained that it’s difficult to use magic to put clothes on correctly, so it’s not like he means anything by it. But it’s just??—
It’s just that, this time, he’s naked on top of JJ. JJ swallows hard.
Cass notices. His smile wavers, but he doesn’t move away. “Listen, JJ,” he begins, and then he clears his throat, meeting JJ’s eyes. “Julian. I’ve tried to make my, ah, intentions towards you fairly obvious over the past few weeks, but?—but I don’t know how much more obvious I can get than straddling you naked in an abandoned clearing.”
JJ’s heart leaps. The dryness is back in his throat and the pounding is back in his chest, but this time??—
This time, they feel more welcome. More like anticipation than fear.
Because there’s no way JJ could misinterpret those words, right? He’s been so afraid that he was misreading Cass’s friendly touches and fond smiles as something more, that he was misunderstanding Cass’s thoughtful gestures of affection as romantic instead of platonic??—
That Cass couldn’t possibly feel the same way JJ does.
Now, though, it looks like Cass is hovering right on the edge of a cliff, preparing to let himself fall and hoping JJ catches him before the bottom. Taking a deep breath, JJ steels himself and meets Cass halfway. “You could’ve been somewhat more obvious, I think. By, you know, using words. Preferably strung together in sentences.”
Cass’s lips twitch. “I’ve never been good with words.”
“Me, neither,” JJ admits, and he pushes himself up on one elbow, fits his palm against Cass’s cheek, and kisses him.