might be the words, but the meaning…
Oh, the meaning is a bit different.
You get him back.
Shane flicks on the TV and with a surge of power it changes from a teenage girl crying about her boyfriend not wanting to be a father to the inside of a martial arts studio. A dozen kids slowly punch and kick their way through beginner karate, calling out phrases in a language they don’t speak as their pudgy little bodies struggle not to topple over.
The instructor, obviously, doesn’t see it that way. “Good! Nice improvement. Keep your leg up, Jenny. Remember, keep that power in your core! Nice flexibility, wow, Jason, you’ve been practicing!”
Shane vaguely remembers watching Drake and not feeling pain. Now, pain is all he really feels.
His hair is short, which is always a startling reminder of how much time has passed, along with the short-cropped beard on his face, and the slight lines around his eyes, across his forehead. That’s right, he’s different now. It doesn’t matter that it’s only been a week since the last time he saw Drake in person. In Shane’s mind, Drake always looks like he did back then, when everything was good.
The image zooms in on Drake’s face, heartbreakingly familiar, and his eyes flicker suddenly, looking at the spell Shane’s using in place of a camera. Very quietly, out of the corner of his mouth, he mutters, “Stop it. I can feel you watching me.”
Shane doesn’t stop. He doesn’t bother to respond, by whispering into his ear or sending a chill breeze to hit him in the face. His continued presence is enough of a message.
It’s not like he can stop anyway. All right, he probably could, but he has no desire to. It doesn’t matter if Drake is angry with him, after all. He’s always angry.
You get it back.
The hunts have been boring lately. It’s always difficult to remind himself why he should bother climbing up the rankings when he’s already at the top, has been for five years, and nothing’s even a challenge anymore. But eighty points…
That’s got to be challenging, at least a bit. Fae creatures are only fifteen, and they’re the only big game the city sees on a semi-regular basis. It’s been nearly a decade since there’s been a bill posted for something over twenty, and Shane knows damned well that that hundred-point creature has never been caught.
Well, not in the traditional sense, with his head in a bag.
For a minute, Shane contemplates ignoring even this chance, just flopping onto his bed and letting the chill wind lull him to sleep, maybe not even getting up. It’s better than false hope. It’s better than being stupid enough to believe that something could change for the better after all this time.
On the TV, Drake turns to give some fat kid some praise, and his smile is the most genuine thing Shane’s ever seen. That spark of pain in his chest flares, and he chokes with how much it hurts.
“Fuck it,” he mutters, grabbing a coat he doesn’t need and a pistol he doesn’t need and a sword he does. “Gotta be better than staying here.”
Then again, anything would be.
Finally, the sense of Shane’s presence around his face vanishes. Drake Young breathes a sigh of not-quite-relief, turning his full attention back to the kids. “You’re a little weak on your left side,” he says with a poke to the child in question, illustrating the blind spot. “Make sure to keep your guard up.”
They’ve all got such adoration in their eyes. Maybe he craves that a little too much, he admits to himself. It’s nice to be liked. “All right. That’s enough for the day. Practice the warm-up drill tomorrow, and I’ll see you Thursday night.”
They bow, uneven and exhausted, but with grins on their faces. A couple of them run up after class for a high-five, which he readily obliges. He checks his watch, but there’s time, barely. He hops in the shower for a few minutes, always feeling that prickle of hesitation like he does every time he strips off, never sure if Shane’s going to be watching.
What the hell, let him. Not like it’s anything he hasn’t seen before.
It isn’t Shane, but his downstairs neighbor Deborah waiting for him when he gets to the door, a smile hovering uncertainly on her face. “Oh, good. I wasn’t sure you’d still be here.”
“Still here. Leaving now.”
“Mind if I catch a ride home?”
He does, but nods anyway, mentally forgoing his plan to get groceries on the way home. “No problem. If you want, I’ll go warm up the car.”
“I don’t mind a little cold.” Deborah looks at him with naked hope in her eyes, trotting after his long legs into the cold night air. “I thought you only had classes until six.”
“Most days. Monday nights I teach self-defense, and Tuesday I just added an extra karate class for beginners.”
He wishes he could banish the admiration she shows him. He doesn’t deserve it, he knows that better than anyone. “You work so hard. How do you still have time to volunteer for the church every day?”
“You make time, for the things you love.” At least it isn’t a long drive to the apartment complex they share. On the down side, the heater doesn’t really start kicking in until they’re halfway home, tires crunching steadily over fresh snow.
“Ploughs haven’t come through yet. I’m sorry, I wouldn’t have bothered you, but it’s hell getting a taxi when it’s this cold out.”
“I don’t mind. How’s your younger sister? Still in the hospital?”
“I can’t believe you remember that.”
Stop looking at me like that. I’m not what you want. “I just wish the best for all you and yours. You’re both in my prayers.”
It’s probably because he’s preoccupied with wondering if he’s going to find a drunken Shane on his doorstep, or trying to navigate the powdery white roads, or trying to figure out how to subtly hint to Deborah that there’s no tree farther than him from the one she wants to be barking up, that he doesn’t hear the sound until too late.
For a split second, Drake thinks he’s lost control of the car, and it’s gone slamming into a brick wall. Deborah screams, and he has just enough time to realize that if they’d hit something they’d have slowed down, or stopped moving, when whatever’s grabbed them yanks the car sideways, sending them into a roll.
Then they hit a wall, with an absolute, final crunch. It’s difficult to orient himself, but Drake thinks he’s upside down, and not too badly damaged to keep living. He tastes blood, but that’s probably just the inside of his mouth, bitten during the crash, and he blinks bleary eyes, focusing on the slender form of the woman in the passenger seat. “Deborah? You okay?”
“I—” She coughs, but nods.
