After another week of texting, Joey had to admit to himself that he trusted Caden. As they chatted—and Caden flirted—he cast his memory back over their entire acquaintance. Caden’s genuine interest in him, as well as his reluctance to pursue anything while still hiding, rang true with Joey. No one could be that good of an actor.

Also reassuring (at least in terms of his motivations) was Caden’s report on activity at HQ.

something’s definitely been trying these shields

Joey found this reply as he finished paperwork for the night. He was the only one left in HQ so he figured it was safe to check. The text had been sent that afternoon while he’d been out on assignment.

Do you know what it is?

not a spirit or any other ghoulie

might be a channeler or a non-human

definitely something sentient, though

That’s…worrying.

it’s not great. i wanted to do a rewind but there were too many people around

Thank you for looking.

The following morning Joey brought it up to Mac.

“Do you think it could be something besides a monster attacking our shields?”

Mac swallowed a bite of bologna sandwich. It was 8:30am. A banana pepper hung out from between the bread slices. “Like what?” asked Mac, leaning back in his desk chair.

“Like maybe a Channeler? Or a non-human?” Joey was sitting in the other office chair, playing it casual and potentially succeeding. Mac didn’t seem to notice anything anyway.

Mac’s brow furrowed. “It could be. I hadn’t thought of that. We’ve got that person from Home Office coming in a couple of weeks—they might be able to check. Shame we don’t have—” Mac cut himself off.

Everyone was careful not to mention Caden around Joey, as if Joey was a grieving widower. It was getting really old. It was all Joey could do not to suggest contacting him, but Caden had destroyed any trust the rest of the team had had for him by lying, and it was unlikely that anyone else would be comfortable reaching out to him.

“It’s just two weeks,” finished Mac. “We’ll have stronger shields then. We should be good.”

“But if it’s a person testing the shields, shouldn’t we try to figure out why? What if we’re in danger or something?” Joey twisted his hands together.

Shaking his head, bemused, Mac said, “Don’t make something out of nothing, kid. We don’t know that it’s not just all this extra activity causing the problem. We’ll be fine.”

“But—”

“Don’t fret,” insisted Mac, and, noticing the banana pepper about to fall, tucked it back into his sandwich. “Get yourself some coffee: got a long day ahead of us.”

----------------------------------------

all the store displays are brown and orange

LOL. You noticed that, huh?

why are there cartoon turkeys, joey? why are they smirking at me?

It’s Thanksgiving. You haven’t heard of it? It’s this super racist holiday where everyone eats turkey. I bet you’ve seen all the pilgrim hats around, too.

This story originates from a different website. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

is that what those are? i thought they were maybe weird american priest hats or something

I never thought of that. I guess they kind of are.

america is weird

You’re weird.

😝

🤣

i assume you’re not going to eat turkey with your homophobic family

You assume right.

you’re not doing anything?

Been awhile since I went to a friendsgiving.

that’s too bad

It was all Joey could do to not invite Caden to his house to teach him the ways of a morally bankrupt American holiday. It wasn’t like the team from work had surveillance on his apartment or anything, but paranoia kept him from meeting Caden face-to-face again. Plus he wasn’t sure that he wouldn’t start kissing him again, and that way lay potential ostracization by the team, or possibly even losing his job.

Even though it would be really, really nice to kiss Caden again.

It was a little confusing, honestly: since finding out Caden was a different…well…species, Joey’s attraction hadn’t waned. It was all he could do not to demand a selfie of Caden’s real face to add to the contact on his cell phone, though that would be a genuinely bad idea for a whole variety of reasons. But the more they texted, the more Joey learned about Caden’s real personality that he’d hid before, and the more Joey—

Well, he wasn’t quite ready to admit that to himself.

While Joey was at work most days, Caden would leave stream-of-consciousness texts for Joey to enjoy when he clocked out.

did you know that octopuses have three hearts?

octopi? octopodes?

this means that an octopus has three times as much love to give

this is science

it’s because they have blue blood

like the royals do

because octopodes are royalty

the royalty of the sea

oh holy hell there’s japanese octopus erotica

my eyes

A few minutes later.

maybe i should convert to confucianism

or taoism

Another few minutes.

joey help i’ll never escape wikipedia alive

After work Joey would spend ten minutes actually giggling at the day’s messages on the train, drawing stares from his fellow passengers, then finally get to reply.

I’m calling your mom and telling her you like octopus erotica.

rude

I’m going to tell her you’re a Taoist now.

please no she still hasn’t forgiven me for being agnostic

how was your day?

Fought another poltergeist.

how’d you do?

It was a *lot* harder without you there tbh.

wish i could have helped

Joey paused for a long moment, then:

I wish that, too.

----------------------------------------

When they were three days out from the Home Office representative’s arrival, Joey slipped up at work. He’d forgotten to turn his phone to silent, so halfway through a gig his notification sound pinged and attracted the attention of the fire creature they were trying to catch. Joey had identified the creature as a kobold, according to his manuals, not that classifying it did them much good, since how did you fight a fire monster that you couldn’t put out with water?

The sound from his phone had the living fire hurtling straight at Joey’s face and it was only through Indira’s timely intervention that the kobold wound up sucked safely into a Box. Mac had sent the two of them out together that day for the first time and so far they were making a good team.

“Sorry,” said Joey, once the kobold was secure. “I should have turned this off.”

“Well are you going to check it?” Indira slumped onto a stack of wood at the side of the warehouse the kobold had infested. “Might be something important.”

Joey unlocked his phone.

i’m going to throw mr. wickham straight in a dumpster

Last night Joey had recommended the 2005 movie version of Pride and Prejudice to Caden; a guilty pleasure of his. Joey grinned down at his phone.

“What’s funny?” asked Indira, standing and crossing to him to look over his shoulder. Quickly, Joey clicked away from the messaging app and into his browser, where he had a meme open just in case this happened. He was careful, but you never knew.

Indira peered at his phone. “Memes,” said Joey unnecessarily.

“This is old,” Indira said scornfully. She looked up at him. “You’re old.”

“You just haven’t grown a mature sense of humor yet.”

Scoffing, Indira scooped up the Box from where she’d left it on the stack of wood and headed for the door. “Let’s go. We have to grab the El for our next assignment. We should have two cars,” she complained.

Joey followed her out, muting his phone as he went. Surreptitiously, he typed:

I hope a raccoon eats him.

i hope THREE raccoons eat him

😂