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Drunk Quinnie, I’ve already seen and helped rinse off in the shower and waved a granola bar at his lips. Figured I’d also be that to Gabe and Frog, my new roomies.
I didn’t want to be someone that’d scare them in the middle of the night.
“I’ll clean this up. Sorry I woke you,” I nod to Frog and then collect a trash bag from beneath the sink.
No one is moving but me.
Gabe is only in gray boxer-briefs, showing off his thick muscles and making me feel thinner. Even though I’m a lot more ripped and muscled than when I was a teenager. MMA made me stronger, in more ways than just looks.
Quinn wears light blue joggers, his scarred cheek twitching with his lips like he’s in a moral dilemma. He wants to call his big brother for an assist. Quinn is easy to read.
Frog stakes a stunned look at me, a red silky eye mask perched on her forehead and a velvety green robe knotted at her thin waist.
“You ready for Christmas or what?” I ask.
“What?” she says like I’ve ridden off to Luna’s planet. God, I wish I were there.
“Red and green.” I unfurl the trash bag. “What you’re wearing.”
“I wasn’t thinking about matching…” she trails off, watching me closely. “So this is normal for you? You just sleepwalk into the kitchen and become a pretzel architect?”
“Pretzel architecture is a first,” I say quietly, sliding broken pretzels off the counter and into the bag. “You want to live in my pretzel house? I’d give you all a friend discount on rent.” I smile a little, and that eases them enough.
If they’re expecting some long speech about how often I sleepwalk and when it all started, they’re facing disappointment. I’m not sharing tonight. Might not share ever.
Quinn grabs a broom out of the pantry, and Gabe tries to help clean the floor with Frog, but I say loudly, “Stop. Stop.” I pry the broom out of Quinn’s hand. “Go back to sleep. It’s…” Fuck. It’s 3:32 a.m.
“It’s late,” I finish. “I’ll be done pretty quick. I got it covered.”
“You sure?” Frog wonders. “We’re already awake.”
“None of us mind, Donnelly,” Quinn chimes in.
Gabe gives me a hearty nod and flexes. “Gotta put these to use.”
“Go put ‘em to use in bed,” I say with a slanted smile. “I’m about done anyway.” I’m not, but I will be. I just want to be alone, honestly. With me, my sketchbook, and some music.
Once they relent, they disperse into their bedrooms. Leaving me be.
After I sweep the floor, wipe up the counters, and wash my hands, I return to the pullout couch and peel my soaked shirt off my head. Tossing the thing in a heap, I climb onto the squeaky mattress and prop my pillows. I put on my reading glasses and sketch for a few minutes with black pen and eat some leftover cheesecake I bought.
At first, I’m working on a popular tattoo design that people always request. A compass rose. Minutes pass and I flip to a blank page and begin a new drawing. A round curvature of a cheek and a soft jawline, an even softer, thimble-like nose.
I shade using thin diagonal lines, and I spend more time detailing her eyes. Long lashes around big orbs, a planet reflected in her iris. With chaotic swipes, I draw wispy hairs cascading around her cheeks and then tiny stars in the creases of her gaze.
My pulse hammers staring at the portrait for too long. Her pleading expression could cry come find me.
I shut the sketchbook, take off my glasses, and rub my forehead with my thumb. Cheesecake eaten, I set the plastic container on the end table. And without thinking, I fish my phone from beneath the sheets. Sliding further down the pillows, I open Fictitious.
Luna, aka galaxxygirlx, sent me a shifter story with some extraterrestrial-ness years’ back. I took it as payment for her first tattoos, and I click into the story saved in my inbox and reread from the middle.
“They’ve landed here, Pantha. You think they’ll just leave Sanctum? We don’t know who they are or what they are, but they sure as hell aren’t human.” Weathered and hard-worn Jocoby understood the horrors of otherworldly invasions. When he was only seven, he lived through the Invasion of Trixorn, the fast-moving species would wipe out a million human souls before being decimated by the Earth’s ozone.
Pantha also knew of the powers otherworldly beings could possess and the doom Sanctum could face. She was six during Trixorn. Six when she held Jocoby’s hand. Six when they both watched their families perish.
Six when they were the only two of those they loved to survive.
Time and age only hardened Jocoby.
“We aren’t human, did you forget?” she whispered.
“I can never forget.” He shifted into a fox, then returned swiftly to human form, his hand enclosing around Pantha’s. The slice of paradise they fought to preserve—a cove for Shifters outside of human jurisdictions and judgment—was at stake.
