It was icy outside, with that brutal Chicago wind hammering through the streets and bringing with it a terrible chill. On the way to work, Joey huddled in the overcrowded heated shelters on the train platforms while waiting for the El. It was only there that he could take off a glove and reply to his daily messages from Caden.
They’d both been up late the night before texting, and as a consequence Joey was asleep on his feet. Dimly he recognized that it was maybe a little odd that Caden was waking up at the same time as him just to text—it left Joey with a little glow that Caden considered him important enough to get up early when technically he didn’t have to be anywhere.
It's disgusting out.
lucky me, cuddled up nice and warm under my blankets
You suck.
drinking hot cocoa as we speak
It’s 7 in the morning!
cocoa is an anytime drink
Joey chuckled to himself just as the train pulled in, and he had to cram himself on—there weren’t any handholds available, so it looked like he was subway surfing today.
Are you going home for Christmas?
Wait, do you celebrate Christmas?
lol, we celebrate
i’m thinking about it
i miss my family but it might not be worth the plane fare if i’m coming right back anyway
what do you do for the holiday?
Nothing. I mean, I’ll watch Christmas movies and eat junk food.
that sounds nice. which movies?
You know, traditional ones. Like Die Hard.
🤣
This bubble between him and Caden seemed so fragile that Joey feared to pop it by doing something rash like inviting him over to eat Funyuns on Christmas eve. Even if it meant they were both alone. He was aware this made him a coward, but then again, that was not such a change from his normal state of being.
The Home Office representative was already inside HQ when Joey arrived and hung up his coat on a hook, rubbing his hands together to regain some warmth. He really needed to get better gloves, or better yet, stop taking them off to text Caden when it was below freezing outside.
“That you, kid?” called Mac from his office, and an unfamiliar face appeared around the doorframe.
“Hi,” said Joey, startled, and the rep blinked at him.
When someone was taller than Joey it usually came as a surprise, and this person towered over him, he realized, as they stepped out into the back room. They were lanky, with a bit of a stoop, making them resemble nothing so much as a wading bird. Their eyes marked them as East Asian, and their hair hung shaggy below their chin. Their outfit was as scruffy as their hairstyle: a sweater with a t-shirt poking out from beneath it, oversized cargo pants and scuffed chucks. If Joey were a little less tactful he might have commented on the unwise decision to wear Converse All-Stars in the dead of Chicago winter, but he kept this to himself.
Mac appeared in the doorway behind the representative. “Joey, this is Hawthorne, Hawthorne, Joey.”
Joey extended a hand. “Hey,” said Hawthorne, voice somehow as limp as their handshake.
“They’re just installing our new artifact,” Mac explained. He emphasized ‘they’ just a little bit in the way that people unused to gender-neutral pronouns tended to do.
Gently, Joey extracted his hand from Hawthorne’s slightly clammy grip. “Neat.”
“Come look!” Mac said over his shoulder as he once more disappeared into his office.
An elaborately ornamented wooden box, about the same size as one of those cubical boxes of tissues, sat on a pile of paperwork on Mac’s desk, very out of place on the mundane-looking desk. The box had inset mother-of-pearl designs on the top, which was hinged, and little gold accents at the edges.
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Mac collapsed back into his desk chair, which creaked as much as usual, and leaned in close to the box to examine it.
“Here,” came Hawthorne’s voice from behind Joey, startling him. “Lemme show you.” They stooped down from their great height and smoothly lifted the lid of the box, revealing a detailed golden cylinder surrounded by red velvet. With great care they extracted the cylinder and held it for Joey to see, then using their other hand, pulled on the end of the cylinder. It expanded in segments.
“Oh, a telescope!” Joey exclaimed softly in deference to the hushed atmosphere of the office.
Hawthorne nodded. “Yeah. It sees through stuff.” They held out the telescope, offering it to Joey, who accepted, handling it delicately. It was slightly warm against his fingertips. “It’s like, super old, like hundreds of years or whatever.”
Briefly, Mac and Joey exchanged a look—this person was supposed to be an expert? Then Joey held the telescope to his eye and abruptly was looking out at the street. He startled, pulling away, then peered through the scope again, fascinated. “Cool.”
“Okay, my turn,” said Mac, and held out a hand, impatient. Grinning, Joey relinquished the telescope and Mac held it to his eye.
“If you twist the end you can adjust how far you see.” Hawthorne was standing awkwardly to the side with their hands in their pockets, looking a bit like a scarecrow.
As suggested, Mac twisted the end of the telescope and a smile grew on his face. Slowly, he turned in a circle, then cried out, “Whoa, okay!” and dropped the scope from his eye.
“What?” asked Joey.
“Neighbor’s taking a shower.”
Joey and Mac cracked up, but Hawthorne seemed unmoved, retrieving the telescope from Mac and collapsing it down once more, tucking it back into its velvet-lined box.
Maneuvering around Joey and Hawthorne, Mac crossed to the safe in the opposite corner of the office, opening it. He was vaguely aware of Mac striking up a conversation with Hawthorne, but most of Joey was suddenly focused on the golden watch revealed as the safe door swung open. Caden’s family’s watch. Stolen from them.
Hawthorne moved the music box a little further back in the safe (it was playing Losing my Religion) and tucked the telescope’s box in in its place, closing the door after it and blocking Joey’s view of the watch. Joey snapped out of his fugue.
“That oughta, like, super-charge your shields,” Hawthorne was saying. “Keep it in the safe and nothing’s getting through.”
“Well, thanks for bringing it.” Mac shook Hawthorne’s hand, looking equally discomfited by the floppiness as Joey had been. “You gonna stick around for a gig or two?”
“Oh, no, I am a behind-the-scenes monkey,” said Hawthorne, shoving their hands in their pockets once more. “I live inside. That’s why I glow in the dark.”
Blinking, Joey chewed on that for a few seconds before realizing Hawthorne was referring to their pale skin.
“Joey used to stay in, too—he’s our part-time Researcher now. Well, not so much anymore,” admitted Mac. “We’ve been too busy, he’s just been out in the field mostly. If he can do it, so could you!” Mac clapped a hand to Hawthorne’s arm, encouraging, and Hawthorne wobbled a little, otherwise not physically reacting to the touch.
“Gonna do some tourist stuff?” Joey said after an awkward few seconds.
“I like my hotel room,” said Hawthorne, and that appeared to be that, as they stepped back out into the back room and retrieved their coat. “Cool,” they said to Joey and Mac once appropriately wrapped for the weather. “Yeah. Uh. ‘Bye.” With a nonchalant wave, they clanked through the back door and vanished.
“Hunh,” said Mac after a minute, and Joey had no choice but to concur.
----------------------------------------
The day proceeded as was usual nowadays, which was to say it was disgustingly busy and often disgustingly gooey. Any spare minute, Joey’s thoughts drifted back to that glance he’d had of Caden’s family watch in the safe that morning and left him awash with…guilt, maybe? Guilt and regret and a smidge of anxiety. It was very distracting and not at all helpful when facing an actual manticore.
It was habit at this point that Joey opened his phone as soon as he stepped out of HQ—tonight it was at 10pm—and read the pile of messages left for him by Caden. Tonight, with thoughts of that golden watch running through his head, seemed a little different. The texts that usually brought a smile to Joey’s face instead made him frown more deeply, and it was maybe a half hour before he could even bring himself to reply.
Home Office rep was…something.
how so?
Hard to describe. Brought us a cool artifact, though.
tell me about it?
Joey obliged, but his mind kept spinning in the background all the way home and through his take-out burrito from the taqueria down the street.
wanna watch a movie?
They’d been doing this lately, watching movies at the same time and texting about them as they went. The more Joey ‘spent time’ with Caden, the more it hurt to think of letting him go.
Sure.
They watched Dragonheart, which Joey had never seen before.
Listen, I knew I was a nerd, but you are a certified nerd.
it’s not my fault that dragonheart is cool
Cool for nerds.
It was past midnight. Joey needed to go to bed. He was about to say something to that effect, blinking sleepily at his phone, when another text came through:
i miss you
Now he was awake. For a long moment, Joey just stared at the screen, then, decisive in a way he hadn’t been until recently, jabbed the ‘Call’ button.
“Joey?” answered Caden immediately, and Joey had really missed that voice.
“Hey.”
“What’s…what’s up?” ‘We don’t do this’ translated Joey internally.
“Listen, uh. Do you want to meet me?”
A pause. “It’s…late.”
“Do you want to meet me at HQ?” Joey’s heart was thudding heavily in his chest.
Caden paused for a long moment, then said faintly, “Okay.”
“One hour,” said Joey, getting to his feet.
“One hour,” affirmed Caden, and apparently this was happening.
Before he could second-guess himself, Joey ended the call, wrapped himself up, and stepped from his apartment into the chill night, where snow was drifting softly from the sky.