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Aaron Burr was nothing in particular. He could walk in sunshine, could see his reflection, didn’t have any kind of aversion to garlic or wooden stakes. He didn’t have scales, or fur, or horns. He didn’t transform on the full moon into some kind of slavering lupine creature.
But.
He was just different enough. Just not-human enough. ‘Monster,’ he was called. Not because of anything he’d ever done. But his nails and teeth were too long, too sharp. But his arms hung just a bit too long at his sides. But he moved just a bit too quietly. Spine a little too crooked, eyes a little too dark. Oh, and the extra finger on each hand. (And let’s be real, he wasn’t going to turn down blood if he came across it—he just didn’t go looking for it.)
So not a vampire, not a werewolf, not a ghoul or a revenant. Nothing in particular. Just. A monster.
Once it had been determined that he wasn’t an imminent threat to humanity, he’d mostly been left to his own devices. Not shunned, exactly, but alone, for the most part. Lonely. He kept catching himself skulking in shadows, and he’d been reminded of sleeping in the bottom bunk with his sister’s voice floating down from above him telling him, “You’re only a monster when you start acting like one.” That had been annoying, coming from definitively-human Sally, even as a kid. Whatever kind of a monster he was, he was, regardless of little girls’ naive opinions about what was under their beds.
Still. The skulking.
When you start acting like one, Sally had said. So, something monsters didn’t do? Somehow the answer he’d arrived at had been, get a job. So he did. Really, the only kind of job he could get, considering his quasi-monstrous status. Magical Containment. Dealing with curses, dispelling old wards, chasing off lingering spirits. Occasionally, dealing with monsters. Ironic, maybe, but at least he wasn’t ‘acting like a monster.’
In fact, this was the most human he’d ever felt, even though his boss never really seemed to approve of him, and his coworkers were all wary of him. He wasn’t skulking (mostly), he interacted with other—well, with people—and he even made money, not that he ever went out to spend it. Actually, he was accumulating quite a bit of wealth. Like a dragon with a hoard.
Speaking of—
He was skulking (ha) through a dimly-lit cavern passageway, completely silent and unseen by the resident wyrm, looking for a particular room. While he was undetectable, the same could not be said for his partner, who was bumbling along behind him with all of the grace of a drunk satyr. Aaron had thought at first that his coworker was surely part fae, all silky hair and flashing eyes and contained power in his stance. But then he’d do something like—Aaron winced at the noise—run into a discarded suit of armor inside a dragon lair and set the passageway ringing with the noise of clanging steel plates.
He stopped and twisted fluidly back to face his partner. “Alexander,” he hissed. “Are you trying to get us eaten?”
Alex jerked to a stop and his eyes went wide at the sudden break in Aaron’s silence. Aaron got a visceral sense of satisfaction from seeing him startle, which he would be more concerned about in himself if he didn’t know that anyone would feel the same.
Alex was annoying, to put it lightly. He wouldn’t leave Aaron alone. He followed Aaron around at the office, chattering away about whatever spellwork he was working on. He kept asking him questions like, "Vampires can't see their reflections in mirrors because of like, the anti-magical properties of silver, right? Like they used to make mirrors out of silver, but what about the cheap-ass glass and aluminum mirrors we have now, can they see their reflection in those?" Which, how would Aaron know? He wasn't a vampire. He'd calmly explained this, only for Alex to decide that since he wasn't decidedly any one kind of monster, he 'wasn't so bad off.'
Not so bad off. Being nothing instead of something.
On the other hand, Alex was the only reason Aaron even had the job.
Their boss, Washington, had been wary about hiring a monster for Magical Containment but Alex had barged right in on his interview, introduced himself ("Alexander Hamilton, at your service, sir!"), and told Washington it would probably be handy having a monster on the team, especially for some of their more dangerous cases. Then he'd flounced right back out again.
"What did he even come in here for?" Aaron had wondered, slightly shell-shocked. "And did he just tell me his full name?"
"Probably came in just to get a look at you," Washington had sighed. "And yes, he did. Alex is an incredibly powerful spellsmith. And an incredibly reckless one." He'd given Aaron a hard look. "Would you be able to protect my team on certain assignments? Handle dangerous situations?" Well, Aaron didn't have any natural propensity for violence, but he had the teeth and claws (kind of) and the strength (definitely). So he'd said yes, and Washington had very grudgingly given him a job. And Alex hadn't stopped bothering him since then.
Anyway, dragon hoard.
"Well excuse me, Burr, but not all of us have fuckin' night vision!"
"Use a witch-light, then."
"The dragon will be able to sense anything I cast in here in a heartbeat, obviously."
"So you're completely useless here, then. Wonderful."
"Bite me."
Aaron loomed, using his full height usually hidden by his slouch. The glow of the bioluminescent fungi in the walls, dim as it was, still glinted off his sharp teeth when he grinned.
Alex gulped. "Or not," he amended quickly.
Satisfied, Aaron turned back around. Before he could resume the path forward, he felt Alex grab the back of his shirt and mutter, "Lead the way, night vision."
Aaron allowed it.
Dragons were essentially harmless when left alone. Scary-looking, sure, but really just giant lizards. They liked sunning themselves and licking strange things. They ate spider-monsters, which were decidedly more dangerous to humans. They only set things on fire when they felt threatened, which happened rarely now that humanity had mostly moved away from its medieval phase and into a more accepting and mutually beneficial standard for dealing with endangered creatures. And nobody liked spider-monsters.
Still, they did have a bad habit of lumbering down a city street and then flying off with anything shiny that caught their eye. In this case, a young goldscale had snagged a VW beetle with a trunk full of high-grade potions and sachets. The owner had insurance on the car, but had contacted Containment about retrieving the expensive apothecaria. So Aaron had been sent, because while a dragon probably wouldn't raze a town anymore, they were still very protective of their hoards.
And Alex had been sent because—well, because he was Washington's favorite. He'd already admitted he couldn't cast inside the lair without alerting the dragon to their presence, so he wasn't much good here, and in fact had spent the trip to the cavern entrance complaining about people who still bought VW bugs when the things were 'practically dragon-bait.'
Aaron would be better off, and far less annoyed, by himself.
Still, he led them through the passageway in the low blue-green light, and Alex was mercifully almost-silent behind him. They ducked into numerous small caves along the way, each packed with artifacts and treasure, and sometimes small German cars. The apothecaria had been a recent theft, though, so it was most likely in the nesting room, where it was warm, spacious, and—he winced at the sudden change—bright.
Comets of gold dragonfire swirled lazily in the air thousands of feet above their heads. Mounds of precious gems and coins covered the stone floor, interspersed with odd bits like fire hydrants and lawn flamingos. Coiled in a figure eight around two nearby mounds was the dragon herself, breathing out great bursts of warm air and glowing softly.
Great. Sleeping dragon and Alexander never-let-sleeping-dragons-lie Hamilton, with Aaron right in between them. This was a recipe for disaster. He gave Alex a pointed look, holding a clawed finger to his lips. Alex just rolled his eyes in response and started making a beeline towards a cherry red car that fit the description of the one that had been carried off. Aaron followed.
The car was perched precariously on a large slab of polished marble, which in turn was balanced at the top of a stereotypical pile of gold. No doubt they'd set off a cascade if they attempted to climb up. Or at least, clumsy human Alex would. Aaron swooped up behind his partner and leaned in to whisper, "Hold on," before swinging Alex up into his arms and ascending the hoard pile on light, silent feet—not a coin out of place.
Once they were on top of the slab, he asked quietly, "Will you be able to balance if I set you down? If we rock this thing too much we'll knock the whole thing down."
"Uh, yeah, totally," Alex whispered back, so Aaron set him down gingerly.
"I'll counterbalance you on this side."
"What, me and the car?"
Aaron stretched, getting taller and heavier and harder to look at; Alex's gaze skittered away from him. "Right." He sidled towards the car, producing a compact wand from one of his coat pockets.
"No magic, remember?" Aaron murmured after him, voice lower and rougher than usual. Alex huffed and switched the wand for a short metal tool of some sort and set to finagling the trunk open. Except for the dragon's snores, the cave was quiet. Naturally, as soon as Aaron thought maybe they'd get through this job without something going horribly wrong—and really, he should know better—something went horribly wrong. Alex got the trunk popped...and the car beeped. The short blast echoed in the cavern, and the dragon's head jerked up, eyes locking onto them.
"Shit," Alex spat, turning to start shoving bottles and bags into his multi-pockets. The dragon screeched, rather like a cat whose tail had just been stepped on, and uncurled to lunge towards them. She made for Alex first, the one who was stealing from her hoard, so Aaron had to launch himself across the marble slab to get between them. The dragon recoiled at the sight of him, startled into rearing back, but smoke was already billowing from her nostrils and leaking from between her bared teeth.
Aaron was probably not immune to dragonfire. Alex definitely wasn't.
He stretched as far as he could. Just under seven feet, his hands going down past his knees, fingernail-claws scratching along the slab—and he got heavier. The added weight sent the slab teetering, and within seconds they were sliding down a cascade of coins, sledding down it really, and picking up speed. The dragon's claws raked through gold close behind them but didn't quite manage to snare them. They jolted to a stop at the bottom of the pile as the slab caught against the rough stone floor. Aaron, Alex, and the car kept going, momentum flinging them into the side of yet another heap of treasure. Aaron shrank back down to roughly normal height as the breath was knocked out of him. He turned his head to see Alex, disheveled but seemingly fine, still shoving things in his pockets from the car, which had landed conveniently beside him with the trunk still open.
Aaron spared a glance at the dragon—smoking, bristling scales flushing red as they heated up, licks of flame flickering around her face, and rapidly approaching. "Now would be a good time for some magic!" he shouted. And Alex—reckless, impulsive Alexander Hamilton—jerked out his wand and sent the car flying into the dragon's face. This action would have given them a momentary reprieve, except that the trunk was still open, and instead of a brief distraction, they got absolute fucking chaos.
The remains of the apothecaria fell from the car to the floor, resulting in several large booms and flashes of blinding, colorful light. A gust of glittering gold powder flew at them in a wave. Aaron threw up an arm to stop it getting into his eyes, but he could feel it stinging against his skin. When he chanced another look, the dragon was shaking her head and snorting, trying to get something out of her nose. Whatever she'd inhaled, it at least seemed to have put out the flames, and she was effectively distracted. Meanwhile, there were glowing puddles of glowing who-knows-what on the floor, numerous silver statuettes had sprung to life and were marching across the room, a stray white peacock had appeared and was picking its way carefully through the debris, and a small wind elemental was whirling cheerfully around the cavern.
Aaron looked over at Alex, who was shaking red and gold dust off his sleeves. "Well it worked, didn't it? Stop looking at me like that and let's get out of here. I grabbed most of the apothecaria, at least."
Aaron barely had time to sigh his annoyance before the dragon roared and turned her attention back to them.
"Any more bright ideas, genius?"
A muttered spell was his answer. A shower of coins and gems flew from behind them and onto the floor in front of the wyrm. The coins began to distort and lengthen, turning into wire-thin bands, filaments of gold and silver that twined together and began curling up towards the cavern ceiling. Jewels ran up along the wires, like water droplets but falling in reverse, and started to expand at the top of the tower. Blooming. They became crystalline flowers in blue, red, and purple at the tops of the silver and gold stalks. The dragon watched this transformation, head cocked, until the spellwork completed. After a brief moment of consideration, she snorted. She flicked her tail, sending out a gust of air that somehow dissipated the whirling wind elemental, then sank to her haunches and curled herself around the base of the metal lattice, like Nidhogg around the roots of Yggdrasil.
“I think she’s purring,” Alex whispered.
“Let’s get out of here.”
They hightailed it out.
And they were fine, at least until they got back to the office and handed off what they’d salvaged to their client.
“Thanks so much,” Mage Lewis was saying, sorting through things as Alex produced them from his pockets. “I really could not afford to lose this batch.”
“Not a problem.” Alex was doing that thing he always did in front of pretty women (and pretty men—so, not Aaron), tucking his hair behind his ears and kind of leaning down when he spoke. “And not a scratch on us. I mean, we did get hit with some of the contents of those things, but we haven’t sprouted any extra limbs yet, so it’s probably fine.”
Mage Lewis’s eyes flickered down to Aaron’s extra fingers. She flushed when she saw Aaron had caught that, but he couldn’t really begrudge her for it. “And you, Mr. Burr?” she asked. “No bumps or scratches? I have some good poultice supplies here, if I can be of any help.”
“My head hurts from being flung into a pile of coins, but it’s fine. I heal quickly.”
...What the fuck?
Alex was staring at him. “That’s, uh, unusually forthcoming of you, Burr.”
“I didn’t mean to say it,” Aaron told him, reeling. “I was going to say I was fine.”
“Oh,” Mage Lewis breathed out.
Aaron whipped his gaze to her, making her flinch. “Sorry.” He took a second to still himself—not too still, because that also scared people. Just no sudden movements. “Explain, please.”
“One of the things in the apothecaria was a kind of verax. Truth-teller. I don’t see it now on the table, maybe that was one of the things that hit you?”
Shit. Fuck.
“Try and lie,” Alex demanded, crowding in on him.
He tried. “The sky is blue. Shit!”
“Did you seriously just try to lie about the color of the sky? Okay, not the point. Holy shit, you can’t lie.”
“I noticed.” His voice came out strangled and distorted, which made Mage Lewis flinch again. “Sorry.” She waved it off. Alex put a hand on his shoulder; Aaron eyed it mistrustfully.
“Burr. All things considered, a verax isn’t so bad, right? Unless you lie all the time. Are you secretly in love with me? Tell the truth now,” he joked.
Aaron jerked away. “Unlike some people, I believe in social niceties and privacy. Do you realize the sheer amount of things I have to lie about for humans to be even moderately comfortable around me?” he demanded. “Peggy asks me how I’m doing, and what, I just blurt out that I can smell her menstrual blood from two rooms away? Madison asks me why I haven’t turned in any of my case paperwork, and I tell him the truth, it’s so hard to type, to write, because I have fucking claws? Usually I just joke that he’ll have to do it for me, since I forgot again, and he’ll joke back, and it’s normal. Well what now?”
“That’s not quite how it works—” Mage Lewis tried to interject, but Alex was already talking over her.
“Burr, it’s not that big of a deal!”
Aaron could feel his bones shifting under his skin, tendons stretching and snapping as he changed shape unwillingly in his distress. “In case you haven’t noticed,” he growled, actually growled, “I am a monster.”
Alex drew himself up, trying to match Aaron’s increasing height. “I’m not afraid of you.”
Ha. “You should be.” He leaned in for the second time that day to bare his teeth, which were rapidly lengthening and starting to drip with excess saliva.
Alex didn’t flinch. “You really believe that?”
Aaron shoved him away. The tips of his claws left tiny holes in the front of Alex’s coat. Alex looked down at them and scowled, throwing his hands up in the air. “You’re not even a proper monster!” he exclaimed.
“I am just a few seconds away from—”
“Guys!” Mage Lewis broke in. “It doesn’t work quite like you were saying, Mr. Burr. If someone asks something and you try and answer, whatever comes out will be the truth. But you won’t be compelled to answer anything anyone throws at you. And then of course, any statements you make will also be true, regardless of if you’re answering a question or not.”
“Great. So I just have to not say anything until this is fixed,” Aaron muttered, reigning himself back in.
Alex just snorted. “How do we fix this, then?” he asked.
Mage Lewis looked at the apothecaria and winced. “Well, it doesn’t look like the antidote made it out. And like I said, this is high-grade stuff. It’s not just going to wear off.”
“So you’ll have to make an antidote,” Alex guessed.
She shrugged. “I sell and prescribe stuff, but I don’t actually make it.”
“Oh. Okay, well that’s fine, Eliza’s a whiz apothecary, she can probably make some if you tell her what she’s working with. If you don’t mind?” Alex gestured towards the door, and Mage Lewis stood. “I’ll take you to her,” he continued. “Burr, you gonna stay here and wallow in silence?”
Aaron glared, and kept his mouth shut.
Alex huffed and left, mage in tow.
When they were gone, Aaron finally let himself still all the way, like a statue.
Not compelled to answer, Mage Lewis had said. Aaron should have noticed that because Alex had asked, are you secretly in love with me? And Aaron hadn’t replied, but the truthful answer to that was—
A sharp pain in his gut, and his first thought was that, fuck, he was being compelled to tell him. But then Alex burst back in, panting and clutching his stomach.
“What was that?” the spellsmith wheezed. The pain was already ebbing away, but Mage Lewis crossed the room to check her collection one more time.
“You might have been hit with a binding, Mr. Hamilton,” she reported worriedly.
“A binding to—?”
“It only binds to living things, so…”
They both looked at Aaron.
“And let me guess,” Alex said drily, “we left the antidote for this behind, too?”
The expression on her face answered that question clearly.
“Great. At least it wasn’t to the dragon.”
And Aaron had to break his self-imposed silence after all of five minutes to say, softly but with feeling, “Fuck.”
Eliza, once consulted, had given it until tomorrow before the antidote would be completed. Something about additional steeping being needed for that level of enchantment. Aaron gave it six hours tops before he lost it and threw Alex out a window.
“Well, looks like we’re gonna have to stick together for the night,” Alex had said, not even faking the cheerfulness in his tone. Like they were friends, and spending time together by choice. “Your place or mine?”
Aaron’s home was safe. He didn’t want Alexander in it.
“Yours.”
They left work and took the subway to Alex’s apartment building. Aaron stayed completely silent, hunched in his seat and trying to look small so the other passengers would stop side-eyeing him. Alex, sitting next to him and absorbed with his phone, was still wearing his Magical Containment badge so no one said anything to them. Probably assuming Alex had him under control. Usually when they were partnered up it tended to be Aaron who had to keep Alex under control, so he wouldn’t go off half-cocked and get himself mauled by a moon-crazed were' or blasted by ancient repelling wards or—
(Aaron had intervened to prevent Alex from coming to bodily harm a lot. It was, after all, what Washington had essentially hired him to do.)
Alexander’s apartment was obviously meant for two people, but he lived alone. Alex volunteered an explanation before Aaron could ask, not that he would have asked, but Alex did so love to hear himself talk.
“I used to live with a partner, but he died. He was a demonologist, and he was really good at it but not actually a certified exorcist. He helped a lot of people anyway, and for free, not like the scam artists who do most of that stuff. But then an exorcism went wrong, the demon was too strong. John and the kid both died.” He recited this information with a vaguely proud tone, but it seemed rote, like he’d told the story numerous times. It must have been a while ago.
Alex was looking at him expectantly. Spellsmiths were big on equivalent exchange, the reciprocal sharing of information and stories. And Aaron had his own story of lost love he could have offered in return, but. He wasn’t a spellsmith.
(Summarized, it would go like this: love didn’t break the curse, because there was no curse, just Aaron. His home was emptier for it.)
“Can I use his room, then?” Aaron asked, ignoring the implied question. Alex pursed his lips but, surprisingly, let it go.
“There’s a shit ton of demonology tomes in there, but if you don’t mind that, then sure.” He pointed down the hall, apparently reluctant to lead the way himself. No matter, Aaron would find it. He slunk down the hallway in the direction indicated, disregarding the huff of annoyance behind him. There were small doors that had to be a bathroom and a closet, so he tried the larger door at the end and opened it to find the guest bedroom.
It was a bit dusty; the bed was stripped, and all the drawers of the wardrobe were slightly open as though they’d been cleaned out in a hurry. There were a lot of books, though. Aaron felt a twinge of curiosity about the former inhabitant, but he pushed it down ruthlessly. He would not be drawn into an exchange of stories with Alex Hamilton.
Especially not now.
Before he could get acclimated to his new surroundings, Alex burst in with an armful of sheets for the bed. The sheets were deposited on the floor without ceremony. Alexander stood staring at him with his arms crossed.
“Look, I was going to mind my own business here—”
“I already don’t believe this.”
“I was, but then you said all that pathetic bullshit, and you do realize how pathetic that sounded, right?”
He did, actually.
“And so I decided I’d just go ahead and get it all out there now, and then I’ll leave it alone, okay?”
“No you won’t,” Aaron sighed, already tired. “You never do. You can’t.”
“I don’t lie, Burr!”
“No, you say what you believe. But just because you believe what you’re saying doesn’t make it true.”
“I can’t believe,” Alex announced, ignoring him, “in ‘talk less, smile more.’ I don’t believe you should have to smile, and put up with all the fuckery you do. People treat you like shit, for no good reason, and you say you believe in social niceties? Just—just stand up for yourself! Take—”
“No,” Aaron growled. “That may work for you, but I am not you, I am me, I am this.” He gestured at himself with his polydactylic hands. “You don’t understand anything about it, or me.”
“So tell me. One true thing, about you.” Alex widened his stance in a clear I’m-not-budging-until-I-get-my-way move.
“I thought you said you were going to leave it alone. And here you are, trying to manipulate me while I’m enchanted to tell the truth against my will.”
Alex winced, but held firm.
“Fine.” Aaron took a moment to think. “I hate the way you say my name. You emphasize it every damn time.”
He got an incredulous look for his (forced) honesty. “That’s—? Burr, I say your name like that because you won’t tell me your given name. You know mine!”
Aaron snorted. “I’m not giving my full name to a spellsmith, are you serious?”
“But we’re partners!” Alex exploded. “Doesn’t that mean anything to you?”
“Your partner is dead,” Aaron reminded him, vicious, honest. “We’re in his old room, or had you forgotten?”
Alex jerked back, stricken. Then he turned on his heel and left, slamming the door behind him.
It did, in fact, mean something to him. Saving someone’s life was no small matter, especially when it came to magic, and Aaron had prevented Alex from coming to mortal harm more times than he could count. There was a kind of possessiveness this sparked in him, though Aaron kept that close to his chest, because if it was allowed to be fanned into a flame then—
Look, he wasn’t in love with Alex Hamilton, it didn’t work like that, but there was something because if Alex hadn’t helped him to get this job, if he hadn’t been his partner, if he hadn’t treated Aaron like a friend even though he was shit at it and Aaron refused to return the favor—if Alex hadn’t done all that, there was a good chance Aaron wouldn’t be alive, and that meant something, too.
At the very least, it meant enough that he followed Alex out of the room, even before the tugging of the binding started back up again.
By the time he caught up, Alex had set up shop in the common room of the apartment with a stack of rune-papers, which he was motioning up with his wand to hover in a circle around him.
“Pargon, pargon, fuckin’ pargon, oh.” He scowled when he noticed Aaron. “What, you actually got something you wanna say to me?”
“Nothing you want to hear.” He hadn’t really come out here with a plan. Alex had that squinty look on his face that meant he’d decided to be particularly difficult. And for some reason, Aaron had come out here anyway.
Alex harrumphed and looked away to jab his wand at a rune and bark, “Ulyaoth!” The rune circle started to spin slowly around him and glow blue. Aaron slipped between the pages of the paper barrier to join Alex in the circle. The intrusion was ignored, so he rolled his eyes and reached out to tap the spellsmith on the shoulder. Immediately, a sharp electric shock jumped between them, and they both flinched.
“Was that the spell?” Alex asked warily. “It shouldn’t be doing that.”
“No, I think it was me, actually.” Aaron reached out again, slowly, and this time actually saw a purple spark form on his fingertips and jump to Alex’s shoulder when his hand got close. Alex spasmed in place again.
“Ow! What the hell, Burr?”
He considered not answering, but they were stuck together and he was actually doing fairly well evading telling more than he wanted to, even with the verax affecting him. This little bit couldn’t hurt. “Sometimes in stressful situations strange things happen to me. New features. They usually go away.” That was all the information he was willing to offer. “What’s the spell supposed to do?”
“It protects the area inside the circle. From physical and magical attack.” Alex sounded pleased with himself. “It’s pretty effective, and uses a lot of magical power, too.”
“Didn’t keep me out,” Aaron pointed out.
Alex gave him a no, duh look.
Oh.
Alex turned away, intent on the runes as they floated by. He kept muttering under his breath, “Bantorok, redgemor, pargon, pargon...where the fuck did ulyaoth go?”
Aaron was left examining the curve of Alexander’s neck from behind. He could see the top knob of his spine, right at the nape above his shirt collar. He reached out unthinkingly.
Alex’s spine arched when he was shocked once again, and he made a strange, choked noise at the back of his throat.
“Oops,” Aaron said.
Alex whipped back around. “What. Why? This isn’t even scary, Burr, it’s just shocking, fuck, I mean surprising, not—”
“That was a poor choice of words, even for a pun.” Aaron was actually faintly amused. He reached out and shocked him again, just because he could. The rune-papers all fluttered when Alex jumped. “Sorry, am I distracting you?” he asked sweetly.
“You always distract me.”
It sounded like the truth.
Aaron retreated back to the deceased partner’s room, suddenly distressed for reasons he couldn’t quite articulate even in his own mind.
In deceased—in John’s room, he sat down on the still-bare bed and stared at the bookshelf. The books varied in size and color, but they all seemed to be about demons. Latin, Greek, and German titles. The ones on the top shelf were a mottled yellow-brown color. Bound in skin. Horrifying. No wonder he’d been relegated to this room, he’d almost expected Alex to ask if he wanted to bunk together.
And, shit, the vague unease he’d been feeling since they’d learned of the enchantments was coming out full force. He couldn’t lie, he couldn’t get away from Alex, and it wasn’t that he wanted to hurt Alex but what if he did, Alexander’s magic had just let him into the goddamn circle. Gods, he’d spent so much time protecting his partner but how was he supposed to do that like this? And Alex kept pushing, he pushed and he pushed and Aaron was helpless against him, unable to lie, bound to him, and eventually, maybe, he might be backed into a corner and lash out and hurt him because that was what monsters did.
He felt horribly, awfully exposed.
The room plunged suddenly into darkness. Not the sun going down, but Aaron’s shadow, Aaron’s darkness, grown large and almost tangible, had spread from him and oozed, slithered, crawled over every surface until everything was covered, hidden and indistinguishable. He felt safer, at least, but sitting alone in the dark just made him feel like he was failing at basic humanity, except he wasn’t human, was he? He’d made this happen; humans didn’t have shadows that moved and cloaked and hid monsters inside.
He heard the door open, though the sound was muted, and then a muffled, “Whoa.” No light penetrated through the gloom. He stayed silent, half hoping that would be enough to get Alex to leave him alone.
Ha.
He couldn’t actually see Alex as the spellsmith made his way towards him, but he could hear soft footfalls and quickened breathing getting closer. A few moments later, Alex’s outstretched fingers brushed across his cheek. Aaron flinched away, but when the purple sparks appeared there was no electric shock. Just the lights, like small fireflies, that lingered for a few seconds and then fizzled out again. A brief pause, then Alex reached out again.
Aaron’s skin glowed purple under Alex’s palm when he cupped his cheek in his hand.
“You can’t just sit here alone in the dark, Burr. You’re not the boogeyman.”
He stayed silent.
Alex sighed and sat next to him, breaking the connection so the purple illumination faded away. “This is pretty cool, actually,” he whispered. “I wonder if I could recreate this with a spell.”
“What part of this is not alarming to you?” Aaron demanded, frustrated at this blasé attitude.
Alex’s reply was a hum and, apropos of nothing, “Have you ever seen Howl’s Moving Castle?”
“...What does that have to do with anything?” He’d seen it.
“This kind of reminds me of when Howl starts just like, oozing goop because someone broke up with him and it gets all over everything and he’s being very dramatic about it—”
“If anyone is the over-dramatic wizard who inconveniences everyone in this partnership,” Aaron interrupted, “it’s you.”
Alex shoved at him, producing another brief flare of purple.
They sat together in silence for a moment. “Why are you here?” Aaron asked.
Alex was suddenly pressed against him, twisted to cling to Aaron’s side. Surprised, Aaron turned his head and felt the stubble on the other man’s face, pressed close to his own, cheek to cheek. From the corner of his eye, he could see purple light reflecting in Alex’s dark hair.
“I didn’t want you to be alone,” Alex murmured. He hunched in on himself, clung tighter. “I didn’t want to be alone.”
Aaron’s first instinct was protect. But he didn’t know if he could this time. Still, slowly, they lay down on the bed together, clutching at each other’s shoulders.
“Tell me something about John?”
“Ha, no. Tell me something about monsters.”
“You tell me something about monsters.”
“...How about something about demons?”
“Okay.”
“The demon Baphomet has, like, really big breasts.”
“Alex.”
“Well, he does. Anyway, he’s the one that gets put into pentagrams so a lot of people think he’s Satan, which he’s not, but he is part of the pseudomonarchia daemonum, which Satan isn’t even part of.”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“That’s fine.”
So Aaron settled in to listen.
“Then, let’s see, there’s the king of Hell, Bael, who has a spider body and a cat head, a frog head, and a goblin head. Stolas is a cute one, like an owl with long legs and a crown. Anyway, demons can actually be super helpful, like if you make a deal with them they’ll teach you herbology and like, how to find buried treasure. A lot of them are genderfluid. They’ll appear to someone as like, a horse, then a pretty lady, then a seven-headed crow, then their actual form which may or may not have tits.
“Then, you know, they end up getting summoned by angry or miserable kids and they’re trapped in these bodies with a soul that was already in such bad shape they were willing to summon an entity from Hell. And either the kid dies, or an exorcism has to take place, and so many things can go wrong with that, y’know?”
“Not really.”
“Well. Sometimes John would summon Buer, which is like, I don’t even know how to describe him. He’s got like, a lion head and then five goat legs and they kinda go all around the head like—? Anyway. They’d have these long conversations about medicine. So.” He sighed into Aaron’s neck. “Not everything’s so black and white as you think, Burr.”
“If you say so.”
Alex shifted a little closer. “The dark is a place for secrets, Burr. Tell me one?” His voice was soothing, a dangerous lull. Aaron almost didn’t care.
“I think you’re taking advantage.”
“A little, but I really want to know a secret so I can keep it.”
There was power in kept secrets. A connection between the people who knew them.
A long sigh, silence. Alex had fallen asleep.
Aaron followed.
The sun woke them up, tangled together on John’s bed. The shadows were gone.
They got up and got ready for the day in not-quite-companionable silence, but it wasn't uncomfortable, either. They avoided touching each other, but at the same time they stayed within a few feet of one another. Aaron half thought maybe the binding had gotten stronger, but that didn’t really make any sense.
Everything felt weird.
At least they’d be unenchanted by noon. Eliza had texted Alex to let them know the antidotes had steeped overnight and were ready whenever they came in to work. All in all, this hadn’t been too disastrous. He’d have to keep closer tabs on his interactions with Alex in the future, though. He didn’t trust himself when it came to the heavy, poignant connection between them. He definitely didn’t trust Hamilton with it.
So: apartment, subway, office building. They arrived early enough that the building was still mostly empty. They trudged up to Eliza’s office, where a heavy-looking Victorian armchair was sitting outside the door for some reason. Alex knocked. The door swung open to reveal Eliza, who gave the impression of being harried even as her clothes were pristine and her hair was pulled back into an immaculate ponytail, not a strand out of place.
“Hello!” she chirped. “Sorry about the chair, one of the investigative teams dropped it off while I was out.”
“It’s nice,” Alex said appreciatively, flopping down into it with no thought as to why it was in the office for Magical Containment.
Eliza winced. “Yes, well, I’m supposed to do some forensics on it.” (Aaron could see on his face as Alex contemplated getting up in light of this information, and then decided not to.) “I’d intended to look for traces of unicorn blood, very illegal, you know, but the tests for that are really better done in the lab, and the chair is so heavy I can’t get it in here.”
Alex opened his mouth, no doubt to offer to levitate it in or something, but Aaron beat him to the punch. “I’ve got it.” He stooped, shoved an arm under the chair, and lifted the entire thing with Alex still sitting in it.
Eliza’s eyes widened but she stepped back and motioned them in. It took some maneuvering to fit through the door, but Alex tucked his legs up under him in the seat and they managed.
“Well! Thank you, Burr, that will make things much easier,” Eliza said as he set the chair down inside.
“You’re welcome.” Alex was staring at him. “I’m very strong,” he told him.
“I’d noticed.” The spellsmith’s voice was unusually high-pitched.
“I’m going to go grab those potions,” Eliza told them. “There’s a trick about the containers they have to be in, so it’ll be a few minutes. Alex, please don’t touch anything this time.”
Alex saluted. “You got it.”
When she left, Alex stood and started wandering around the perimeter of the lab, looking at the posters on the walls detailing plant uses and alchemical symbol conversions. Aaron watched him warily.
After a minute, Alex turned and leaned back against the wall near the door. His posture was open, inviting. “So, last chance to tell me a secret.”
Aaron felt a strong wave of fondness for the man, just for a moment. “I don’t think so.” He sidled closer, looming just a little bit. He’d never minded changing shape or height around Alex, even though he tried to avoid it with everyone else. “If you wanted to confess something, though, I’m all ears.”
Alex breathed out a laugh. He had to look up to meet Aaron’s eyes with the additional height. His eyelashes were very long. “C’mon, Burr, tell me. What do you want?”
Bad idea, very bad idea. Still, he drew closer. Put his hands on the wall on either side of Alex’s shoulders. His claws left gouges when he leaned in. “Sometimes,” he admitted. “I want to wreck you.” Which could mean a lot of things. It did mean a lot of things.
Alex arched up, like when Aaron had shocked him the night before, and said, “Yes.”
This was enough to wrench Aaron back to reality. But before he could step back, Alex reached up and looped his arms around his neck, buried his face in his collar. At this height, with Alex this close, Aaron could close around him like a bear trap.
“Burr. I think you’re incredible. You’re more than my partner, I—” Alex came to an abrupt stop and tore himself away.
The expression on his face—blanched, wide-eyed—scared. Like he’d been caught lying.
Oh. So that’s how it was. Aaron jerked his arms back down to his sides. He felt his fingers spasming and clenched them into fists even as he felt his claws cutting into the skin of his palms. This time, he backed away, and Alex let him.
Eliza came back holding a bottle. Perhaps sensing the tension, she got straight to business. “This one’s for you.” She gave Alex a shimmery green liquid in a diamond-shaped vial. “Mister Burr, yours has to strain for a minute longer, there’s lots of sweet violet leaves in it and technically that’s edible but it’s the liquid that’s actually the antidote.” She stopped and cleared her throat. “I’m going to go check on it, back in a moment.” When she left again, Alex downed the potion.
“I have to go,” he muttered afterwards. He fled, taking the empty vial with him in his haste to get away now that the binding was gone.
Aaron had managed to unclench his hands by the time Eliza got back with the verax antidote. This one was in a circular bottle. The liquid was clear, but it was roiling with purple bubbles. Aaron drained it in one go.
Eliza looked at him expectantly, so he tested it. “The sky is green.”
She beamed. “Well, there we go. All fixed up.”
“Thank you.” There was a sudden jolt of pain in his stomach, and he reached to clutch at it automatically. Eliza’s expression shifted to alarmed.
“Bad reaction?” she asked.
“No, actually, I think this happened before. The binding?”
She blinked. “Oh. Oh! You mean you got hit with it, too? I’m sorry, I didn’t realize, I thought it was just Alex.” She left and came back with another bottle of the green potion. Aaron took that one, too, and the pain stopped. When Aaron gave her the vial back, she handed him a stoppered one full of the verax antidote.
“You should take this with you,” she said. “Just in case.”
“O-kay?”
She smiled and patted him on the shoulder, although she had to reach a bit to do so. With a start, he remembered to shrink down to normal size again.
“Can you check and make sure Alex is alright? I usually like to make sure the potion has done its job while the taker is still here…”
“I’m sure he’s fine,” Aaron told her. But he relented. “Okay.”
He ignored the scratches on the wall next to the door as he left.
When Alex was upset about something, he typically went up to the roof and paced. So Aaron followed.
Sure enough, Alex was treading his usual path, muttering and gesturing to no one. He stopped short when he saw Aaron arrive.
“...Did the antidote work? Can you lie again?”
“No,” Aaron lied, just because he could.
Alex squinted, uncertain. “So why did you come up here, then?”
He lied again. “I wanted to tell you something, before this ends.” Anger was simmering just under the surface; he could almost feel it below his skin, right alongside the waiting darkness. Alex looked nervous, and the desire to hurt became overwhelming. “I wanted to tell you, especially after everything that’s happened since yesterday. What you’ve said, and done. I think you’re—” he almost stumbled over the word, one he’d never used before— “monstrous.”
Alex sucked in a breath, choked on it. “Well, tell me how you really feel, Burr,” he joked weakly. A second later he was in front of him, reaching up and clapping a hand over Aaron’s mouth. “Or don’t.” His voice trembled. “I’d rather not know for sure, actually.”
Aaron was missing something here. He pried Alex’s hand away. “You’re telling the truth,” he realized.
Alex nodded.
Oh.
So that expression had been...not because he’d been lying, but because it was the truth. Told unintentionally. Alex didn’t lie, but when he’d tried to stretch the truth somehow, back in the lab, it had come out clear and undisguised. And Alex had only just then realized, like Aaron only just now realized—
“You were hit with the verax, too.” Alex nodded and looked away.
Which meant—
“The sky is green.” He held out the extra antidote Eliza had given him.
Alex gave him a look of total disbelief. “You were lying?” Paused. “Were you lying?” He took the potion and drank it.
“I don’t think you’re monstrous. I thought—I don’t know. I thought that you thought I was monstrous.”
“Well you are a monster, yeah, but.” He pursed his lips. “I do think you’re amazing. And you are important to me. I just, that wasn’t how I wanted to tell you, or where I wanted to tell you, or when.” Sighed. “Especially not when. Because I am scared, Burr. But not of you. Never of you.”
Aaron reached out. He took Alex’s hand.
“My name is Aaron.”
