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Adam tried to sleep in as late as he could, partly to wash away some of the exhaustion, partly because he hadn’t slept much through the night. More dreams of Ian came and went in the night, each a snippet or snapshot of a future, some worse than others.
Why was his Sight so obsessed with the future when his nephew was months away from being born, and Ian’s fall into the Between years away from that?
Vic left for work quietly, and Adam drifted back to sleep.
They were still in the apartment, still working toward their dreams.
He only left Ian alone for a moment to check on lunch in the microwave.
The yowl was short and brief, cut off mid-scream.
Adam raced around the corner to see Ian near the blanket fort, where he wasn’t supposed to go.
“What did you do?” he asked.
“I only wanted to play with him.” His tone was angry like it was the old cat’s fault for being frail.
Inside the fort, he lay still, too still, and crumpled.
“Spider?” Adam asked weakly.
He woke with a start.
He knew it was just another dream, but he hurried to the living room to check.
“You okay?” he asked.
Spider sat in his fort, staring out at Adam as if to ask what he wanted.
The cat slowly blinked at him. He returned it.
“You’re okay,” he said, for both of their sakes.
Still, there’d be no going back to bed now, not after that. The dream hovered at the edge of his senses like he’d walked through a cobweb. It wasn’t real, but it clung to him, and while he knew it was imagination, something walked up the back of his bare spine.
Spider meowed, and Adam took a breath.
“Right, breakfast.”
Adam went to open a can of cat food and start the coffee.
He nudged the bowl into Spider’s fort, indulging him, figuring the cat had earned it after enduring Adam’s abrupt awakening.
It took him a moment to realize that he hadn’t pulled on his clothes, was still in his boxers. Carefully, listening to the happy gurgle of the coffee pot, he ran his hand over his scars.
White had cut him quickly and multiple times. He’d reopened the line on his chest, the mark of an earlier battle.
Flexing, he felt the lines tighten.
Then he thought of Sonya’s hand, growing back, painfully, yes, but leaving no trace of the damage, at least that he could remember.
Maybe there was plastic surgery. Maybe there was magic, but it was like Argent’s car. He’d always know the scars had been there, even if he could no longer see or feel them.
He forced himself not to put on a shirt, to let himself see his arms and chest as he sat on the couch with his laptop and coffee.
Jack had sent a file, all of Cole and Brandon William’s emails with “Lore,” who had to be the one responsible for the banshees.
Adam started with Cole.
