(5) Sinless Days: Family Talks, Don't Need To Be Too Serious

--- Julianna ---

“Right, okay, I’ve now got all of our utilities sorted out.” She told Mercer, hanging up the phone as he continued to rub her feet while she dealt with his bullshit. (And not the kind that makes me laugh.)

“I still don’t get why you couldn’t use what I had set up.” Said drama queen pouted as he drove the knuckle of his thumb into the arch of her foot.

“Because everything you had set up was either siphoned off of our neighbors or illegal.” She pointed out.

“A, you act like either of us gives a shit about the law.” Mercer noted dryly as he cracked her toes one by one. “B, I rigged it to drain the electricity and water from the city not our neighbors, because fuck the parasitic utility comp-”

Mercer leaned back as she tried to gently kick his face.

“Yeah, no.” She told him. “No ranting about the flaws with society before I leave the bed.”

“But you haven’t left the bed at all.” Mercer frowned. “In fact you had me bring everything here so you wouldn’t have to.”

“And now you know which of us is the smart spouse.” She explained, completely and purposely ignoring which of them collected online degrees as a hobby and solved murder mysteries as a profession. (At least I have the common sense not to run around and let people shoot me.)

“I don’t know, I mean I did marry you.” Mercer pointed out, needing to win any argument he entered. “While you said yes despite knowing how much of a train wreck I am.”

She let out a moan as he chose that moment to dig his knuckle in just right. (Because he’s a cheating bastard…) But given how she was a stubborn bitch she found the willpower to ask him, “Do-do you know how hard it is… to find someone with a six pack, college degree, a decent salary, and is good with kids?”

“Uh, you just described like half my family.” Mercer scoffed, before pausing. “Also I don’t think my money counts as a Salary…”

She picked a specific page from her scattered paperwork. “According to this company I’m laundering our money through you’ve got six figures.”

“Ew, that makes me middle class.” Mercer recoiled in disgust.

“Given how much of the Way you technically own, I could say you’re upper class.” She teased, aware of just how profitable he and his mom had made this whole vigilante set-up (well before you take out the expenses of said vigilante work.)

Mercer shivered, before giving her a glare. “Gross. Do you want me to stop rubbing your feet?”

“Do you want me to put more clothes on?” She asked, gesturing to herself.

Mercer narrowed his eyes. “Not particularly…”

She couldn’t help but smirk at that, though it died with a groan once she looked back at all of the paperwork she still had to go through. “Ugh, you know all of this would be significantly easier if you just came back from the dead.”

“And we both know life is significantly easier as long as I’m legally dead.” Mercer argued. “I mean, if I was still alive and using my government shit the Vigils would be all over this place.”

She gave him a look. “Aren’t half of them already?”

“You know what I mean.” Mercer frowned. “Can you just imagine how things would turn out if they found out about you?”

“No, but I can imagine what a threesome with you and Safeguard, would- wait where are you going?”

“You’re being gross, I’m leaving.” Mercer explained as he walked towards the door.

“You know that means I won, right?” She called.

“You know this means I won’t do your other foot, right?” He called back.

“... Damn it.”

--- Scarlet ---

“Uh, S-Scarlet…” Bell called, awkwardly sounding nervous as ever.

Something she’d never quite understood herself, given everything she knew they were capable of. (Then again that’s just Bell… Too nice to get angry, even when someone deserves it.)

“What’s up?” She asked upon noticing her sister was waiting on her response.

“I, um, I wanted to… apologize…” Bell explained (in a way that explains nothing.)

“Apologize for… what, exactly?” She legitimately couldn’t remember Bell doing anything that needed an apology. (Hell, she isn’t even capable of doing anything she should be sorry about.)

“For, for snapping at you last week… about, about my… other selves.” Bell grimaced, only to slowly grow confused at Scarlet’s own continued confusion.

“Oh, right… that…” She’d completely forgotten about that.

“I, I shouldn’t have d-done that.” Bell stuttered out. “B-but when it comes to, you know when it comes to my other selves I… I…”

“Get… defensive?” She thought that was the phrase for it.

“Y-yeah…” Bell nodded, looking ashamed.

(Which she shouldn’t…) Scarlet sighed. “It’s not that big of a deal. I mean, if anything that was pretty tamed compared to how me and my other self get.” It was hard to tell whether she ripped people’s throats out because she was a Malcontent, or because she couldn’t rip out her other-self’s throat. “It makes even more sense when you consider how… talkative yours are.”

This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.

(If my other self talked that much I’d probably go insane.) As was she was lucky her inner beast kept quiet whenever she wasn’t in the presence of something dangerous.

“But I shouldn’t have-”

“Bell.” She interrupted, wrapping an arm around her sister. “It’s okay.”

--- Mercer ---

He waited outside the door, just out of view of the girls as they wrapped up their moment, knowing better than most how important the moments between family could be. Especially when those moments included an apology of any kind. (Can’t let those kinds of wounds fester…) (Hypocrite…)

Deciding he’d given them plenty of time and stepping into the room as loudly and obnoxiously as he could, figuring that if they couldn’t sense him with their heightened senses then they needed a reality check before reality checked them out.

His eyes immediately shot to Scarlet as he pointed a finger at her. “Go grab your shit kid.”

“W-why?” The teen stumbled hopping to her feet.

“I feel like killing someone and figured you’re probably getting peckish, figured we’d kill two criminals with one bullet.” He answered before pausing. “Actually, the mood I’m in, that sounds fun. Let’s go try to set that up. Though I warn you it is a bitch and a half to make it happen semi-naturally.”

“W-what?” Bell asked, looking confused.

“I mean, using a guy as a body shield and a semi-effective silencer is one option but I personally feel like that’s cheating even if you get bonus points for basically doing blind fire. Meaning the best solution is to try and lure two guys into a semi controlled kill field and wait for them to stand next to each other.” He explained, before elaboration that, “Honestly, I would prefer if we could find two guards of similar height standing next to each other but the one’s we’re going after aren’t professional enough to stand at attention and usually end up sitting on the stairs. At which point it becomes this whole thing about people leaning forward or backwards and… it’s just a pain in the ass.”

Bell looked increasingly confused as he went on.

“Uh, wouldn’t you need like a lot of people to pull something like that off?” Scarlet asked, slipping her shoes on. “I mean, in case you mess up or something?”

“Yes, I would.” He grinned, more amused that the teen was just rolling with his crazy rather than trying to make sense of it.

“But, uh, I thought this whole ‘hunting’ thing was supposed to be picking off acceptable targets?” Scarlet continued, remembering their last ‘hunting’ trip.

“And what is more acceptable than human traffickers?” He asked with a grin, before frowning. “The Way is sadly one of the easiest smuggling points within the city due to local ordinance pretty much abandoning this place. Even with my… flexible morality, I tend to find someone who pushes what I’m willing to tolerate every couple of weeks.”

Scarlet nodded. “So we’re going after someone who’s pushing it?”

“Well I haven’t really found anyone yet, but that’s not going to stop me from looking.” He admitted.

“Um, what if… what if you don’t find anyone for… for Scarlet to eat?” Bell wondered with a frown.

“Eh, this is the Way, even if I can’t pull off a ‘magic bullet’ your sister isn’t going hungry.” He shrugged, pretty sure he could find a gang hitman or someone for her to munch on if worse came to.

--- Bell ---

With Mercer stealing Scarlet away, she once more found herself sitting alone and hoping to at least partially get her other-selves under control, and this time she wasn’t going to chicken out before actually getting anything done. (I hope…)

“Look okay… I… I can’t keep being scared of my powers.” She told herself.

(No you can’t…) Herself responded.

She fought down an instinctive shiver as she felt eyes both within and without, instead she forced herself to say, “I… I know you guys… you do your own thing, but I… we need to learn to, to work together.”

(We are legion…) Her otherselves reminded her, their voices echoing throughout her mind. (You are not…)

(Right, and that’s the problem isn’t it…) For whatever reason her powers refused to listen to her, because they didn’t view her as part of them. (Meaning once more I’m left with more confusion than answers…) That’s how it always was with her powers, every step forward was two backwards. (Why can’t you just tell me what’s wrong?)

(You reject the legion…)

She froze. “What?”

(You reject the legion… We are legion… You are not…) Her otherselves explained slowly, and -if she wasn’t wrong- bitterly.

She was quiet for a moment, processing that surprisingly frank explanation, before eventually saying, “Look I… We… need to work together… I want to work together… Can we work together?”

(Work with the legion… not against…)

“I’m trying.” She promised.

(Work with the legion… not against…) Her otherselves repeated before leaving her alone in the silence.

--- Julie ---

She stretched her legs out as she stood on the rooftop, her eyes measuring the jump that she knew she could make and that she was at least fifty percent sure she could make without cheating.

Taking a few steps back from the ledge, she rolled her shoulders before sprinting forwards and kicking off the ledge to leap across the four meter gap. As her feet hit the ground she stumbled a couple of steps, unable to control the momentum as well as she usually could.

“Huh, feeling kind of rusty?” Mercer asked, from atop a stairwell he’d climbed solely for the theatrics of it. (The dramatic bitch that he is.)

“Not all of us run across rooftops for a living.” She reminded him. “Hell, I wouldn’t even be up here if you didn’t bully me into it.”

“I didn’t bully you into anything.” Mercer scoffed. “You’re the one who got hooked on the air after that time you asked me to take you swinging.”

“True…” She admitted, looking up at him. “Though I still blame you for goading me into the more dangerous things we do on these rooftops.”

“Oh, really?” Mercer laughed before jumping off of the stairwell and landing in front of her. “You really want to blame me for the… ‘dangerous’ things we do on the rooftops?”

“Yes.” (Mostly because I know how you’ll react.)

Mercer nodded thoughtfully. “Okay.”

Before she could react, Mercer had grabbed around the waist, picked her off the ground, and jumped off the roof.

“Oh shit!” She screamed as they fell before feeling the tell tale tug of Mercer’s grappling line grabbing something as they swung through the air. “You fucking asshole!” She cried, swatting his chest.

“Ah, ah, you really want to do that when I’m holding us up with one arm?” Mercer taunted, swinging onto a building ledge halfway up since his other arm was filled with her.

She slid her arms around his neck, and wrapped her legs around his waist, glaring at him all the while.

Instead of being intimidated (like he should) Mercer merely smirked as he wrapped an arm around her before jumping off the ledge and firing another line, the action practically second nature after so many years of swinging around the city streets.

Which each line he fired, he’d switch the arm he was holding her by, always making sure that she knew he was holding onto her in spite of the dangerous situation he’d put them in. And between the cycling but continuous strength of his arms, and the adrenaline of flying through the air, she found herself having a completely understandable response to it all.

Namely biting the exposed part of his shoulder.

“And who was it doing the dangerous goading again?” Her love laughed.

“Shut up.” She growled without removing her teeth.