Warning: Chapters marked (R) contain non-graphic erotic content. The bridge is rated for intimacy between boys, and the first chapter is rated for sexuality that involves magic and furry allusions (both of the boys have animal alter egos).

Chapters:

Bridge

Dear clan members and assorted others...

RJ spent Friday night sprawled under the dome in his bedroom, writing a letter to his family in the event of his death.  The person most likely to cause that death was tracing an intricate design across his back with a cold finger that occasionally preceded his tongue.  It was possible there was ice cream involved.

I, Robert James Lang, being of arguably sound mind and body, do hereby swear that all foolishness entered into is of my own accord.  Please do not hold others responsible for the decisions I have made.  Do not attempt to fulfill my wishes at your own expense, but know that I won't tolerate vengeance in my name.  Do only what you must to keep yourselves safe.

"Whatcha writing?" Casey mumbled.  His cheek brushed against RJ's shoulder, and the tiger was powerful and lazy in the remnants of jungle sun.  Whether Casey understood it or not, the warmth the animal spirits created between them was its own environment, and the tiger was unquestionably purring.

"Just leaving a note for the clan," RJ said absently.

Practically speaking, I am afraid you'll have to find another place of employment.  Business decisions regarding Jungle Karma Pizza will be made by my next-of-kin, and although I have been estranged from my father for some time I think you'll find he is the executor of my estate.  You can contact him through Pai Zhua: he was, last I knew, the only living Master Finn.

"Why do you call them the clan?"  The question was idle, not intent, but RJ was trying to remember that Casey lied.  With his actions, his tone, his mien no less than with his words.  It wasn't easy.  He trusted the tiger instinctively, and it was impossible to talk to Casey without speaking to the tiger too.

"I can't tell you," RJ said.

Emotionally speaking, I am sorry to leave you... at all, but particularly now.  You came to me as students, but I hope we part as friends.  Listen to each other.  Let Fran help you.  Help Dom if he needs it.  And please don't blame Casey for things he can't change.

He hesitated over the closing, not because there was any question but because there had always been so much more he wanted to say to them.  But the measure of a relationship was in how one spent the time they had, not in how one said goodbye.  If he hadn't done it before, there was no use trying to change it now.

I wish you all well in your quest to live meaningful lives.  Let the spirits be your guide, but remember, they don't live in the world.  You do.  Enjoy it.

Love, RJ, he wrote at last.

"Can I guess?" Casey asked, evidently tired of waiting for him to change his mind.  He'd been mouthing the skin at the base of RJ's shoulderblade--the one he was using to prop himself up, not the one he was trying to write with.  "Cause I think the animal spirits make you like a family.  I think you band together against outside magic and non-magical interference.  And I think this--"

Teeth grazed RJ's skin.  His back arched.  Casey took advantage of his sudden stiffness to roll him over, shoving him onto his back and yanking his writing arm out from underneath him.  "This," he repeated, running his thumb over the tattoo just below RJ's elbow, "is the family crest."

"I was in the middle of something," RJ said evenly.

"And I wanted it to be me," Casey agreed, leaning in to kiss him.

RJ jammed a hand in his face, catching Casey's mouth and closing his eyes against the yelp of protest.  "If you're not going to kill me right away," he sad quietly, "I'm going to have to housebreak you."

Casey mumbled something, but RJ didn't remove his hand.  "I'm not your toy," he said.  Then he reconsidered.  "Well, I suppose I am.  But I'm your willing toy, and for that, you will treat me with some modicum of respect."

Casey twisted, burying his face in RJ's shoulder, words muffled when he finally spoke.  "I'm not trying to kill you."

RJ opened his eyes, aware of the writing pad's corner poking his chin.  The pen was somewhere on the bed beneath him.  "You're not not trying to kill me," he said, his hand settling gently on Casey's hair.

Casey made a small, pathetic sound, but he didn't lift his head.  "I want you," he mumbled.  "I don't want you to die."

"How reassuring," RJ said, smiling a little.  "I'm more than a one-hit wonder, then."

He felt Casey's lips curl against his skin.  He was smiling too, and RJ reminded himself that this wasn't a boy.  He was dealing with a predator--and not an honest one.  If there was honor among vampires, it didn't extend to their prey.

"Yeah," Casey said, licking a stripe across his collarbone.  "I'd hit it again."

"Housebreaking rule number one," RJ said with a sigh, cupping the back of Casey's head.  "Some small effort at politeness would be appreciated."

"Geez."  Casey sat up, swinging a leg over RJ's hips as he stared down at him.  "Don't push you around, don't talk dirty... what do you think this is, a relationship?"  He grinned before RJ could answer, adding, "Can I have a key?"

"Do you need one?" RJ countered.

"Nope."  Nothing in his expression changed, so RJ couldn't say how he knew Casey was serious when he continued, "But I'll knock if you want."

RJ studied him, still trying to figure out what was different.  "Why did you just do that?"

Casey blinked at him.  "Do what?"

"Tell me the truth," RJ said.  It seemed to take Casey a moment to realize this was an answer, not an order.

"News flash," Casey said, the corners of his mouth quirking upward.  His face was otherwise inscrutable, gold eyes and the ghost of a smile hiding more than they revealed.  "It's not the first time."

The pad of paper he'd been writing on pressed annoyingly against his shoulder.  He might have made more of an effort to push it away if he thought Casey wouldn't read it anyway.  "How much do you have to sleep?" RJ asked quietly.

Casey seemed to consider that.  "Not as much as you."

"Then I would appreciate it," RJ said, his voice dropping, "if you would either turn the light off, or let me up to do it myself."

"Yeah?"  Casey brightened.  His gaze slipped to the pad beside RJ's head, and he reached for it.  "Done writing?"

RJ didn't answer, watching Casey's expression as he glanced over the paper--then stopped, eyes flicking back to the top of the page.  He read in silence, but he was unmistakably reading the whole thing.  Line by line.

"Lang?" Casey said at last.  He was still staring at the "note."  "I thought your last name was James."

RJ raised an eyebrow.  "No questions about Pai Zhua?"

"The note you're leaving them is your last will and testament?" Casey countered.

RJ wondered where the pen had gone.  "Do you want to witness it for me?"

"Do I want to give them another reason to kill me?" Casey retorted.  "I think I'll pass, thanks."

"They won't kill you," RJ said.  "I asked them not to."

Casey scoffed.  "That's like me saying I won't kill you.  There are some things we can't control."

"Why haven't you?" RJ asked curiously.  "If you can't help it, why doesn't--why didn't...?  He trailed off, frustrated with his own reluctance.  He wasn't sure he wanted to hear the answer, but that wasn't any excuse for not asking the question.

"Thank you," Casey said with surprising vehemence.  "For not assuming I can just decide.  'Oh, hey, this one seems nice, I think I'll just... and afterwards they're fine."

"Everyone makes choices," RJ told him.  "You could have walked away."

"You didn't want me to," Casey replied.

And RJ was stuck, because there wasn't any arguing with that.

But Casey was going on, voice lower, gaze warm and kind and oh so believable.  "I didn't want to," he said softly.  "You're different, RJ.  I told you."

RJ tried to look away, found he couldn't, forced his eyes shut instead and was grateful for that small victory.  Until Casey's fingers ghosted across his face, and he could see the tiger in his mind's eye.  "If I'm rough," Casey whispered, "it's only because I think you like it.  Tell me to stop, to go, and you know I will."

RJ didn't know that.  He certainly didn't believe it.  He didn't say anything, but Casey might have gotten the message.

"Keep your eyes closed," Casey murmured, the sound of paper crinkling as he turned, the mattress bouncing when he slid across it toward the floor.  "I'll get the light, and then you won't be able to see mine.  I'll even stop talking, if you want.

"And believe me," he added, a grin in his voice as he stood.  "That's not an offer I make often."

"Flatterer," RJ whispered to his self-imposed darkness.

"Liar," Casey's voice answered.  "The word you're looking for is liar."

RJ didn't move.  "Is it the right one?"

The darkness was suddenly more complete, and Casey was coming back again.  "Does it matter what I say?"

No, he realized.  It didn't.  Still... no excuse for not asking the question.

"You said you'd stop talking," RJ said softly.

There was no answer other than the rocking of the air mattress as Casey climbed onto it beside him.  He expected a move, a pass, a kiss or a touch or anything but nothing.  When he finally reached out, his searching fingers brushed against Casey's back, causing an audible inhalation and nothing else.

"You crazy vampire," RJ whispered into a night lit by something he couldn't see.  "I don't even know which of us you're fucking with more.  Me or you."

Casey let out his breath in a laugh: not startled, but rueful, like he knew exactly what RJ was talking about.  He didn't answer, though, even when RJ kissed him carefully.  Then less carefully.  When he rolled on top of Casey he felt the body under his stretch out, luxuriating, something in his mind humming and warm and for some indefinable period he had someone else's focused presence all around him.

For once, he wasn't alone.

1. The Message

He got the text from Kevin at five-thirty that morning: The kindred are coming.  He didn't think much of it at the time.  Psychic vampires were always gathering in California, for one reason or another: earthquakes, fires, rioting, awards ceremonies... you name it and Caliornia got hysterical about it.

Casey was already here, anyway, so it wasn't like he would miss it.  Whatever it was this time.  He debated mentioning it to RJ for a whole second before he woke up the rest of the way and wondered what was wrong with him.  Like RJ wanted to hear that vampires were converging in anticipation of some sort of disaster.

He was slipping off the bed--quietly, if he did say so himself--when he literally fell over the wolf.  RJ's "dog" whined, scrambling out from underneath him, no flash of anger or snap of teeth despite the way Casey's heart rate leapt.  He didn't make habit of landing on giant predators, quasi-domesticated or not.

"Casey?"  RJ's voice was alert, concerned, and he was sitting up before Casey could reassure him.  "What's wrong?"

"Nothing, sorry," he said quickly, glancing at the wolf to make sure.  The spirit actually did seem upset, still shifting its weight as though it wanted to be pacing but something held it back.  "Sorry, Wolf.  Didn't mean to trip over you, there."

"You're fine?"  RJ stared at him for a long moment--oddly, Casey thought--before transferring his gaze to the wolf.  "Something's wrong."

"Did I hurt him?"  Casey found that almost impossible to believe, but hey, he was a tiger, right?  Tigers were big.  Maybe his animal spirit was... heavier than he was, or something.

"No..."  RJ's absent-minded reply was irritating, not for its lack of conviction so much as for its lack of focus.  On Casey.  RJ was definitely thinking about something else right now.  Which was fine, Casey felt great, RJ's bed was his new favorite place, but still--

"You haven't seen any... news this morning, have you?" RJ asked, still watching the wolf.  "No one's called?"

Casey frowned.  Geez, you put a guy to sleep one time.  "I just woke up, and no, I don't have any reason to want you unconscious.  If the phone rang, I assume you would have heard it."

The phone rang.

"Ah," RJ said, sliding off of the air mattress.  "So I would."

"If they're trying to warn you about me again," Casey said, watching him dig for it, "I'd be happy to take that call."

"Which I'm sure would vastly reassure all of them," RJ remarked.  "Why don't I warn them instead, and we'll call it even?"

He didn't like that plan anywhere near as much, but RJ wasn't exactly looking for his approval.  "Welcome to mañana," he told the phone.  "How are you today?"

Someone RJ was expecting, then, but that was all Casey got out of the greeting.  The problem with caller ID was that there was no "Oh, hi, your-name-here" at the beginning of the conversation.  And RJ had a tendency to address everyone the same way, so there weren't a lot of clues in the way he spoke.

Casey was trying to decide between slipping off to the bathroom and sneaking back into bed when RJ said, "I see.  Perhaps the fog got... confused, and took a wrong turn somewhere."  And it was so unexpected that Casey just sat there and listened.

"Yes, well, that does sound serious," RJ admitted after a minute, "but I don't think it has anything to do with us.  We're all about the claw, you know?  The guys with the lightning bolts; they're the ones you want for this."

This was, Casey sensed, something he wasn't supposed to overhear.  Mystery or no, he listened more closely, and RJ added, "Well, I don't think so.  There's only one other person here right now.  Let me ask him."

Without making any effort to cover the phone or muffle his voice, RJ looked over at Casey and asked, "You're not the head of a secret ninja academy, are you?"

Casey blinked.  "No?"

"Oh, I'm sorry."  RJ had apparently been corrected.  "Not the head, just a member?  It's funny; it turns out that the reason I have a guest in my bedroom at this unusually early hour has nothing to do with him psychically manipulating Los Angeles weather.  Not that I'm saying I think it's impossible, mind you--"

Casey grinned, not sure whether that was directed at him or not but willing to enjoy all aspects of RJ's response even if it wasn't.  "There are more interesting things to manipulate," he murmured.  It was loud enough that RJ could hear if he wanted to, but maybe not the person on the other end of the phone.

RJ actually smiled, though he didn't catch Casey's eye and his tone was politely surprised.  "You called me; I assumed you had a reason."

There was a pause, and then, "Mm-hmm."  RJ lowered the phone, looking at it for a moment before hanging up, making it seem an unconcerned response.  It wasn't, though--Casey could feel him going over something in his mind, a rapid review that could be almost anything.

"Problem?" Casey asked, not because he thought RJ would tell him but because asking would force at least a tiny portion of RJ's attention back to him.  Come on.  He was right here.

"It seems the freak weather of the past week or so is striking closer to home," RJ said with a frown.  He was still thinking.  On the other hand, Casey hadn't expected that much of an answer, so this was something.

"It's rained in Ocean Bluff three times since I got here," Casey said, leaning back against the air mattress.  "How much closer to home do you want it?"

"That's unusual," RJ corrected absently.  "Not so much freaky."

"That's annoying," Casey said.  "Sort of like this game we're playing right now.  I assume the freaky weather isn't in LA, since LA doesn't have weather.  Is it here?  I don't hear any hail on the roof or anything."

"Fog," RJ repeated.  "Rolling into LA.  Sort of like San Francisco decided to get up and move down the coast.  Only it took the Bay with it."

"Ooh, fog."  Casey couldn't help smiling.  "Sounds pretty threatening.  How'd you get on a phone tree for that kind of alert?"

RJ held out his arm.  His right arm, Casey realized, when he turned it over so his tattoo was visible again.  "Secret kung fu school," RJ said with a straight face.  "We're not the only ones.  Ninjitsu, jujitsu... they train all sorts of people.  Ordinary people, living in the world--trying to do good any way they can."

"Uh-huh."  Casey glanced at the tattoo he'd already memorized, mostly because it gave him an excuse to stare at skin that RJ always kept hidden while he was working.  "By keeping an eye on the weather?"

"Yes, that's what I said," RJ agreed, frowning as though Casey had just echoed his complaint exactly.  "Obviously that's the ninjas' responsibility, not ours.  We monitor the animals.  That's a little different."

Okay.  RJ was serious.  Casey quickly reassessed.  If someone actually thought RJ would know why it was foggy in LA this morning, and it wasn't because of his secret school... "Are you expecting ninja visitors?"

"No."  RJ seemed sure that he would accept this story without question.  "But one so rarely is, and that doesn't stop them."

"Someone must know they're coming," Casey said, watching him carefully.  "If your friend called here looking for them."

RJ tilted his head.  "A fair point," he conceded, and oh, he was listening again.  Casey felt warmth creep over his skin, tongue moistening his lips without his conscious direction--but RJ noticed.  And RJ was studying him just as closely.

Casey smiled.  "Breakfast?" he suggested innocently.

"I have a better idea," RJ said, and he was leaning in like he meant it except that Casey totally didn't expect the hand that landed on his chest.  Or how hard it pushed him back, easily overwhelming his balance.

Dawn.  Why did touching RJ always feel like morning?  Why did everything go away when his spirit rose, when the tiger came roaring out, responding to a call Casey couldn't hear but he was in the sun, somewhere, green light filtered through the canopy overhead--

Look at me, the wolf said.

"What--" Casey gasped, but the words were funny and far away and when he lost his breath he couldn't stop trying to talk.  What are you doing?

Training you.  The wolf was RJ--the wolf even sounded like RJ--but he was much, much more assertive.  You're one of us.  You should act like it.

He was still breathing, heart pounding, but the floor under him felt like the ground, somehow: leaves prickling his skin, roots digging into back.  The wolf standing over him, a heavy paw on his chest.  He didn't know how he'd managed to get his previous question across.

Choose, the wolf said.  The jungle or the darkness.

Fucking magicals.  The thought drifted, unbidden, and it was his own--not meant to be shared with anyone else.  He should know better than to get involved with superhumans; they were so hard to control and they invariably demanded concessions, compromise... but he couldn't help it.  It was just so exciting.

The wolf melted into him, weird and bright and the heat on his skin sparkled.  Tiny flecks of light that warmed one nerve ending at a time, tracing little firecracker explosions of comfort and welcome.  He couldn't--it didn't make any sense, his whole body shook and he felt his back arching into a touch that wasn't there.

"RJ."  He heard his own voice, little more than a whimper and that wasn't right but when he tried to swallow, pleasure flooded his throat.  Sparks like tiny nips against his chin, his jaw, making his face flush and a muffled moan that he couldn't stop as warmth shimmered down his chest.

What are you...?  He couldn't think.  He couldn't see.  Everything was bright and hot and filled with home and he was so not in the loft anymore.  Why did he know what it felt like to have fur, to have it rubbed the wrong way by a tongue that pressed whiskers back and he was losing his mind and he liked it...

Choose.  The wolf's voice was louder this time, filled with a vibration that made every whisper of touch tingle.  He felt his fingers clench, bracing himself, and the sensuality attacking every inch of his body responded in kind.  He groaned as it dug in, exploding through his arms and legs and into his stomach, under his skin, calling him to an embrace he still couldn't feel.

"You," he gasped, breathless and weird and where was he?  How was RJ doing this?  Because this--now he remembered--this was why he got involved with magicals.  "I choose you."

Sex magic was awesome.  And it didn't hold vampires.  RJ could throw whatever he wanted at him and it wouldn't make any difference.  Casey could shed oaths made in the face of power like this just by running down his own energy and absorbing someone else's... a purge, of sorts.  It made bonding rituals way more fun to know he could dump the consequences whenever he wanted to.

Choose, the wolf repeated, strength rumbling through him.  He was dizzy with it, desperate and still denied and what did he have to say?  He'd said yes, he wanted it, he would take it--what else was the wolf waiting for?

Heat poured into him: RJ was turning up the pressure, making him cry out with desire for something, anything, for however this ended.  It had to end, there had to be some kind of release--how did the wolf resist?  Did it only go one way?  It couldn't possibly matter; Casey was out of control and RJ had to be feeling every single thing that surged through him.

"Please," he panted, blind and searching... he knew RJ's buttons but he couldn't think.  "I--I want--"  And he felt something wrap around his hind leg, the tiger hobbled, held down by the beginning of the bond.  He groaned, muscles flexing, something in his head whispering that this was stupid but it was so hot--

It was RJ's voice that whispered in his ear, softly, breath melting straight through to his brain as he murmured, "Choose."

"Home," he gasped, triumphant.  What RJ wanted.  Where he was taking Casey.  I choose the jungle.

The wolf howled, somewhere, so far away it didn't even matter.  He felt himself straining, felt the force of it pushing back, hard and heavy and barely enough to hold him when his reserves opened up.  Like he needed more, but he wanted it, he would take it... not normal energy.  Not lust or love.  Not even the manipulation of a sex-sealed bond.  Not just.

He was feeding on pure magic.

Bliss.  The waves that washed over him made him groan, again.  Again.  Every breath was a release, freedom he didn't really have, because it had worked.  The magic held when he couldn't hold anymore.  He could feel it, warm glow of possession, subtle sense of security that was more than just the satisfaction of sex.

He didn't care.  He was stronger than he had ever been.  He was panting, muscles turning to water, the blanket on the floor heated and sweet under his skin... no longer the weird illusion of jungle superimposed over the inside of RJ's room.

RJ.  His fingers twitched.  Trying to find the wolf without moving.  He really didn't want to.  "RJ," he whispered, sharp exhalation of air he needed, had to have.  Had to call the wolf to him, or he was going to have to go looking.

There was no answer.

Fuck, he thought, something stabbing deep into the fuzzy aura of smugness and contentment.  Figures.  Now he dies.

But he wasn't dead, obviously.  Casey would know.  He would know if it was RJ's own spell that had finally prompted a feeding instinct strong enough to kill, because that same instinct had made him strong enough to sense everyone in the building.  He knew Dom was next door.  He knew Jarrod and Fran were downstairs.

And he knew RJ was right beside him, inexplicably out of reach.

With a grunt that didn't fully express his feelings on the subject, Casey managed to push himself up onto his elbows.  His chest clenched and he shoved the alarm away, stupid reaction to RJ's crumpled form; he was clearly fine or Casey would know.  "RJ?" he repeated.  His voice was a little stronger this time.

RJ didn't answer, didn't so much as move, and Casey didn't like it.  "RJ," he said again, because this was killing his afterglow, and it was a really good afterglow, too.  "That won't work, not the way you meant it.  But it was fun, so let me pay you back.  Okay?"

Something about RJ changed, and Casey knew he was aware.  He'd heard that.  He just wasn't responding.

Casey frowned at the flicker.  "Really?  You feel guilty about that?"

There was an almost imperceptible flinch.  No physical movement, Casey was sure.  But he was seriously strong enough to figure out what Jarrod and Fran were talking about downstairs, if he wanted to.  He could tell Dom wasn't asleep.  And he knew without even trying that RJ regretted what he'd just done.

"Don't," Casey told him.  "I just said, it doesn't work.  It won't stick.  I don't know why; it's something about the way we feed.  Hit me with as much magic as you want.  It doesn't last past the next time I'm hungry."

This time, RJ did stir.  Visibly.  His voice was rough and low and yeah, he'd definitely felt it too.  "I didn't know that," he muttered.

"I figured," Casey said, amused and weirdly relieved.  "Roll over.  You want to be pressed against the floor, right?  'Cause if it were me, I'd pick the mattress, but lucky you... I like to be on top, so you get to choose."

RJ didn't move except to twitch his shoulder again.  "Congratulations," he mumbled into the blanket.  "I think we can now say for certain that you've officially made me evil."

"Sweet," Casey declared, poking his shoulder.  Every movement was boneless and heavy and he just wanted to collapse on RJ already.  "I win.  Roll over."

When poking produced no better results, he shrugged to himself, shoved RJ onto his back, and crawled on top of him.  RJ's lock on his emotions dissolved the moment Casey laid his head over RJ's heart, which was so serendipitous that he actually picked his head up again to make sure it had really happened.  But it had, RJ felt terrible, and Casey had more power than he knew what to do with.

So he sprawled over RJ, put his head back down, and melted the guilt because it was interfering with his enjoyment of the moment.  He sighed happily when he felt RJ smile.  Even through closed eyes, it was easy to tell.  Much better.

"I'm not... good, when I'm a bad guy," RJ murmured.

"Uh-huh," Casey agreed.  Because he didn't care if RJ tried to argue it, as long as he felt peaceful and content and didn't cast an annoying shadow over the warmth of Casey's daydream.  "Self-evident," he added, because RJ liked it when he seemed to be paying attention.  "Go on."

"You know what I just tried to do," RJ said.  His voice was still husky and having Casey draped over him was definitely helping.  Casey thought there was probably more he could do, but hey, he had powers for a reason.

"Uh-huh," he mumbled, trying to make his breathing synch with RJ's for a minute.  The back and forth of him breathing in when RJ breathed out made lying on top of each other even sweeter.

"I tried to make you swear," RJ told him.  "Against your will.  I tried to force you into it."

Casey gave up.  It was too hard when they were talking.  "Yeah, I know," he said, not otherwise moving.  "Not stupid, thanks.  I know a magical oath when I hear one."

"I'm sorry," RJ said softly.

"'M not."  Casey pressed his face harder against RJ's chest and kissed his skin.  "That was awesome.  Do it again."

RJ let out his breath in something that might have been a laugh if he'd been a little less relaxed.  "Maybe tomorrow," he said, and he was joking about it so that had to be a win.

"Yeah?"  Casey felt his lips curving against RJ's skin.  "I'll remind you."

There was a quiet moment, and RJ's voice sounded odd when he said, "If your power hasn't run down by then, you... might still be able to feel it."

"Does that make it better?" Casey wanted to know.  "'Cause I can keep it up if there's, like, some kind of reward.  You know, for good behavior or something."

He could sense RJ's reluctance, his awareness of what Casey was doing particularly strong now that he knew what he should feel and knew too that he wasn't feeling it.  "I don't want you to be my... toy," he said at last.  That was a lie.  It was so obvious that Casey grinned, rubbing his cheek against RJ's chest--pleased to feel RJ move, incrementally, shoulders back and his chest rising.

"You should break the oath," RJ was saying, and he wanted to be urgent, ashamed, ready for Casey to do whatever it took to erase his actions.  But he wasn't.  "Now.  You can feed on me; it's fine."

"No," Casey mumbled.  "I don't think I will."

And RJ was fiercely happy about that.  He was vaguely concerned that he was feeling the wrong thing, he knew he was, but he couldn't be suspicious about it.  "You have to help us," RJ whispered.  "For as long as you're bound by it, you're one of the clan.  You have to keep our secrets.  You... you'll want to take care of us."

Casey's smile hadn't faded, because RJ was really remarkably... loving.  "I find that unlikely," he murmured.  "But I do feel kind of like I have to take care of you, so that should work in their favor."

"I don't want you to be compelled," RJ breathed, and the idea troubled him even through Casey's careful haze of happy thoughts.

"If I choose to let you do it, is it really compulsion?" Casey wanted to know.  "You said you chose to be my toy.  Which you're not very good at, by the way, because if you were I wouldn't have to tell you to be happy right now.  Afterglow equals happy, RJ.  Geez.  What's so hard about it?"

"I thought you said negative emotions were stronger," RJ murmured.

He didn't actually remember saying that to RJ, but he answered, "Well, you're an exception.  Also, I'm not hungry, so who cares?"

"You?" RJ offered.

"I like happy," Casey insisted, not lifting his head.  "Maybe it's not as filling, but it tastes better, okay?"

RJ subsided, and Casey hummed as his focus shifted.  RJ's way of apologizing apparently consisted of admiring him, thoroughly and constantly, which Casey was totally in favor of.  "Nice," Casey breathed, closing his eyes again.

Without talking, he got their breaths to match more easily, and for a few minutes he concentrated on that and only that.  It calmed RJ down like nothing else--more even than psychic suggestion.  So Casey got to bask in the most loaded calm ever, and RJ got his time as a human pillow.  He had never asked for it, but he seemed to enjoy it immensely.

Until Casey felt someone else's focus shift, and he figured RJ might appreciate the warning.  "Dom's coming," he murmured.  "He wants to check on you."

"Yes," RJ said, his tone a little funny.  "Can you always tell?"

"Can you?" Casey asked, remembering the way RJ known when Dom woke up the day before.

"Yes," RJ repeated.  Casey hadn't expected him to answer.  "When I'm paying attention to my spirit.  Mine notices his.  Some of us are better at it than others; Dom's spirit sees a long way."

Casey opened his eyes.  "I... can't," he said, a little awkward.  He assumed RJ still wanted to know.  "Only when I'm... not hungry.  The stronger I am, the more I can... um, tell.  About people."

It was an obvious, fumbling explanation, but it gave RJ pause.  "That's true," he murmured.  "Isn't it."

"Yeah," Casey said, letting out a breath.

"Thank you," RJ said quietly.  "We should--get up, I suppose."

"Why?"  Casey didn't move.  "I'm comfortable here."

"Because I don't think Dom will believe me if I just yell 'I'm fine' through the door," RJ said, but the feathery affection that wisped over him was totally worth it.  That was true, too.  All RJ, with no outside influence.

"Jarrod wants to talk to you too," Casey offered, partly to see what he'd say.  Mostly because he thought if he kept talking RJ might forget that he thought they should get up.  "I think he's going to tell you about yesterday."

"Probably not like this," RJ said.

Casey smiled.  "Might make it harder," he allowed.  "I'm not against that."

"I don't want to get up," RJ began.  "But I do think--"

He broke off at the soft knock on the door.  "Hey, RJ?" Dom's voice was quiet, almost inaudible through the door.  "You up?"

"I'm fine?" RJ tried hopefully.

Casey turned to bury his face against RJ's chest, stifling his amusement and kissing him at the same time, because why not?  It wasn't going to work, not for either of them.  But he'd already had a way better morning than he'd planned on, so maybe he shouldn't be greedy.

Yeah.  Right.

"Can I talk to you for a sec?" Dom's voice asked.

Casey lifted his head enough to say, "You should come in.  I don't care."

"Not a good idea," RJ said quickly, even as the door clicked--and stopped.

"Spoilsport," Casey mumbled, laying his head on RJ's chest again.

"If you don't get off of me," RJ told him, "I'm going to dump you on the floor.  I'm sure you'll make it look heartbreakingly pathetic, and I'll spend five minutes making it up to you, and Dom will get impatient and ultimately walk through that door--which I realize is the position you're advocating, but I really think it would be better if he didn't."

"This is the position I'm advocating," Casey said with a sigh.  He peeled himself up, though, mostly because RJ had asked so nicely.  "Can I go back to bed?"

RJ pushed himself up, bracing himself with his hands, and he felt genuinely concerned despite his look of curiosity.  "I thought you didn't need as much sleep."

"I'm not tired," Casey said, leaning in to nuzzle his neck.  "But it smells like you.  I like it."

"Hello," Dom called, louder this time.  "Still standing on the other side of the door."

"Still not caring," Casey muttered.

"I'll be there in a moment, Dom."  RJ turned his head toward Casey's, and Casey seized on the invitation.  He lifted his face, met RJ's mouth with his own, and closed his eyes.  Nice.

Then RJ was pulling away, fingers brushing against Casey's cheek as he went.  Casey watched him go, disappointed when a t-shirt eventually fell to meet sweatpants at his waist and so much pretty skin was suddenly invisible.  RJ was staring at him, which at first he thought was good--but finally he realized that RJ wanted less of his skin showing when he opened the door.

With a sigh, Casey climbed back onto the air mattress, burrowed under a sheet, and buried his face in a pillow so RJ couldn't frown him into clothing.  RJ would be a lot less distracted if he was wearing clothes.  There was no call for that.

He felt the wash of amused irritation that signaled RJ's forfeit, and then Dom's sudden attention as the door opened.  Dom took it all in very quickly, and Casey had to be impressed.  They were good around here.  Not unbeatable, but good.  Respectably so.

"Hey," Dom was saying.  "I can see what you did, if you're curious.  Everyone else will too, I'm pretty sure."

"It's... only temporary?" RJ offered.  He sounded like he was wincing.  "Apparently it doesn't... stick.  With vampires."

The bond?  Dom could see it?  That was interesting.  He hadn't expected that.  Casey wondered if the rest of RJ's friends would have a stronger reaction.

"I'm sure that will make everyone feel a lot better," Dom said dryly, and Casey could guess that was his answer.  "Speaking of, Jarrod wants to talk to you at some point."

"Some undefined point?" RJ asked, as though he already knew the answer.

"Let's just say, if he could travel back in time and do it yesterday?"  Dom barely paused.  "I think he'd have already done it.  So, yeah, undefined, as far as  'sooner than humanly possible' is undefined."

"He probably wants to tell you that I cheat," Casey muttered into the pillow.  It did, in fact, smell like RJ.  Also, he was pretty sure RJ would understand him without him having to lift his head, so just one more reason to stay exactly where he was.

"What?"  Dom sounded like he wasn't sure he should ask.

"You do cheat," RJ said.

That made Casey turn over, sitting up to frown over at him.  "I don't.  I specifically asked you if it was okay.  You said no, and I haven't so much as touched him since."

"You haven't seen him since," RJ pointed out.

"Yeah."  Casey waited for his concession, but it didn't come.  "RJ, I've seen you three times since then.  If I wanted to screw you over, it would have been him.  Trust me.  I could find a way."

RJ held his gaze.  "That," he said, almost kindly, "is exactly why I don't."

Casey stared at him for a long moment, trying to figure out what that feeling meant.  He shouldn't be having any trouble with RJ's emotions now.  He shouldn't be having any trouble with anyone's.  He was high, humming with energy, full of an awareness that should be able to answer any question he had.

RJ turned back to Dom, and the shift of his attention cut a cold slice through Casey's confusion.  "Is he downstairs?" RJ was asking.  "I'll go talk to him."

Just like that, Casey knew.  It wasn't what RJ was feeling at all.  The strangeness was him, his own response to RJ's gentle rejection.  A rejection he had voiced before, one Casey had encouraged, something he hadn't thought twice about before today.  And today, all of a sudden...

Today it hurt.

2. The Preparation

It was his own fault, he supposed.  He knew Casey hadn't liked being told he cheated, and he knew Jarrod was still upset with him under the veneer of guilt caused by Casey's pass.  Casey was selfish and childish: he wanted what he wanted because he wanted it, not because it was right or helpful.  And Jarrod...

Whatever else one could say about Jarrod, he did care.  He cared about everyone smaller and weaker than he was; he felt it was his job to defend them.  His natural reaction to someone like Casey was fond tolerance, a pat on the head or a shoulder to cry on.  Help offered wherever it was needed.

Jarrod's hand, once extended in friendship, was never withdrawn.  And it was starting to look like Casey's wandering eye wasn't so easily tamed.  What was a promise to him, after all?  Even magic couldn't hold him, couldn't make him keep his word.

RJ wished he didn't know that.  He wished the wolf didn't like the tiger, didn't regard the larger spirit as its own.  Its own cub, its protege... its property.  The wolf was convinced it owned the tiger.  The forced bond between them was terrible in its brilliance, and RJ wished he could end it.

He wished he couldn't tell how happy Casey was, flirting shamelessly with Jarrod on the other side of the kitchen door.

Fran had gone out for breakfast with Dom, so he was surprised to hear the front door.  It was still locked, and Fran was the only one who remembered where the key was.  Unfortunately, she didn't remember to leave it wherever it was, and she often walked off with it.  He thought today had been one of those days.

He also thought he didn't want to be seen.  Whoever it was, he wasn't in the mood.  If they wanted to steal something, Jarrod and Casey could stop them.  Or not.

It was Lily.  He wondered how she had ended up with the key.

She made it halfway across the floor before she glanced over her shoulder.  She shouldn't have done it; he didn't know what made her pause.  He was very good at being invisible, and he was better at not drawing attention when he didn't want to.  Right now he really didn't want to--yet Lily still turned, seeing him somehow, and her cheetah walked out from behind her as she came over.

"Morning," she offered.  Cheery as ever, but he could feel her wariness like the hint of static electricity behind her friendly words.  "You look different.  Sort of light.  And also really tired.  How's it going?"

"You're early," RJ said.

She stopped beside the table, her eyes crinkling as she studied him.  "I'm checking on you," she said frankly.  "Dom says you're kind of messed up.  But Dom says that about people who watch too much TV, so.  How are you?"

"I'd really... rather not talk about it."  He was pretty sure he could pull rank on them if he had to.  He didn't want to, because they'd never let him forget it, but he could.  And he would if she sat down.

"Wolf says you do," Lily informed him.  "And he's glowing, which I've never seen before.  I would've thought it was good except that you look so sad."

He looked down at the wolf spirit reflexively.  It wasn't "glowing," precisely.  Not literally.  She must be seeing the extra energy from the bond.  Which was bad, because even if Dom had warned him that they'd all be able to, RJ had been hoping he was wrong.  He didn't want to explain this at all.

"RJ."  Lily sat down across from him, folding her arms on the table and ducking her head as though she could make him catch her eye.  "What's wrong?  Did Casey hurt you?"

He sighed, still staring at the wolf, because somehow that made it easier.  Just because he didn't want to tell them didn't mean they shouldn't know.  "I forced him to pledge his allegiance to us."

He could feel Lily watching him, careful all over again.  "That doesn't sound like something you'd do," she offered.

"He's dangerous," RJ said.  "And he has a tiger spirit.  He'll have to pledge to a clan eventually."

"You're rationalizing something you shouldn't have done," Lily said softly.

"Yes," RJ agreed, watching the wolf flick its ear in her direction.  "I am."

Lily was quiet for a moment, and he should have expected her to get it.  But he was still surprised when she said, "So he's more controlled.  The tradeoff is that you're less."

RJ lifted his head, catching her eye, and she looked back at him without flinching.  "It--it isn't me," he blurted out.  "I'm not pulling away from the wolf.  The wolf is the one that did it."

She blinked.  "The wolf made him swear?"

He nodded.  "It won't hold him.  He says vampires aren't bound by...  He says he can break it any time he wants to."

"Wait--"  Lily frowned.  "He can, but he hasn't?"

RJ shrugged, but he did appreciate her listening.  As it turned out.  "It's not because of me.  Whatever his game is, I'm just convenient.  Jarrod too, apparently."

She was confused enough already; he'd thought he might be able to sneak that past her.  But no.  She held her other questions, zeroing in on that.  "You're convenient," she repeated.  "And so is Jarrod."

When he didn't answer, she straightened and looked around the restaurant.  "RJ," she said.  "Where's Jarrod right now?"

He traced one finger around a tile in the middle of the table.  "It isn't his fault," he muttered.  And he wished he believed that.  He really did, because he knew it was true.  But he was still angry, and the struggle to suppress it was maddening in and of itself.

"I know that," Lily said impatiently.  She was sliding out of the booth.  The cheetah was already on its feet, pacing toward the kitchen.  The wolf growled after the other spirit but made no move to stop it.  "Casey's still here, isn't he."

"Don't hurt him," RJ told the table.  "I can't--"  He couldn't figure out how to warn her.  "The wolf would be upset."

"Right," Lily said dryly, and RJ felt his shoulders tighten.

"Lily."  It was harsh and sharp and he saw her stop just the other side of the counter.  "Don't.  Hurt him.  The wolf forced Casey to swear.  I don't want it upset with you."

Lily stared at him for a long moment, then nodded once.  "Okay," she said, her voice oddly gentle.  "Stay here."

He didn't want to know what that meant.  But he heard Casey laughing when she opened the door, and he closed his eyes and put his head down on the table.  He drew in a deep breath that was supposed to steady him.  Breath meditation was the easiest and most fundamental of calming routines--and today all it made him think of was Casey, lying on top of him and breathing in counterpoint.

He didn't know what Lily found in the kitchen.  He knew what he felt from Casey, the strange echo of the bond scraping, irritating, aggravating him constantly with attention that wasn't his.  It felt like it was supposed to be his.  Like Casey was a promise and everything he was doing broke it, over and over again.  Like RJ was invisible.

He wondered distantly if this was anything like what Casey felt when people ignored him when he was hungry.  If so, the sulking made more sense to him now.

Jarrod was the first one out of the kitchen.  RJ didn't have to look up to know, and he didn't: the wolf gave the lion a warning growl when it got too close, and RJ wondered when his spirit had started growling at the rest of the clan.  Today?  Yesterday?  The first day Casey appeared?  He couldn't remember.

"RJ."  Jarrod's voice sounded somehow sympathetic, and that didn't seem right.  "He's fine.  You didn't hurt him."

Oh, so that was how it was.  Very nice.  Very neat.  The worst part was that Casey had probably told him the truth, from a certain point of view.  RJ could have hurt him; he'd crossed the line ethically, if not physically, and Casey hadn't actually done anything wrong.  It was only self-defense if his life was in danger.

"RJ isn't the one doing this," Lily said.  She sounded like she was right next to him, and if that was true, Casey must be behind her, because he was definitely nearby but he was farther away than either of them.  "Casey is.  Don't you get it?  He's making you like him the same way he did with RJ!"

"He's not making me do anything," Jarrod said with a sigh.  "He's a cub.  He needs guidance.  The mixed messages he's getting from RJ are making the tiger skittish.  Unpredictable.  That's all."

"Oh, yeah, no mixed signals from you," Lily retorted.  "If this is all on the level, why are you making a move on RJ's boyfriend?  That's not you, Jarrod.  That's him."

"He's not my boyfriend," RJ muttered, voice muffled even to his own ears by the table and his arms.  He didn't lift his head.  He didn't want to know.  And he was sure that, although he could maintain relative calm in the darkness behind his eyelids, laying eyes on either Casey or Jarrod right now would be the end of peace.

"I'm not--"  Jarrod sounded uncomfortable, indignant, and determined.  "This isn't Casey's fault, Lil.  I happen to think RJ's guy is... it doesn't matter, but he is, okay?  I screwed up by letting him know that.  I've apologized to both of them and I'm over it."

"You're only over it until Casey says you're not!" Lily exclaimed.  "He's using you, just like he is with RJ!  He's a psychic vampire!  He doesn't get anything out of being ignored!"

"Actually," Casey said hesitantly, speaking for the first time and making RJ's throat tighten with the sound of his voice, "focus just amplifies the emotion.  If it's strong enough, no one needs to know we're there."

"So, what, you're trying to make them hate each other?" Lily demanded.  "RJ says you haven't broken your pledge to the clan yet; why doesn't it keep you from wanting to tear us apart?"

"I'm not--"  Jarrod broke off when Casey spoke at the same time.

"What?"  Casey sounded bewildered.  "I don't want to hurt you.  I was just saying, hypothetically, that's what happens!  I'm not trying to do it to you!"

"Well you are!" Lily snapped.  Mercurial Lily, impatient to laugh and always ready to tease, but never quick to anger.  She was on guard against Casey and he was changing her so insidiously that she couldn't even tell.  "RJ and Jarrod are friends and you can't just play them against each other until they break!  We depend on them!  Whether you like us or not, they lead the clan you swore to be part of!"

"I'm not--I don't--"  Casey sounded helpless and confused, and RJ hated that his heart went out to him.  "I didn't mean to play anyone.  I just--Jarrod just explains things.  In a way I get, you know?  RJ is, um... more mysterious."

"It isn't his fault," Jarrod said firmly.  "He's just trying to understand.  We won't talk alone, if that's what you want.  RJ can come out back with us, or... Casey, you could come back later, right?"

"Jarrod can have him."  RJ didn't lift his head, aware of the danger even as he said it, but unable to quell his curiosity.  It wasn't true, of course.  So what would happen if he said it?

The only reply was the growl of the wolf.  Clearly not amused.

"Really," RJ told the table.  "They're more compatible.  Jarrod trusts him.  And Casey doesn't understand me anyway."

"What--"  Casey sounded stricken.  "What are you talking about?"

"RJ."  Jarrod sounded, if anything, annoyed.  "Don't be a child.  This is no time for games."

"This isn't his game."  Lily sounded worried.  "It's Casey's."

"Would you stop blaming him?" Jarrod demanded.  "Look at him, Lily."

"Look at him!" Lily cried, and RJ didn't have to lift his head to know she was pointing at him.  He did, though, because this was getting out of hand.  "That's what Casey's doing to him!  He'll do it to you, too; don't think he won't!"

"He's not doing anything to me!" Jarrod exclaimed.

"Stop it."  RJ locked gazes with Casey.  His eyes were a yellow so light it would stand out even to someone who wasn't looking closely.  "You aren't hungry.  What else could you possibly need?"

"Answers," Casey said calmly.  "Jarrod was explaining about the clan, and the animal spirits.  How they work."

It was one thing to tell himself that Casey was lying.  To think it to himself, to say it out loud, to remind him and everyone around him that they couldn't trust him.  But to hear Casey admit it was infuriating.  RJ was on his feet, a fist in Casey's face before he knew what he was doing, and Casey tripped over the table behind him in an effort to back up.

Interesting, RJ thought distantly.  Something Casey wasn't graceful at: fighting.

As a chair slid off the table, clattering to the floor, Casey held up his hand.  Before he could say anything, RJ growled, "Get out.  I can't change you and I won't let you hurt them."

"RJ!"  Jarrod sounded more exasperated than anything else.

Casey got it, though.  He was staring at RJ with wide eyes, mouth open... no sound coming out.  Probably for Jarrod's benefit.  It wasn't like Casey was ever truly speechless.  His voice was his weapon, after all.

"Get out," RJ repeated.  He wasn't joking.

The wolf turned on him.

"No!"  The word was torn from his throat and Casey flung himself forward, the tiger rising--controlling him.  It had to be.  He was pretty sure he wouldn't have voluntarily thrown himself at a giant wolf.

His hand was heavy as it slammed into the wolf's face, and he could feel phantom hindquarters gather behind him as he got ready to pounce.  But the wolf skittered away, whining... fading.  Disappearing into a little swirl of violet light.  He spun, the world wild and strange even as he put his face next to RJ's.

The fleeting impression of paws against RJ's chest gave him pause.  Everything shook itself out, and he stared at RJ for a long moment.  Okay?

"Okay," Lily said aloud.  "That was weird."

"His spirit makes him shapeshift?"  Jarrod sounded cautious.  "Have you ever heard of that?"

"I don't want you," RJ muttered.  "You're not mine."

There was utter silence for a heartbeat, and then Casey let him go.  "Okay," he said.  "I don't want you either.  Is that what I'm supposed to say?  Will it make you feel better if I say things you don't want to hear?  If it hurts, does that make it more true?"

RJ looked away, and the sensation of being too far away was obviously an illusion.  He didn't know where it came from.  "What do you want from me?" RJ asked quietly.

Casey seemed to consider that.  "A good time," he said at last.  "According to some mutual definition."  Then, as if it had never occurred to him before, "What do you want from me?"

"What do you want from the rest of us?" RJ insisted.  "If it was just me, you'd leave Jarrod alone.  Unless your definition of a good time involves making me insane."

"I'm just trying to underst--I'm trying to learn things about you," Casey said quickly.  "Jarrod knows a lot.  About you.  And he's nice, so..."

RJ pressed the heel of his palm to his forehead and tried to breathe.  "I can't trust anything you say," he muttered.  He couldn't deal with that.  "Why do I even ask you things?"

He could actually feel Casey wince.  He squeezed his eyes shut to make sure, but he could still sense Casey's hand going to his head, looking down, backing away.  Like that night in the loft: it seemed to hurt Casey more the stronger he was, which didn't make any sense--but this time Casey didn't complain.

It was Jarrod who asked, "Are you okay?"  It was impossible to tell which of them the question was directed at.

"RJ?" Lily added.  She made it easy.  "What's wrong?"

"He does this thing."  Casey sounded like he was struggling for breath, trying to keep his voice even and failing.  "He just--stops feeling.  The more... focused I am, on him, the more it--"

"It's hurting RJ too."  Jarrod was using that tone that he thought was subtle, but if there had been someone on the other side of the room they still would have heard him.  "Casey pledged his loyalty through him.  They're linked."

"That doesn't make any sense."  Lily sounded surprised.  "If the pledge was to the clan, why would it only link them?  Why would it link anyone?  That didn't happen when the rest of us joined."

RJ tried to let go, but he only ended up needing to sit down.  He was glad he had when Jarrod rumbled, "Casey didn't join the way the rest of us did," and he knew.  Jarrod knew exactly what had happened.  Casey must have told him.

"Thank you," Casey gasped.  For the sudden embarrassment, RJ assumed.  He was closer than he had been, one hand braced against the table beside RJ.  "Can I please make you feel better now?"

"No," RJ said sharply.

"Please," Casey insisted.  His fingers were white on the tile when RJ opened his eyes.  "I have to, RJ.  I can't stay in my own head.  It's not what we do."

"Learn," RJ told the table.

Casey inhaled sharply, pulling away.  RJ didn't watch him go.  He heard the front door close behind him and still he didn't look up.

"Is it safe for him to be out walking around like that?" Lily asked carefully.

"He'll be fine," RJ muttered.  "He has plenty of energy."

There was a moment of silence, and then Lily said, "I meant, for everyone else."

"Ah."  RJ considered that, but he had never seen Casey like this.  Nor did he have any idea what Casey did when he wasn't... well, here.  "I don't know."

"I'll go after him," Jarrod said with a sigh.

"I'll do it," Lily said firmly.  "You stay here."

"Let him go," RJ said.  "He's too dangerous.  He doesn't have any reason to hurt random passersby, not like this.  Not when he's this strong.  But he does have reason to manipulate you."

"We can't just let him wander around," Lily protested.

"He's been doing it for years," RJ pointed out.  He didn't want to think about how many years it could have been.  "I'm sure he knows better than to leave a trail of bodies or broken hearts."

He ignored Lily when she eyed him and said bluntly, "I'm not."

3. The Party

He hadn't realized what it would mean to have the whole clan angry with him.

Casey was at his own apartment long enough to shower, change, make fun of Kevin's sleepover date, make out with Kevin while his sleepover date kept sleeping, and feel weird about evading questions when it came to RJ and his magical friends.  Kevin should know, after all.  They were a great resource, fascinating prey, and strong enough to make his eyes practically glow in the dark.

"Not totally human," he said, when Kevin asked.  "Bonding magic."

Kevin was clearly intrigued.  "Interesting friends you've made."

"Yeah," Casey muttered.  "They have their moments."

He made it back to JKP by 11:05, which, according to Fran, was five minutes too late for someone working a party shift.  He countered with the fact he hadn't known there was a party shift, which caused her to look at him as though he'd forgotten his brain somewhere.  "The party," she reminded him.  "The party makes it a party shift."

Right.  That kid's birthday party.  Like he knew anything about it, since RJ had kept Fran in the kitchen with him all last night while they got ready for it, and apparently no one was talking to him today.  Jarrod wasn't working the "party shift," RJ was literally being guarded, and Dom hadn't shown his face since early that morning.  The others didn't want anything to do with him.  Casey tried ignoring it, he tried sulking about it, and finally he tried annoying the hell out of them.

Unfortunately, while more effective than anything else--except possibly the sulking, which drove RJ to distraction but only made the rest of the clan more determined to separate them--annoying people wasn't his favorite way to get attention.  If the tornado sirens hadn't gone off in the middle of the party, work would have been a total loss.  As it was, he had way more fun keeping the kids entertained in the basement than he did chatting with anyone from RJ's little clan of calm.

He might have stuck around afterward, because he'd caught RJ watching him enough to know he was golden if Casey could get him alone.  But he was still kind of pissed about being denied in the first place; he wasn't sure how hard he wanted to work to change their minds.  If RJ was going to let them drive him off, maybe he should just go.

His phone buzzed before he'd made up his mind.  He was changing either way, sick of the loose JKP t-shirt and trying not to crawl out of his skin before he was back in something more comfortable.  RJ frowned on changing at their lockers, and of course he'd timed it so RJ would notice--why waste a perfectly good shirtless moment?  He had his phone in one hand, lighting up the screen while he pulled his shirt over his head.

Twister touched down 10 mi S, Kevin had written.  RC needs vol.

They wouldn't be magical, but they'd do.  The Red Cross always took people like him and Kevin, because they could do any kind of volunteer work there was.  In disaster areas, there tended to be a shortage of the young, strong, and willing.

He could feel RJ's worry when he deliberately left his work shirt crumpled in his locker, swept the rest of his stuff into his bag, and swung it over his shoulder.  "Later, boss," he said, quietly enough to make it clear he knew RJ was standing behind him.  Invisible or not.  He didn't make his tone sound like anything in particular... RJ would read the lack of expression exactly the way he meant it.

Casey was almost to the door before Lily caught up with RJ.  With a remotely plausible excuse for being there, which looked like it was going to be the theme of the weekend: the smallest possibility.  Casey wasn't about to waste his here, and RJ wasn't going to call him back with Lily listening.

He was still at the Red Cross shelter the next day.  Seriously, a tornado?  In Ocean Bluff?  The farther south you went, the worse it was; they'd been lucky... but apparently the sirens had never once been used to warn of tornadoes before Saturday.  He called in busy to work, and when Fran took the call she sounded like she couldn't decide whether his "prior commitment" was fortunate or disturbing.  He hung up without bothering to chat.

Monday and Tuesday were his JKP weekend, so he didn't have to decide right away whether he was going back to work there at all.  And he hadn't--he told himself he hadn't decided, because first he was going to feed and feed until it overwhelmed that stupid bond.  He should just let it drain away, but as much as he'd done it in the last few days, purging wasn't really a fun experience.  Convince yourself you're starving, yeah, no thanks.  Not unless he had to.

Or at least, not until Fran showed up at his door at 6:31 Tuesday evening, and he wished he'd just done it already.  Because the guys in the room behind him were very interested, and his stupid oath made him pull her back into the hallway and close the door behind him.  Out of sight, out of harm's way.  Hopefully.

"Are you coming to work tomorrow?" she asked quickly, but her gaze darted from him to the door a few times before he answered.  "I mean, at JKP, before the dinner rush?  You're on the schedule, but you flaked on us on Sunday and if you're busy saving the world or whatever..."  Her tone made it clear this was a deliberate diss of the company he was keeping, as seen through the door of the apartment.

"Look," he said under his breath, even though it obviously wasn't the most important thing, "Kevin's friends aren't necessarily my friends, okay?  What are you doing here, anyway?  This isn't the safest part of town."

"RJ's sick," she said.  "Or something, I don't know, he's... he's not himself.  Everyone thinks it's because of you.  He says it isn't, and he won't let anyone call you.  So I didn't.  And here I am."

Casey frowned. Here she was.  Without Dom or anyone to watch her back, she was visitng a psyvamp after dark on the messy side of town.  No way did any of the rest of them know about this.  And what--RJ didn't want them calling him?

"Hello," Fran insisted, when he went a whole half a second without answering.  "Are you listening to me?  You totally blew me off in Astronomy today, not that it's a big deal or anything but you weren't even there yesterday and no one will tell me what happened at the restaurant that morning.  Over the weekend?  What did you do, anyway?  Dom says RJ won't even tell him."

"He told me to leave," Casey said, amused in spite of himself by her stream of consciousness speech.  "So I did.  And what do you mean, sick?"

"Well, you came back for your shift on Saturday!" Fran exclaimed.  "And everyone was all, 'don't talk to Casey, we'll tell you later,' only they never did!  And then you didn't come back, and now RJ's acting weird and he says he's fine but he obviously isn't.  Did you do something to him?"

"What could I possibly have done with everyone staring at me all the time?" Casey asked curiously.  Fran was here for a reason--or she thought she was--but he couldn't figure out what it might be.

"I don't know, you're a--you know!"  She waved both hands in a way that wasn't at all descriptive.  "How do I know what you can do?  I don't even know what they can do, and I've been hanging around them for months!  All I know is, I know RJ, and he isn't acting like himself."

"Maybe he's weirded out by everyone watching him all the time," Casey suggested.  "Or maybe he's depressed that he finally found someone to get laid with and the clan drove him off.  Take your pick."

"Oh, they didn't drive you off."  Fran dismissed this like it was nothing, and he reminded himself that she could see the future.  Everyone except Fran seemed to think he didn't know this, and sometimes he thought he forgot as a favor to them or something.  "But you must not have decided about work tomorrow yet, so I'm here to convince you.  Don't quit.  I think that would be bad."

"Do you now," Casey said, trying not to smile.  She'd said that before, about the time of the decision affecting what she could see.  Not to him, she'd said it to Dom, but whatever.  He was right there.  "Since you're the only one still talking to me, I'm guessing you're alone in that."

"No, RJ thinks it would be bad too.  It's the only thing he and Jarrod totally agree on, that you can't just run around without any--"  She waved again, incomprehensibly.  "Supervision?  Help?  It depends which of them you ask.  And believe me, I've asked both of them.  Except RJ never tells me the truth when I do, and Jarrod doesn't think I understand, which is really annoying and it's bothering Dom too--he'd kind of gotten over Jarrod's whole attitude but now it's getting to him again and that's bad for RJ."

Casey stared at her, flipping through scenarios in his head.  She was a lot more observant than her constant chatter made her sound.  He didn't have much time between sentences to get a word in edgewise, so he had to prioritize his questions.  "What makes you think RJ isn't telling the truth?"

"Oh, I don't know, the fact that he's in love with you?" Fran countered.  "He cares way more about you than he does about the tiger, and he's already proven that he likes you better than he likes any of us.  So when he gets all serious about protecting us and keeping the town safe his eyes do this thing where I just want to push him out the door but he won't leave.  He won't come find you himself.  So I did it for him."

Proxy.  He remembered saying it about the wolf.  He remembered thinking it about the wolf, and more than once.  Who was RJ that he couldn't be himself around his own friends?

"He looks like he's sleepwalking," Fran was saying.  "I know you care.  So why don't you just--eep!"

She'd squeaked when he caught her by the shoulders, gently despite his inability to make her focus.  "Fran," he said evenly.  "If you could breathe for two seconds, that would help me a lot.  Does RJ seem apathetic to you?  Like he's not interested in anything?"

She brightened momentarily.  "Yes!"  Then her face fell.  "And for RJ, that's like a disease.  That's inexplicable.  He doesn't do depressed, Casey; he does sad and he does tired and he does angry.  But he never stops caring about things."

"Yeah," he said aloud, while silently he swore.  They'd spent too much time together on Friday, and probably on Saturday too.  He hadn't been thinking; RJ was so strong, what did it matter how much energy Casey drew?  "I need to go see him."

"Well, yes!" Fran exclaimed.  "Thank you!  What have I been saying?"

"Right now," Casey said.  "Did you talk to him today?  Did he work?"

"Of course he worked; RJ always works."  Fran sounded indignant.  "Except I didn't see him that much because he wasn't cooking when I got there, which is strange, but Jarrod said he was ordering, upstairs I mean, and Jarrod stayed late to run the kitchen while RJ worked on, I don't know..."

She trailed off, and they just stared at each other for a long moment.  It was the quietest he'd ever seen Fran.  "He wasn't working, was he," she said at last.  "What does that mean?  Why do you have to see him?"

He needed his wallet, but he couldn't leave Fran out here in the hallway.  It wasn't any safer inside, unfortunately, but maybe if he didn't let go of her.  "I want you to come inside while I get my wallet," he said, lowering his voice.  "Don't look at anyone.  Don't talk to anyone.  I want you to take my hand and stay right next to me the whole time, okay?"

"Oh, I can just wait out here," she assured him, but she didn't look at all certain about it.

"No, you can't," Casey said, "because if someone harasses you, around here, no one's going to come when you scream.  Come with me instead.  As long as you stay with me, you should be fine."

She didn't argue any more.  She held his hand as he led her through the apartment, ignoring the whistles, and he closed the door to his room behind them while he picked up his wallet.  His key was inside, his phone was in his pocket, and he might as well take his jacket because Fran looked like she might need it.

"Ready?" he asked, pausing by the door.

She took a deep breath, her fingers twining through his, and if he'd ever had any doubts about her intelligence they were dispelled.  "Yes," she said, and he didn't know what made him squeeze her hand.  She smiled down at the floor, though, and that was where she kept her eyes while he yelled to Kevin that he was going out.  She stuck to his side even after they were out in the hall, and he held her hand all the way to the bus stop.

"You seriously came here alone," he said, while they were waiting for the bus.  Not because it wasn't obviously true, but because... really?

Fran just shrugged.  "No one else was going to."

So he told her the short version on the bus, the one that was mostly eavesdropper-friendly, and she gave him a look that said she wouldn't buy it if he paid her.  That was it for conversation, which he hadn't known Fran could do--just turn it off like that--until they got off a few blocks from JKP.  At that point she said, "You're not going to do anything weird, are you?"

Casey turned sideways to stare at her for a couple of steps while they walked.  "Probably?" he guessed.  "Have something in mind?"

"Well, it's just that no one's expecting you," she said, looking a little uncomfortable.  "And RJ has been telling us to, um.  Specifically, I mean.  Stay away from you."

He was careful not to roll his eyes.  He was pretty sure RJ wouldn't be getting upset with anyone tonight.  "I'm not looking for a fight," he told her.  "You must know that's not what I want."

The look she gave him was disturbing in its intensity.  And when she only shook her head and looked back down the road, he couldn't bring himself to ask.  Maybe there were things it was better not to know.

He was arranging mushrooms on a pizza when Lily burst into the kitchen, her usual whirl of energy encompassing his activities as well as her own today.  She plucked the cutting boards up off the baker's table, snatching them out from under him and sliding both pizzas into the oven the way they were.  "They're fine, RJ," she said over her shoulder.  "Perfection yields to the pressure of time, remember?

He had told Theo that, many times.  Today it didn't seem quite so important.  "I don't see that it matters," he said.  "A few minutes either way; why so worried?"

"Casey's here," she told him, not bothering to answer.  "Fran brought him.  Theo doesn't want to let him come out back, but I told him I'd ask you."

RJ stood, silent and still, staring at the door to the restaurant.

"RJ," Lily repeated, and it occurred to him that she was standing in front of him now.  Whether to get his attention or to keep him from the door, he couldn't tell.  "He's dangerous.  I won't say you're better off without him, because short-term, I'm not sure that's true.  But with him I'm not sure there's any long-term to worry about."

"No," he said quietly.  He was still watching the door.  "I don't suppose there is."

He didn't know how to tell her it was too late.  There wouldn't be much of a long-term without Casey, either, so he might as well make himself useful in the meantime.  There were plenty of things he still had time to get done.

The door opened, and Casey swept Fran through in front of him, his arm around her shoulders.  Oddly, RJ's first thought was hostage.  But although Fran looked uncomfortable, she looked a lot more alarmed by the way Lily's cheetah popped into view with a snarl and a hiss than she did by her proximity to Casey.

"I said," Lily snapped, "I'll ask him.  I didn't say I'll go let him know you're coming and you can follow me whenever you want."  She and her cheetah stood between RJ and the door, facing off against Casey and... Fran.

"Lily," he said quietly.  "It's all right."

At the same time Casey said, "What can I say, I'm not a good listener."

Theo burst through the door behind them, Wolf at his side, and RJ could only watch in horror as his animal spirit lunged at the cheetah.  Lily yelped, Theo slammed the door shut behind him, and a jaguar roared into the room.  The second cat caught the wolf by surprise, knocking him to the floor, and RJ saw Casey shimmer out of the corner of his eye.

"Don't--"  He flung a hand in Casey's direction, radiating NO with everything he had.  All they needed was for the tiger--but then the wolf twisted, snapping, fighting, and the jaguar cuffed him hard enough to make his ears ring.  RJ staggered, the floor coming up to meet his knees.

He didn't see how Casey got past Lily.  It was possible she'd been so shocked by the sight of their spirits fighting that she simply missed his advance.  It was also possible that he'd picked up RJ's invisibility trick through the bond and was already good enough to use it.  Either way, the wolf subsided the moment Casey touched him, helping him up, and RJ willed the spirit away.

"Get away from him," Lily snapped, turning the moment the wolf vanished.

"When he tells me to," Casey countered.

RJ shrugged the hands away, perfectly capable of standing on his own.  It was only the surprise of the wolf's struggle that had cost him his balance.  "Is there," he asked mildly, "or is there not a single JKP employee on the floor right now?"

Lily and Theo looked at each other, and then they both looked at Fran.  Fran folded her arms across her chest, looking away as though she had no idea what they were thinking.  "My shift ended an hour ago," she told the far wall.

They'd upset her somehow.  RJ studied her, puzzled, wondering how he had missed that--what had they done?  How long had she been irritated with them?  And why hadn't he been paying attention?

"I'll stay," Theo said, and if it was clear he was addressing this comment to Lily it was equally clear that no one else was welcome to disagree.  "Leave the cheetah."

"Oh, and I was going to take her with me," Lily retorted, her amusement making it seem less like they were guarding him.  Slightly less.  "Let me know if you need me."

"I'm just going to--"  Fran pointed upstairs even as Lily ducked back onto the floor.  "Is Dom here?"

RJ nodded, not sure what to say to her.  Theo didn't look pleased to see her leave, but Theo was probably going to reprimand her later anyway.  RJ would have to try to head that off.  Once he figured out what exactly she had done.

"Leave her alone," Casey was telling Theo.  Who was, indeed, glaring after Fran.  "She didn't mean for me to follow her back.  She just wanted to know if I was coming to work tomorrow, since someone--"  And here he glanced at RJ.  "Told you not to call me."

"I didn't want anyone talking to you," RJ said, feeling strangely disconnected from that decision now.  "Jarrod agreed.  You're too powerful; who knows what you could make them do."

"Okay, what was the point of binding me to the clan if you're not going to take advantage of it?" Casey demanded.  "I'm not going to do anything to them and you know it!  You forced me to promise!"

His stomach twisted, sick with the sudden reminder.  "You said it didn't affect you.  You said it wouldn't matter."  He had wanted that to be true almost as much as he wanted Casey to be.  Because if his spirit could do something so offensive without his conscious consent, then he had taken on a challenge he was destined to lose.

"I make you good, or you make me evil."  He had been so sure Casey was right when he said he probably couldn't make RJ evil.  He had been so confident in his own ability to make Casey see... but of course, Casey had probably made him feel that way.  Casey was a master of making people underestimate him.

"I said it wasn't unbreakable," Casey reminded him.  "You'll know when it's gone, right?  If Dom can see it, I assume you can feel it.  Wouldn't you know if it wasn't holding me anymore?"

His gaze flicked to Theo, who was leaning against the railing with his arms folded.  He was really very short to look so menacing.  "Not at a distance," RJ said.

"Really."  That made Casey frown.  "That's annoying.  Because I can tell you from experience, it still works at a distance."

RJ tried not to smile at his irritation.  "Obviously."  What good was a pledge that didn't?

"Why haven't you broken it?" Theo wanted to know.  He didn't move, just stared at Casey from the stairs.  "You must have let RJ do it to waste his magic; he's totally run down.  But it should be self-sustaining once the pledge is made.  Why keep it?"

"Maybe I think wondering annoys you more than dealing with it annoys me," Casey said.  "Maybe it's not as easy to break as I made it sound.  Or hey, maybe I just like the feeling of magic.  That's why I'm stalking RJ, right?  Most of us aren't stupid enough to get involved with magicals."

RJ put a hand on the table beside him and felt it turn to stone beneath his fingers.  Grass crawled across the floor and trees climbed the walls, closing in around the three of them as the sun came out and turned the light to gold.  The air that stirred through their tiny patch of jungle was warm and fresh, and he saw Casey take an involuntary breath.

Theo didn't move, unflinching even when RJ caught his eye.  When RJ said, "It isn't my magic that's run down," though, he nodded once and the kitchen slowly faded back in around them.

"It's your empathy."  Casey's voice was odd in the wake of the jungle, still unfamiliar in a realm that should have belonged only to Pai Zhua.  And that got Theo's attention where the encroaching magic had not.

"What did you say?" he asked, frowning at Casey.

But Casey was looking at RJ, and he didn't continue until RJ was looking back.  "They're right," he said.  "Hanging out with me too much is bad for you.  I wind people up without even meaning to, and you get used to the intensity.  If you get too used to it, you kind of... crash.  Afterwards.  If you're--"

Still alive, RJ thought.

"Alone," Casey said.  "It's something about your brain.  It's too much of a shock to go from one extreme to the other.  Most people aren't with me long enough to notice, or--well.  I told you no one's... for a long time--"

"You're a high," Theo said bluntly.  "He's in withdrawal.  What good does it do him to have you come back?  Why don't you just stay away?"

Because I don't want him to, RJ thought, so sure that was what Casey was going to say that it took him a minute to process his actual words.  "You're kind of past that point," Casey muttered.  "You'd be better by now if you weren't."

That didn't sound good.  "I feel fine," RJ told him, as much for Theo's benefit as for his own.  And he did.  He actually felt better than he had all day, not that he'd admitted to difficulty before.  But he did feel more awake, suddenly.

"Yeah," Casey said, lifting a hand to wave at him.  "Hi."

"Ah," RJ said slowly.  That explained the alertness, then.  "I see."

"I don't," Theo interrupted.  "What are you, like caffeine?  Once he gets used to you, he needs you around to feel normal?  You came back to make sure he doesn't get over it, is that it?"

"I came because it doesn't last this long," Casey said.  His tone was sharp, but he was still looking at RJ and he didn't look mad.  He looked--  "So what if I go too far?  So you're a little tired the next day, who cares?  Believe me, if I take enough of your energy for you to notice, it's totally worth it.

"For you," he added, like he could feel Theo glaring at him.  "You know how good it feels."

"Until the crash," Theo said grimly.  "How long?"

"Maybe a day," Casey said.  "On the outside.  It's no big deal."

"It is a big deal," Theo insisted.  "This isn't a day.  Sunday was a day.  This is three days.  What are you doing, sneaking in at night and taking more?  Dom wouldn't even tell us, would he.  Are you?"

"No," RJ said, when Casey didn't answer.  It wasn't like he hadn't been expecting this.  "You took more from me than I can replace, didn't you."

"No," Casey said quickly.  "No, I wouldn't.  I--"

He was lying.  RJ looked away, wondering if this was another unexpected result of the bond.  He was starting to lose count of the number of times he'd known whether Casey was telling the truth or not... just by looking at him.

"I didn't," Casey said, more quietly.  "I would have.  You're right.  I didn't... it was only luck, but I didn't.  Okay?  I can tell.  You're fine."

"He's not fine," Theo growled.

"He's alive!" Casey exclaimed.  "Do you have any idea how awesome that is?  I lost it with him.  I was feeding on him and I lost it, three times, do you get that?  He should have been dead the first time, but he wasn't.  He can obviously hold more energy than I can.  If I can't stop it's involuntary, it's like breathing, I just keep doing it until--"

He broke off, and RJ murmured, "Until you're full."

"How does this convince me you should still be walking around?" Theo asked, the cold tone more dangerous than his anger.

"I don't--it's not like I lose it a lot," Casey said hastily.  "Just--"

RJ felt an ironic smile twist his lips.  "Only digging yourself deeper, amigo," he murmured.

"Look."  Casey's voice suddenly smoothed out, full of energy and promise, and RJ was sure it hadn't been this easy to tell what he was doing before.  "I can fix this.  You need to give me, like, a week, and if we're not good by the time RJ's better I'll move on.  No harm, no foul, okay?  I won't tell anyone about you if you don't tell anyone about me."

"How the hell are you going to fix it?" Theo demanded.  "You're the one who broke him!"  But he was listening, and RJ could only guess that Theo hadn't believed the part about Casey's powers being channeled through his voice.

"Because I stayed with him," Casey insisted, earnest and apologetic at the same time.  "I shouldn't have; his energy would have rebounded after taking a hit like that if I hadn't still been with him.  I suppressed his response.  Like--

"You said caffeine, right?"  Casey sounded totally serious about this, and RJ could only shake his head.  Theo was still listening.  "You drink five cups one day.  You wake up the next day and you feel awful, but you shake it off and the day after that, you're fine.  Unless you drink more coffee the second day, right?  Then you only have to wake up enough to function with a caffeine buzz--and your system forgets how to wake up without it."

"Coffee," RJ said quietly, "is probably too benign an example."

Casey shot him a look, and when Theo followed his gaze the spell was broken.  "What?"  Theo sounded a little confused, and RJ frowned at Casey.

"If you could refrain from hypnotizing my employees," he said.  "At least to the best of your ability."

Casey just smiled, offering him a tiny shrug.

Which unfortunately left the explanation to RJ.  "I'm addicted," he said, watching for Casey's reaction.  "To you.  Why don't you think I can go cold turkey?"

He honestly expected Casey to say, Because stepping down is more fun.  Instead, Casey's smile faded, and RJ was almost convinced he was telling the truth when he muttered, "Experience."

"Okay, it's the fact that you've done this before that completely fails to convince me," Theo said.  He bounced back fast, RJ noted.  "I think RJ should take his chances without you."

"I think you don't know what you're talking about," Casey retorted.

"I think," RJ said thoughtfully, and they both turned to look at him.  The cheetah was still in the kitchen, silent on the other side of the table, but the jaguar was on the prowl.  "I think that Lily shouldn't have to watch both your tables and cover the register.  So."

He waved his hand in a shooing motion, and Theo gave him an incredulous look.  "You're not serious."

"I believe I am," RJ told him.  "Not your decision, Theo.  Thank you for your help.  Back to work, please."

Theo gaped at him for an extra second or two.  RJ just waited, assuming the instruction would eventually sink in.  And indeed, Theo did finally straighten up--but not until he heard Dom's voice on the landing at the top of the stairs.

"I'll just go downstairs and get some more," Dom was saying.  "No worries."

The look in Theo's eyes said, That's the only reason I'm going.  RJ might have argued the point if that were true... and if it mattered.  Right now it didn't, and he hoped he didn't regret avoiding this confrontation with his cubs yet again.

"So," Casey said, just loud enough to be heard as Theo headed for the door, "'boss' is more of a pet name than a title, huh?"

The irony of this coming from Casey, who was the only one of his employees to call him "boss" at all, was second only to the way Theo's shoulders stiffened in response to what RJ though was a fair observation.  Dom was in time to catch the end of it, and he raised his eyebrows at RJ as he descended into the kitchen.  "You getting pet names I don't know about?

"Hi Theo," he added, and Theo tossed a wave over his shoulder as he left.

"Casey thinks I take too much attitude from the clan," RJ offered, by way of explanation.  "Need something?"

"True," Dom said, pointing at Casey and then swinging around to RJ.  "Got any extra apples?  I'll get you more tomorrow if you don't need 'em tonight."

"Help yourself," RJ said.  "I suppose you'll want to babysit us at the same time."

Dom sounded amused as he gathered up three of the apples from the toppings bowl by the refrigerator.  "Not really.  Kind of in the middle of something right now.  Will if you want me to."

"I withdraw my assumption," RJ said quickly.  "Please.  Don't let me interrupt."

He saw Casey completely fail to hide a smile, and it was worth having Dom laugh at him.  "Tell Theo I'm chaperoning if you want," his roommate offered.  "I'll be around the rest of the night.  Not watching you."

Casey saluted him, casual and complicit.  RJ didn't answer.  He didn't think Dom really expected him to, though he lifted his chin in acknowledgment when Dom waved one of the apples at him and headed back toward the stairs.  The easiest one to please, sometimes.  And frequently the hardest to understand.

"So," Casey said, studying him.  "Pizza?"

It was so unexpectedly a non sequitur that RJ just looked at him for a long moment.  Finally Casey seemed to get that this wasn't an answer, but more an expression of confusion.  "In the oven," he clarified.  "I can smell it?  It's almost done?"

The hesitation was only slightly stranger than the fact that RJ had forgotten all about it.  Before he could do anything, though, the kitchen door banged open again and Lily was there, conducting a quick survey before heading for the nearest oven.  "RJ, no offense, but you're actually less helpful now than you were before," she informed him over her shoulder.  "Why don't you just let me and Theo close?  We're on the schedule."

They were on the schedule because Lily had added her name to it when she showed up with Fran after school.  He hadn't really noticed at the time, but Jarrod had stayed until she arrived to take over the kitchen.  Because RJ had been about as useful then as he was being right now.

"Thank you," he said, yielding as gracefully as he could.  "I... would appreciate that."

Lily looked surprised.  Maybe not as surprised as Casey felt, but Casey covered better.  "Sure," she said.  "You're not going out, are you?"

"No," RJ said, trying not to sigh.  "Because then you couldn't keep an eye on me, could you."  Glancing at Casey, he said politely, "Would you like to come upstairs?"

Casey replied with a formality clearly intended to amuse RJ, "Why, yes, thank you.  I would."

RJ smiled in spite of himself.

4. The Children

He'd been hoping "would you like to come upstairs" was more about kissing than it was about being interrogated, but he figured he could make it work either way.  What he hadn't counted on was Fran, almost bumping into RJ as they came up the stairs, and Dom, laughing at her as she squeaked.  Casey caught her and pulled something out of her hair--an apple peel that she promptly snatched away from him and threw back at Dom.

It barely made it to the table, but Dom ducked anyway.  "Hey, hey," he said, grinning as he pretended to ward off her aim with raised hands.  "You only get to throw what you peel!"

"Unless you hit someone," Fran countered, sidling over to the table and snatching the little piece of apple peel and waving it at him.  "Then it's in play until the other person reciprocates."

"They make up the rules as they go," RJ remarked.  He was standing at the top of the stairs, making no effort to leave them alone or get Casey to himself.  "It's an interesting social experiment: sometimes it leads to chaos, and sometimes to paralysis."

Casey eyed him, wondering if that was going somewhere.  "Well," he offered, "I guess either one's better than nothing."

"RJ, where did you put the oats?" Dom called.  "We had two big tubs of them last week!"

"Which I had to empty so you could make wind-up monster truck wheels out of them," RJ replied.  "I believe the oats went into a plastic bin under the..."  He paused.  "No, that wasn't it.  Did you check the rice drawer?"

Casey poked him in the shoulder.  "You have a rice drawer?"

RJ glanced at him with an amused look that said yes, he did know that Casey wanted his attention at all times.  "A more interesting question would have been, 'wind-up monster truck wheels?'  Quite ingenious, really."

"Did they work?" Casey asked.

"They did.  With a few paper clips and some elastic bands."  RJ looked thoughtful, and it was funny that he could stare off into space like that and Casey could still feel RJ thinking about him.  "The hardest part was finding extra lids after Dom cut both of them in half."

"It's not in here," Dom reported.  "Or under the sink.  You didn't take it downstairs, did you?"

"What does it look like?" Fran wanted to know.

"It's a big red..."  RJ held up his hands, forming something vaguely cubic in the air, and the only excuse Casey had for what he said next was how distracting it was to watch RJ wave his hands around.

"Oh, the square one with the ridges on the top?"

RJ looked up.  Dom glanced over at him, raising his eyebrows.  Fran only frowned, saying, "Did you see it downstairs?  I must have missed it.  Except I looked all through the pantry for pickled artichokes the other day, so someone must have moved it.  Like the artichokes.  We should probably have a better system for that."

Casey met RJ's gaze.  "Sorry," he muttered.  "Shouldn't have said that."

"You might as well tell us where it is," RJ said mildly.

He winced.  "In the cupboard over the refrigerator?"

"That part of the whole psychic thing?" Dom wanted to know, when he'd pulled the red bin out of the cupboard.  "Fran can do that sometimes, with really important things."

"I'm afraid the explanation is somewhat more... mundane," RJ said.  "Although I am a little surprised you not only noticed it, but could call it to mind days later."

"So," Casey said uncomfortably.  "What are you making?"

RJ raised a hand as Fran started to answer.  "A moment, please."  Studying Casey, he asked point-blank, "Why pretend to be embarrassed?"

Because he wasn't pretending.  Casey just shrugged.  "Why not?"

"Lemon juice," Dom told Fran.  "We're going to want lemon juice for the apples."

"Well, yeah, if we ever get them peeled."  She was standing over his shoulder now, resting her hand on the back of his head as she surveyed his efforts.  "You know, if you would just give me back the knife, I'm much faster at this."

"Because it irritates me when you lie."  RJ's voice was quiet, calm, and unmistakable.  "There's no one here to convince, Casey.  We all know what you are.  Dom and Fran have both helped you, and I'm clearly going to let you do whatever you want, so I don't understand what purpose it serves."

"I really hope that's not true," Casey said, rolling his eyes.  "Obviously, the purpose is to make me seem normal.  To make everyone else comfortable.  If it works, you're happy, and my chances of spending the night go up."

"They'd go up faster if I wasn't doubting everything you say," RJ began, and Casey sighed.

"Fine.  Because I was, okay?  Hard as it may be to believe, I actually feel a little bad about going through your entire apartment.  Not a lot," he warned, when RJ folded his arms.  "And mostly only because I keep accidentally reminding you, which makes you... irritated, but enough."

He hesitated, but RJ wasn't convinced, so he qualified it with, "Enough to wish I hadn't bragged about it, anyway."

RJ continued to stare at him, which was really annoying, because how much more true did he want it to be, anyway?  If Casey didn't know what the answer was himself, how could he lie about it?  He just said whatever seemed right, and if it didn't get the results he wanted, he tried something else.

"You're not doing it on purpose," RJ said at last.

Casey blinked.  "What?"

"You said you couldn't help it," RJ mused.  "You said the only time you don't lie is when you're not talking."

"I'm not lying," Casey retorted.  "I'm just telling you what you want to hear.  It's not the same thing."

RJ considered that.  "In that sometimes what I want to hear is the truth?"

That was a loaded question, and Casey wasn't even sure how he'd meant it.  "Look," he said, resisting the urge to touch, to crowd, to physically distract someone who had an almost supernatural degree of focus.  "What's the difference?  The truth, a lie, what does it matter?  I don't know what I feel; I don't even really know what you feel.  It's just instinct.  If I say something and then I find out you took it in a totally different way than I meant it, did I lie?  What if I change what I said to try to make you take it the way I meant it the first time?  Is that a lie?"

Usually someone else's focus was an anchor.  Not RJ's.  It was driving him to distraction, and he couldn't even return the favor because RJ would suspect him of trying to end the conversation.  A conversation he had no idea how to have.

"If a lie is something that's literally, objectively, untrue, something that's counter to actual provable facts," Casey said, trying to block out the light from the bond, "then I've never lied to you.  Never."

RJ's attention was hard and hot on his skin, pressing into him from all the way across the landing.  RJ was listening, RJ believed him, and the pressure of it was heavier than he had ever thought one person's faith could be.

"If a lie is anything," he said desperately, "anything I say that's meant to deceive you, whether the words are true or not, then I'm lying to you right now.  I'm always lying.  Everything I tell you is a lie, because I like you and I want you to like me.  So I'm always trying to make you think I'm better than I am."

RJ might as well have been standing next to him, hands on his skin, breathing into his mouth.  It wasn't--it was harsher than it was pleasant, like he'd skipped a couple of steps and Casey couldn't catch up.  And all he was doing was watching.

Casey closed his eyes, instinctive fix for an overreaction, but RJ wasn't responding to his gaze.  "Could you..."  Even his voice was starting to sound strange.  "I never thought I'd say this, but could you... think about someone else for a few minutes?"

RJ's concern burned, and Casey actually took a step back.  His fault, maybe.  RJ had been without a psychic boost for days, his emotional state low and confused until Casey showed up, drawing his energy back up like a magnet.  And it just kept going.  He'd forgotten what it felt like to have someone so dependent on him that it overwhelmed his own controls.

"Ow," he gasped, automatic and unthinking.  It would work on RJ.  RJ did like him, didn't want to hurt him, would respond to perceived pain or discomfort where others might not.  "Please just--turn it off for a second, okay?"

He thought RJ asked him if he was all right, but he couldn't tell if it was out loud or in his head.  He couldn't feel anything except the searing cut of RJ's attention disappearing.  That was really, absolutely, unnecessarily painful.

He felt fingers on his shoulder a moment later, gentle and cool, just fingertips really... uncertain.  "Hey, Casey?"  Fran's voice wasn't much more than a whisper.  "Are you okay?  Is there anything we can do?"

He tried to unclench his hands from--  "Am I sitting on the floor?" he mumbled.

"No, you're--"

He sat down, letting go of the railing once he'd stopped moving.  "Wow," he muttered.  "Pain doesn't usually turn me on this much."

There was a sort of shocked silence, and he tried not to smile.  "Sorry," he said, dragging his eyes open and staring up at her.  "Bad joke?"

"Was it?" Fran asked cautiously.  He saw her eyes dart to one side, and he knew Dom was standing right there.  He couldn't tell where RJ had gone.

"Yeah."  Okay.  RJ was effectively invisible again--at least in terms of energy; Casey had no idea if he would see him if he managed to look around.  "Tell RJ I really, really like him, because I wouldn't go to anywhere near this much trouble for anyone else."

"Um, okay."  Fran glanced over her shoulder.  "RJ, Casey really likes you.  Also, I think that might be too much cinnamon, and we were going to put the brown sugar in the crust.  Not with the apples directly."

"That's because Dom let you talk him into separating the sweet and the sour again."  RJ's voice was quiet, focused... on something other than Casey.  "I'm hijacking your dessert for its own good.  Trust me."

"No anchovies," Dom's voice warned.

"Using only the ingredients you have here," RJ promised.  He still sounded subdued, but Casey's head had stopped pounding and he was starting to think he could probably stand up again.  At some point.

"And possibly some coconut oil," RJ added.

"No."  Dom's response was amused but firm.  "Absolutely not.  Use the butter, RJ.  It won't kill you."

RJ didn't answer, and Casey drew in a breath.  "Okay.  You can stop ignoring me, if you want.  Up to you.  That was--only half my fault, actually."

The tinny sounds of a synthesized piano came from the direction of the table, and Casey couldn't help but grin as a woman's voice sang, "Beautiful enemy, hail to your vast hegemony, you're not innocent, I'm not innocent, no one's innocent..."

"That, on the other hand," he added, "is totally my fault.  Your ringtone was boring."

The music stopped as RJ answered his phone.  "Good evening?"

Dom held out a hand as Casey shifted, and he didn't even recognize the gesture at first.  Not because he wasn't used to it, just because... why would one of RJ's friends help him?  Especially now?

"Yes," RJ was saying.  "It's been a quiet night."

"Are you sure you're okay?" Fran asked anxiously, hovering as Dom pulled him to his feet.  "Maybe you should come sit at the table for a little while."

"Yeah," Dom agreed unexpectedly.  "We need to re-hijack the apple crisp before RJ starts sneaking in colored sprinkles and organic gingerbread."

"That actually sounds really good," Fran said thoughtfully.

Dom rolled his eyes at Casey.  "This is why she's the one RJ likes best in the kitchen," he said.  "If customers are smart, they ask who's out back before they order."

"Dom's visitors come in the back," RJ said.  "The fire exit's unlocked.  It keeps guests from having to walk through the restaurant."

Casey took the chair Fran pulled out for him.  He couldn't tell if it was his proximity or RJ's preoccupation, but he felt a flicker of something RJ couldn't quite suppress.  It didn't hurt.  The fixation temporarily broken, he found himself reaching out to steal a piece of chopped apple from the board in front of RJ.

RJ slapped his wrist with a spoon without even looking.  "Four people in the loft.  All friends."

The attention was back.  RJ wasn't looking at him, but his amusement at Casey's audacity warred with his concern for whoever was on the phone.  "We'll be waiting," he said, letting Fran slide the bowl he'd been stirring down the table.

When RJ hung up, his gaze went first to Casey.  "Did I hurt you?"

Casey raised his eyebrows.  "With a spoon?"

"With my--"  RJ made a gesture that could have been anything.  "Questions.  When you collapsed."

"I didn't collapse," Casey informed him.  "I sat down.  On purpose.  Your floor is very comfortable."

"Hey, do we need to be getting things ready?" Dom interrupted.  "Do you have people coming in, or what?  Anyone I know?"

"Yes."  RJ held Dom's gaze for a long, irritating moment, then glanced back at Casey.  "If I thought asking you to leave would be fair," he said, "I would.  I'm... not, precisely.  But if you happened to have anything else to do tonight--"

He stopped there, and Casey just stared at him.  What?

"No," RJ said after a moment.  "I thought not.  Just... understand that I need to trust you.  Can you--make the tiger manifest, now?"

Casey stiffened.  "You know I can't," he said warily.

"I need to talk to it."  RJ's voice was quiet.  Apologetic.

"Okay, I was kidding when I said pain was a turn-on," Casey snapped.  The fact that Fran chose that moment to reach across the table for the butter only barely registered.  He slid it in her direction without thinking about it.

"If it's willing it might not hurt," RJ said.  "It doesn't always."

He didn't sound convinced, and Casey glared at him.  "You already talked to the tiger.  It swore, remember?  I swore.  I won't hurt your friends, and I won't hurt you.  What else do you want from me?"

RJ drew a breath, looking away only briefly.  "This isn't for me."

Fran was studiously ignoring them, cutting the butter into little slices.  Dom caught his eye when Casey frowned in his direction, but he just held up his hands, disclaiming involvement.  "Fine," Casey growled, maybe more sullenly than he had to.  "Do what you have to do."

RJ came around the table to stand beside him, and Casey stood up, because if he was going to end up on his knees he at least didn't plan to start there.  Fuck you, he thought.  More frightened than angry, if he admitted it to himself, but anger was an easy cover.

He wondered, sometimes, if RJ was really worth it after all.

Then RJ laid a hand on his chest, not comforting but calling, silently, and Casey felt everything shift.  The loft was bright and sunny and gone, suddenly.  The wolf was--there--and this was not at all like the first time.  This was--

He heard something clatter.  He felt himself falling.  That was the floor of the landing under RJ's back, and those were his paws on RJ's chest.  The tiger wasn't being yanked away, the tiger was right here, and that was creepy and uncontrolled and magic all the way through.

Casey was the tiger.

He was looking at RJ, but it was the wolf who said, You will obey.

He wanted to laugh.  He felt his lip curl.  I'm the one on top, Wolf.

"RJ?"  Fran's voice was weirdly distorted and hard to understand, but he recognized the name.  He didn't quite follow what she said after that.  It didn't matter, anyway.  RJ was the one he needed to get.

You co-exist with our clan at my sufferance, the wolf informed him.  And they weren't words, exactly, it was a feeling of formality and steel.  Magical persistence.  Like the language of the bond.

You live at mine, he said.

That wolf didn't even twitch.  Your inability to kill me indicates otherwise.  Choose, Tiger.  The jungle or the darkness.

I already did.  His paws flexed and clenched, and he was a tiger, and RJ was human, and he could seriously kill him right now.  I chose.

Non-binding.  The wolf dismissed it like it was nothing.  Your choice weakens with time.  Choose again.

Fuck you, Casey thought, but it didn't come out quite right in tiger.  Or maybe it came out exactly right, because RJ lifted a hand to his face, to his... RJ's fingers were running over fur, gentle at the base of whiskers, heavier against the fringe that protected his throat.

His head dropped.  His nose a breath away from RJ's chest, he wanted nothing more than to bury his face in that stupid white jacket and let RJ pet him.  The jungle, he thought, closing his eyes.  I want the jungle.  I want you.

He felt RJ breathe out, felt like he was floating, and when he opened his eyes he realized he was lighter.  He had hands and arms and he was holding RJ down because RJ was letting himself be held, not because the mass on top of him was immovable.

He was human again.

"Guys?"  It was Dom's voice this time.  "At what point should we assume you've totally lost control of this thing and get help?"

"Not... this point."  RJ sounded soft and absent-minded, maybe more out of it than usual or maybe only strange compared to the voice of the wolf.  "Casey?"

I'm cool, he thought, but what came out was, "I really want to kiss you right now."

RJ just smiled.  "That would be consistent with the other times we've done this."

He was leaning down, ready to do it and screw the consequences, when Fran cleared her throat.  Pointedly.  "Hi, do we get an explanation, possibly?  Or if not, could you at least tell us who's coming?  Like a hint?  Creepy people with guns or harmless people with kittens: which end of the spectrum are they closer to?"

"I think..."  RJ sighed as Casey sat up, which was the only thing that kept Casey from doing it too.  "Creepy ninjas with harmless puppies.  I guess.  If that's the scale we're using."

"Hey, sorry about the, um--"  Casey gestured, helping him up with his free hand.  "I didn't--I don't actually remember knocking you down."

"Believe me," RJ said.  "Way less painful than the screaming.  Are you okay?"

"Yeah, I..."  Casey frowned down at himself.  "I think so.  Did I turn into a tiger, or was that just... a weird jungle thing?"

"You turned into a tiger," Dom said.

"Which we can probably assume is a weird jungle thing," Fran put in, "except that no one else seems to do it, so.  It was extra weird."

Casey looked at RJ, who shrugged.  "I... don't know?  I mean, Dom's right, you did turn into a tiger, and Fran's right, no one else does that, but... I don't really have anything to add?"

"But that was my spirit," Casey insisted.  "That was my spirit manifesting, or whatever you call it.  When I was a tiger."

"Yes," RJ agreed.  "Apparently."

"Apparently?" Casey repeated.  "You talked to it!"

RJ frowned.  "You do... remember that, don't you?"

"Yes, I remember being a tiger," Casey informed him.  "I'm not going to forget that.  I was a giant cat, with claws and... fur!  You patted me!"

"Yes, well."  RJ shrugged again.  "You were very soft."

"Okay, as entertaining as this is to watch," Dom interrupted, "and believe me, it is entertaining, is there any kind of time constraint here?  When are these ninjas going to show up?  I assume they're the same ones from--"

"Did you decide we could trust him?" Fran said loudly, talking over him.  She was looking at Casey.  "Casey, I mean?  I'm sorry if I can't understand your magical animal language, but I'd just like to be clear before we start talking about whatever."

Casey looked at RJ, and found him looking back.  You co-exist with the clan at my sufferance.  If RJ was the wolf the same way Casey was the tiger, then they weren't really two different people--animals, beings, spirits--at all.  And that probably meant all sorts of strange and possibly even useful things, but all he could think was that RJ was a lot stronger than he pretended to be.

"Yes," RJ said aloud.  "He's going to help us."

I am?  Casey thought if there was ever a time to say whatever came to mind, this wasn't it.

"You were here when Pele called looking for the weather ninjas," RJ said, and Casey soaked up the attention without question.  "They were on their way.  They were at the party, actually; I don't know if you could tell?"

Casey blinked when this appeared to require a response.  "The... birthday party?  For that kid?"

RJ just waited, and Casey finally shook his head.  "No."  He hated to admit it, but...  "How many of them were ninjas?"

"Two of the chaperones.  They're in town dealing with non-ninja business--"  RJ glanced at Dom and Fran.  "Which is what brings them back here.  The children they're trying to collect have... had some trouble."

"Children?" Casey repeated.

"Magicals, I suppose you would say."  RJ gave him a considered look.  "Shapeshifters.  You'll have something in common with them."  He smiled a little at this, and Casey raised his eyebrows.

"Not like us," RJ added.  "At least, probably not like you.  Definitely not like us.  Human wolves, they call themselves.  These two have somehow been separated from their mother, and state services hasn't been able to reconnect them.  The ninjas are hoping the pack can help--if the state doesn't figure out what they are first."

"Not good odds," Dom said.  "One of them's a baby, right?"

"Toddler," RJ corrected.  "Not quite two.  Unfortunately, he's exactly the age that the wolf form is most appealing and least controlled.  His sister knows how to keep from changing, but..."

Here he paused.  "The younger child changed in front of two state employees this evening.  The children were quarantined; the ninjas kidnapped them.  They're on their way here right now."

5. The Steps Down

Casey wouldn't let him put animal print sheets on the beds in the guest room.  "Don't you have solid color sheets?" he wanted to know.  Which was interesting, since Casey should know he did, but maybe he was trying to sound "normal."  "Come on, print is either cute or weird, and you don't want them to think anything's weird their first night."

"No," RJ said.  "I'm sure they won't find any of this weird."

"They won't notice the big things," Casey assured him.  "Kids don't know whether something's normal or not if they haven't seen it before.  They won't look twice at the basketball court, but the sheets?  Every kid's had sheets on their bed, and they know what they're supposed to look like.  Let 'em pick the cool sheets for themselves tomorrow.  Don't surprise them with zebras tonight."

Casey seemed to feel strongly about it, and RJ wasn't particularly good with kids under the best of circumstances, so he was willing to be convinced.  He and Casey made up the guest room as best they could while Fran and Dom finished making their dessert.  Ninja ETA was half an hour, so it wouldn't quite be ready by the time they got here, but maybe the kids could have some later.

He didn't realize quite how important the "wolves" part of "human wolves" was until the appearance of the wolf spirit made the little boy stop crying five minutes into the ninjas' visit.  The wolf ninja shot him a grateful look as the boy peeled himself away and stumbled in the direction of the new... pseudo-packmate?  RJ let the wolf be hugged and rumpled and poked with clumsy kid fingers while the wolf ninja's mate tried to explain to the girl why the kids had to stay where they were.

"Just for tonight, okay?" Hunter was telling her.  "We'll be back in the morning.  Right now we gotta go throw 'em off your trail."

"Hunter," his mate admonished.  "Could you try to make it sound less like an action movie?"

Hunter snorted.  "Yeah, sure, I'll go for realism instead.  You guys have to stay here while we go lie to the state of California, commit our second and possibly third felonies, and duck yet another background check.  Then we'll come back, pick up our kidnapping victims, hide you in the back seat of the truck, and head for... I dunno, Canada?  Is there where the wolf refugees go?  Until the pack finds your mom."

"We're going to throw them off your trail," his partner told the older girl.  "Tell RJ if you need anything, okay?  We'll try to bring meat when we come tomorrow, but if you can't wait, let RJ feed you."

"Do they... do you eat food that isn't meat?" RJ asked uncertainly.

"Yeah, regular kid food's good," Hunter said, before the older girl could do more than stare at him.  "They need raw meat twice a week.  We'll get 'em some tomorrow.  Look, thanks for this, okay?  It's really--we owe you.  Big."

Then he and Cam--the only one of the pair who was a human wolf himself--left to pretend they'd been at their hotel all night.  Or whatever.  RJ figured the less he knew about their story, the better off they'd all be.  Unfortunately, their absence left him with two very cranky children and no idea how to handle them.

On the other hand, he wasn't exactly left alone with them.  Dom loved kids, Fran was great with them, and Casey turned out to be just as terrifying likable to children as he was to everyone else.  Between the three of them, RJ was mostly off the hook when it came to the care and feeding of small shapeshifting human wolf cubs.

And he still got some of the apple crisp.  With ice cream, no less.  He decided the night, overall, was a relatively positive one, even if Casey did end up sleeping in the kids' room and was gone the next morning.

RJ would have bet money--well, maybe pizza--that no one could have snuck into his room without waking him up.  But when he opened his eyes to the grey light of dawn, he found a note on the pillow next to him.  Very... hmm.

His own note, he realized a moment later, still squinting at it strangely.  The pro/con list that Casey had edited with "sneaks around your apartment and looks at all your stuff."  There was an arrow at the bottom of the note now, underneath the "Love, Casey," so RJ turned it over.

The other side said "magical" and "annoyingly calm" and "KEEPS HURTING ME" on the left.  On the right it said "he loves me" and "I like him," the latter of which had been crossed out.  Underneath, it said "I love him?" with an oversized question mark.  The words were circled, with an arrow pointing to them that said, "THIS IS IMPORTANT."

The two lists were followed by the addendum, Dear Casey - Please remember that RJ can't tell when the things you say are important and when they're not.  Try to make this more clear.  Love, Casey

RJ stared at that note for a long, long time.

Eventually, the sound of voices reminded him that there were two more people in the loft than was typical at this time of day--and Dom had to be getting ready for school.  RJ was relatively sure that his roommate was past high school age, but since this information had never been offered, RJ had never asked.  All it meant to him today was that he was about to have two inexplicable children all to himself, and that was...

Well.  Not quite frightening enough to make him put the note down.

He brought them down to the kitchen, which didn't technically violate any health codes but did fly in the face of common sense, and introduced them to Jarrod.  Jarrod loved them.  Jarrod was perfectly willing to let RJ prep for crew while he entertained the children.  This worked until the crew team actually arrived, at which point RJ hustled the children back upstairs and told them to see how far up the climbing wall they could get.

They were watching TV by the time Jarrod closed up after crew and joined the three of them in the loft.  Wolf was sitting between the children, accepting their absent petting and offhanded comments without complaint.  The scene made Jarrod smile--and it prevented him from being overly critical about the Casey situation, so that was an unlooked-for bonus.

Hunter and Cam didn't come back until after dinner.  RJ had Hunter's phone number, but he'd been instructed not to use it except in an emergency.  The less the connection between the ninjas and JKP the better, apparently.  But he worried, and the kids grew increasingly anxious, and by the time their not-yet-legally implicated kidnappers returned, RJ was ready to give Casey a raise for not working.  Dom, too.  The two of them kept the kids out of sight, mostly occupied, and relatively relaxed while the unsuspecting patrons of the pizza place came and went downstairs.

He wasn't sure it was wise for the kids to have that much exposure to someone like Casey, but Casey just rolled his eyes when he asked and he couldn't run it by Hunter and Cam without telling them what "someone like Casey" meant.  Dom said they seemed fine together and told RJ not to worry about it.  RJ got more worried--though not about Casey--when Cam broke the news that the kids were going to have stay out of sight for a few more days.

"Funny thing," Hunter said dryly, "the state doesn't believe we don't know anything."

"If you can't keep them, we understand," Cam said.  "We'll find someplace else."

"No, come on--"  Casey looked from Dom to RJ.  "We got this one.  We all know what it's like to have people think we're freaks.  We can watch them a little longer."

"We can stay part of the night," Hunter offered, looking at RJ.  "If you trust us not to set off your sprinklers or whatever, you guys can go out and we'll just hang here with the kids.  'Til, say, midnight?  One-ish?"

RJ frowned, trying not to just blurt out the first thing that came to mind.  Which was, first and foremost, "Sorry, but I'm in a detox program that's supposed to involve way more attention than I'm currently getting from my vampiric boyfriend," and might also contain something about not wanting to have sex with children in the next room.  Trying not to say this meant that Dom had a chance to agree with Casey, and after that RJ really couldn't say anything at all.

He did get to go to Casey's karaoke night after the restaurant closed.  He was talked into the sex without much talking at all, conveniently forgot to mention the note, and was irrationally disappointed when there wasn't another one the following morning.  He hadn't even woken up when Casey left, which was annoying all on its own.

Casey now had a self-imposed twelve-hour limit in RJ's company.  This had all sorts of inconvenient consequences, not the least of which was the fact that coming over right after school to watch the kids before his shift meant that he couldn't stay the whole night.  It did seem to be working, though: RJ didn't feel great in the morning, but he could make it to the afternoon without losing all concern for... everything.

He also ended up back at the amusement park after dark, which was when Casey liked it best, and at the disco party Casey had invited him to the week before.  Apparently the rink had one every Friday.  So by the time the weekend arrived, RJ was feeling like the kids were a fair trade for getting Casey all afternoon, evening, and part of the night.  To the point where he was more surprised than relieved when Cam said, "We should be able to get them to the pack early next week."

"Of course," RJ said.  Then he added, "No hurry.  We like having them here."  Which was partly true--maybe more for some of them than others--but most importantly it spoke to the fact that he liked watching the clan fawn over little children.  They were all remarkably child-friendly, with the possible exception of him.  And Theo.

Cam spent most of the day Saturday at the loft, watching the young wolves.  Hunter was there all of Sunday.  The weekend was a pleasant blur of kids and Casey and the meteorologically improbable but very beautiful snow that danced in the streetlights most of Sunday night.

Then Monday came, and Casey's friends showed up.

6. The Pretender

His first mistake had probably been getting involved with them in the first place.  Given that, though, telling Kevin where he was going on his day off ranked just as high.  Not because Kevin would follow him--they had an understanding when it came to territory--but because Kevin wasn't the only one who'd noticed Casey's perpetual high.

They'd left San Jose to branch out, to get away from the constant kindred power struggles.  But it looked like the city wasn't going to let them go.  When someone asked Kevin where Casey was going every night, Kevin told them--and five psyvamps walked into Jungle Karma Pizza just before the sign on the door could be flipped to "closed."

"Um, hi," Fran said, hovering near the door while they looked around.  "I'm really sorry, but we're closing for the night.  But we'll be open again for regular business tomorrow morning at ten!"

Casey looked up from the corner booth where he was tracing an animal mosaic on the tile with a sharpie.  He didn't have to work tonight, but RJ did, and Cam and Hunter had arrived hours ago to occupy the kids.  So he was hanging out downstairs, entertaining Fran and wondering how long it would take someone to notice he was drawing on the table.

"We're looking for someone," a smooth voice said, and yellow eyes were already staring in his direction when Casey's gaze landed on them.  "A friend of ours.  You don't mind if we just--"

"We'll stay out of the way," one of the others agreed.  Lance.  Casey recognized him from the apartment.  And Katie, of course.  The ringleader.  She had her wingmen with her, and Lance's brother, and there was no way this was going to go well.

"Oh, of course," Fran was saying.  She looked flattered when Lance smiled at her, and she waved in Casey's direction with no further complaint.  "Go right ahead.  I'll just lock the door behind you."

He didn't have time for subtlety.  Or a plan.  He scribbled tell Lily to stay out of sight on a napkin and crumpled it into his fist as he stood up.  "Fran," Casey said, as casually as he could.  "Come here for a second."

Katie raised an eyebrow at him, stepping out of the way to allow Fran past.  She probably thought this was his first move--welcome gift, or bribe--and it was, but it wasn't for her.  He reached for Fran's hand as he smiled, first at Katie and then at Fran.  "Get RJ for me, would you?"

He poured it on, and she smiled back.  "Um, sure."  She didn't even glance at the napkin he put in her hand, although he saw both Lance and one of Katie's wingmen watch where it went with interest.

"Hungry?" Casey asked lightly, drawing their attention back without effort.  Even vampires could be manipulated.  Especially when he was as strong as he was right now.

"Willing to share?" Katie countered, with all the politeness of someone with force on her side.  If he didn't agree, they would turn the entire building against him and feed on the witch hunt that ensued.

Or at least, they would try.

"Don't take this the wrong way," Casey said, bracing his hands on the table behind him, crossing his ankles as he leaned back, "but go to hell."

RJ came out through the kitchen door almost as soon as Fran had gone in, and Casey could feel his concern spike all the way across the room.  It drew the attention of all four of Katie's band, but she kept her eyes on him.  "Don't be that way," she said with a smile.  "There's obviously plenty for everyone."

He wasn't the only one trying to manipulate the situation.  The difference was that there were five of them, and the moment she made them focus, he was toast.  She knew it, too, and he was hoping that made her overly confident.

"It's a big state," Casey remarked, trying to stay as relaxed as possible.  "I'm only claiming this one little part of it."

It worked that way among some of the magicals, he knew.  But vampire pacts were infrequent and individualized.  They only had as much power as the people who agreed to abide by them.  He and Kevin stayed out of each other's territory as much because their tastes didn't overlap as anything else.

"And we're only looking for a little magic," Katie said.  The only one of her group not watching, she was still perfectly aware of RJ as he prowled into Casey's space... all coiled power disguised as absent-minded curiosity.  And Katie could tell.

"I know you, Casey."  She was still smiling at him, and he could tell RJ didn't appreciate it.  "You don't like conflict.  What do you think's going to happen if we start talking to your friend, here?"

Her wingmen had already turned their focus back to him.  When Lance and his brother did the same, she was going to crush him like an ungifted bloodsucker.  He had maybe ten seconds and what he hoped was a slightly more willing ally than she thought.

"RJ," he said.  "You trust me, don't you?"

RJ didn't hesitate.  "Yes."

"Good."  Casey flung a hand against his chest and yanked.  Hard.  RJ had tried to drag the tiger out of him twice now, so he had some idea what he was doing.  But he wasn't prepared for the primal strength of the wolf: not just a violet swirl of sunshine and jungle, the spirit dug in and ripped at his hold with teeth he could almost feel on his skin.

Magic flooded Casey's reserves.  Energy: anger, betrayal, the promise of vengeance making him stronger and temporarily undermining his stand against Katie's group.  "Trust me," he growled, trying to keep the wolf at bay and force RJ down.  Submit.

He so did not have time for the tiger right now, but if it was going to help him against RJ he wasn't complaining.  Without moving a muscle, Katie had latched onto RJ before the first scream had been torn from his throat.  Her wingmen were crowding her on either side, drawn to that power with or without permission.

"Mine," Casey hissed.  The wolf's claws bit into his arm.  His skin burned.  And he still didn't look.  The wolf would either kill him or not, and if it didn't, he had a narrow margin of error when it came to Katie's group so he stared into the nearest gaze, smiling even as the magic started to shred his concentration.  "Not for you."

RJ was on his knees before Casey lost his grip on the wolf.  He clenched his hand in RJ's jacket instead, and his fingers felt like they were on fire but he gritted his teeth and pulled as hard as he could.  It got RJ up.

"This is mine," he said, focusing on the next gaze when the first looked away.  Lance's brother, gone.  Lance next.  He could overwhelm both of them even without RJ's magic, but there was no way he'd get Katie unless RJ backed him up.  "There's nothing you can do."

Lance could feel the psychic pressure more clearly than his brother, but he yielded without further protest.  "Sorry, man," he mumbled, looking away.  "Your call."

Katie was in his face, hand on Casey's chin, trying to force his gaze to hers.  "Share," she demanded, and her eyes were bright and gold and compelling.  She was drawing RJ's power as fast as he was.  The only edge he had was RJ's focus--if the wolf would give it.

"RJ."  His voice wasn't as strong as it should have been.  He couldn't look away from Katie's eyes.  "Do you..."

Fuck.  The words were forced down; he couldn't talk.

Katie's head snapped back, hand jerking away.  RJ was between them.  Casey took a chance, closing his eyes, hoping no one else could see.  "Do you trust me," he said, as loudly as he could.

"Yes," RJ muttered, and a moment later he felt a mouth pressed against his, fingers clutching the back of his head.  RJ's focus washing over him, fixed on him, and the magic was too high--he couldn't take any more.  Not energy, not magic, not anything.

But he couldn't let Katie have it, either.

"Mine," he gasped, shoving RJ away.  Holding on.  He didn't let RJ get farther than arm's reach, didn't let go of his jacket as he stared Katie down.  "He won't do anything for you."

"I could make him," Katie said, low and harsh.

He felt RJ's focus vanish, felt the energy snap, and for the first time the pain of its disappearance was almost a relief.  He kept himself from flinching even as Katie gasped, hoping she couldn't tell it wasn't just her.  "I don't think so," Casey said, as evenly as he could.

"Katie," Lance muttered.  "Let's go."

Her gaze swung toward him incredulously, then back to Casey.  He bared his teeth in something that wasn't really a smile.  "This one's mine."

One of her wingmen looked away, and he won.  She only had one now.  He had one.  And his one was a lot stronger than hers.

"Keep him," Katie snapped.  Turning away, the second wingman followed suit.  The rest of her group flowed around them, moving purposefully for the door.  Just a bunch of friends heading out, looking for a new hangout now that this one had closed.  The anonymity settled around them as Casey watched.

He kept his hold on RJ until they were gone.  Then the burn overwhelmed him, and his fingers were stiff as RJ eased them off of his jacket.  His arm barely even stung as it healed.  He could feel Fran, about to burst through the kitchen door.  The kids upstairs, Cam and Hunter, somehow aware of the disturbance but smart enough not to--

Where was Lily?  Katie's group was moving off down the street; he could practically see them leaving.  And he wasn't the only one.  Jarrod was out there, on his way in.  Dom had picked up the five... following unseen.  So far.

"Are you all right?"  RJ's voice was in his head, far-off like tunnel vision or the weird faintness right before your ears popped.  Fran was there.  Lily wasn't.  Jarrod was coming through the back.

"I'm fine," Casey mumbled, wishing Fran would get away.  RJ was silent, invisible, but Fran was bright and hot and it hadn't taken anything at all to heal his arm.  He wished the stolen energy would fix his head.  "I'm--"

Pain exploded across his jaw.  His balance was shot; that was the only excuse he had for not being able to stay on his feet.  RJ's blow knocked him to the floor, faux stone cool under his hands.  He wanted to press his forehead against it, and gave in to the urge because why the hell not?  RJ had made his opinion clear.

You're fucking welcome, he thought, covering the back of his head with his hands.  He really wished he could pass out.  Instead he heard, he felt with excruciatingly clarity, the arrival of Jarrod, who at least pulled Fran away, the approach of Lily via the front, and the sound of RJ's phone out back.  Dom was calling.

"Tell Dom," he muttered to the floor.  "Don't let them see him."

"What?  What did you say about Dom?"  Fran sounded genuinely worried, not scared, and not really far enough away.  "Is he okay?" she added.  "RJ, what happened?  They can feel us watching, right?  So I didn't."

"Dom's calling," Casey ground out.  "RJ's phone.  In the kitchen.  Tell him not to let them see him."

There was a pause.  He couldn't feel RJ at all, but he could feel Fran react to him.  She went.  He could hear Lily and Jarrod talking about defense, some sort of psychic perimeter.  He wanted to laugh, couldn't, knew he shouldn't anyway.  Sure, yeah, hang a sign while you're at it.

"Get up," Jarrod's voice said.

Casey considered it for maybe a second, but the floor was solid and friendly and he figured they wouldn't kick him while he was down.  Probably.  "No, thanks."

"Really not a request," Jarrod replied.

He slid his hands off of his head, pressed them against the floor, and pushed himself up into a sitting position.  It wasn't as bad as he'd expected it to be.  On the other hand, he wasn't all the way upright yet, either.

"Can you even stand?" RJ asked quietly, and Casey really almost looked then.  RJ had hit him, again, and he wanted to know the wolf felt badly about it.  Jarrod got in his way instead.  His sneakers were right in Casey's line of sight, and he was guessing if he looked up the lion would block his view of anyone else.

Probably smarter than he knew, Casey thought.

"Sure," he said, keeping his eyes on the floor.  "No problem."

"Get up," Jarrod repeated impatiently.  "I don't hit people who can't stand."

"Reassuring," Casey muttered.  "You know I could make you help me right now, right?"

Jarrod snorted.  "Not likely."

"Jarrod."  RJ's voice stopped them both.  "You're talking to a man who just turned away five of his own people, with nothing but his own strength and whatever he got from me.  For no reason except that he doesn't like them very much."

"I like them," Casey told the floor.  "Katie and I... we had a thing.  A while ago."

This prompted complete silence for several seconds.

The kitchen door opened and Fran came back out, still talking to RJ's phone.  "--just on the floor," she was saying, "and I can ask--oh, except they look pretty serious.  Hang on."

Fran didn't come any closer.  "Um, Casey?  Dom wants to know if he should go all the way to--wherever they're going.  Should he keep following them?  He doesn't think they've seen him yet, but..."

"No," Casey said, just as Jarrod spoke.

"Tell Dom to come back."  There was the briefest hesitation, and Casey knew he was getting a glare for trying to answer.  "The last thing we need is for him to somehow end up talking to five of them at once."

Casey shook his head, careful to keep his eyes on the floor.  "She doesn't do it with her voice."

"I seem to recall telling you to stand up."  Jarrod's voice was deceptively calm even as Fran relayed the instruction to Dom.  "Is there something wrong with your legs?"

"You said you don't hit people who can't stand," Casey said.

"If you'd bothered to look at RJ, you'd know why I'm thinking of making an exception," Jarrod snapped.

Casey gave up.  Lifting his head, he found Jarrod staring right back at him.  Because he was stupid, apparently.  "If you'd bothered to ask," Casey said softly, "you'd know I never looked at him.  He did everything he did because he wanted to, not because I made him.  And by the way, you're welcome for saving his life."

Holding out his hand, he tipped his head to one side and gazed up at Jarrod.  "Help me up."

Jarrod stood there just long enough that Casey wondered if he was stronger than he looked.  But finally he stepped forward, reaching down.  His hand clasped Casey's and pulled him up without further protest.

"Jarrod."  Lily had called Theo; she was expecting him somehow.  She wanted the whole clan here to deal with this, and she was willing to wait--until Jarrod showed signs of capitulation.  "We have no idea what really happened."  And we can't trust RJ to tell us, she seemed to add silently.

"Lily," Casey said, shifting his gaze to her.  She responded automatically to the sound of her name: so many people's weakness.  Catching her eye, he told her, "Stop talking."

Lily opened her mouth, but then she seemed to reconsider.  Seemed to.  Because she didn't have any choice, and Casey knew what that felt like but he was tired of this already.  It wasn't like it was over.  For them, maybe, but not for him.

Fran's eyes were wide when he glanced at her, and she looked away immediately.  She still had the phone pressed to her ear, but she wasn't saying anything, so he didn't particularly care.  She wasn't threatening to injure him with it.

"Casey," RJ said quietly.  "Let them go."

"I'd rather not," he replied, scanning the street for the rest of the clan.  "I'm sorry that in two weeks they haven't managed to learn anything about me, but it just proves how easily Katie would have decimated your little magical clique if I hadn't been here to stop her."

"Um, no," Fran said, her voice nervous as she turned away.  "It's fine.  Casey's just, um.  Making a point."

"Thank you," Casey muttered.

"They're not your toys," RJ told him.  The faint emphasis on the first word made Casey point at him, still careful not to follow his finger with his eyes.

"No," he said.  "You've got it backwards.  You're not my toy.  They are.  And as long as you want me to, I'll take care of them, but I draw the line at letting them kick me around.  I kept Katie from killing you, and maybe that's not worth anything to your little friends, but I take it kind of seriously."

"You tried to strip the wolf," RJ said.

"I had to make you angry."  Casey looked from Lily to Jarrod, absently monitoring response and resolve.  This was as strong as he got, and they weren't going anywhere.  Dom was still a few minutes out, though if Fran was any indication, Casey might not have to exert much of a hold on him.  "You forgive me, she sees there's nothing she can say to turn you against me.  She loses her leverage."

"And if I didn't?" RJ asked slowly.

"Then I'm screwed," Casey told him.  "Believe me, I was dinner the second I told her to back off.  It's not like there's any rules about sparing your ex when he chooses the wrong side."

RJ considered this.  "You did," he pointed out.

Casey scoffed.  "How am I supposed to feed on her when I can't even take anymore from you?  There are limits, RJ.  It's not like they haven't kept you alive before."

He didn't expect the next question at all.  "What happens when you reach them?"

Casey would have been surprised into looking at him if he was anyone else.  Instead he waved around the restaurant, taking in Jarrod and Lily but meaning everything.  Everything that had just happened.  "That."

"I'd really like you to let them go," RJ said.

"Yeah, and your wolf would have liked to tear my arm off," Casey reminded him.  "I'm sorry about that, by the way.  If there was any way I could have warned you beforehand, I would have."

"You're sorry," RJ repeated.  He didn't sound incredulous.  He didn't really sound anything, and Casey still couldn't read him at all.  It didn't get weirder than this: his power was so high he could read the minds of strangers outside on the street, and he had no idea what someone in the same room was about to say.

"If you say you're sorry, does that make it all right?" RJ asked.  Curious.  As always.  Not indicating a negative... but not exactly welcoming, either.

"Better than not saying it," Casey pointed out.  "Is there anything I could say that would make it all right?  And, given that the answer is no, does that mean I shouldn't try?  I talk, RJ.  It's what I do.  When there's nothing to say, I say it anyway."

Fran was still talking softly to Dom in the corner.  He hoped the guy didn't get pulled over for not using a headset or something.  She'd already run through everything she knew about Katie and her friends--which was a surprising amount; she won the unexpectedly observant prize for that--and she was now cataloguing and offering comment on everyone she could see.

"You make things what you say they are," RJ said, after a long moment.  "The answer can't really be no.  Anything you say would make it all right.  You knew that when you did it."

Casey had to smile.  "It's always fun when you try to guess," he said.  "Apparently your overconfidence in me trumps Katie's overconfidence in herself.  Thanks for that, by the way.  I really thought she was going to make me watch while they--"

There was no reason he couldn't say it.  No reason at all.  Lily and Jarrod would be better off with the reminder than without.  Fran wasn't even looking at him; he didn't have to protect her.  And who knew what RJ was thinking over there.

But he didn't.  His smile faded, and he didn't finish.  Because at the end of the day, they probably wouldn't come after RJ again, and that was the important part.  His little disassociation trick might have convinced them even if Casey hadn't, though he didn't want to see someone try to defeat it.  And the rest of the clan had managed to keep their magic to themselves, if briefly, so what was the draw?

Hopefully not him.  If Katie went for revenge, she would probably extract it from Casey personally.  It wasn't like she didn't know where he lived.

"Come over here," RJ said.

Casey sighed, but he went, stopping just outside of arm's reach with his eyes on the table behind RJ.  "I'd really prefer it if you didn't slam my head into anything," he told the tiles.  "It's been through enough.  Also, unlike you, I'm not eager to die.  But you'll be happy to know I can probably heal anything short of a fatal injury right now, so... if your wolf wants to tear me up some more, you can still have me for sex later."

He could feel RJ staring at him, and that was strange.  It was the first thing he'd felt from RJ since Katie had told Casey to keep him.  "I'm sorry," RJ said, sounding just as odd.  "What?"

Casey didn't move.  "I assume hitting me once wasn't enough."

"We're out front," Fran said, very audible in the quiet.  "Lily locked the door behind her, though, and the key's hanging in the kitchen, so."

RJ seemed frozen where he was.  "Why would you think that?"

"It was your first reaction," Casey said.  "I don't have any reason to think it's changed."

He saw RJ step forward, raising his hand.  He didn't flinch.  It was funny, but even seeing the damage RJ could inflict couldn't make him a threat in Casey's mind.  Not anymore.  He'd lost that conditioning, somehow.  Nothing RJ did made him seem dangerous, made Casey truly believe that he would do it again.

"Why can't you tell what I'm thinking?" RJ wanted to know.  His fingers settled gently on Casey's arm, ghosting over the ribbons of his shirt and the whole but bloodied skin underneath.  The tiger hadn't been enough to hold the wolf back.

It was perfectly safe to stare at RJ's hand.  "You really can't tell when you're doing it."  He frowned.  "You did it on purpose, though, right?  With Katie?  You can obviously do it on command."

"Suppress my emotions," RJ said flatly.

Casey nodded, watching those fingers separate what remained of his sleeve and explore the rest of his arm.  If RJ wasn't doing it right now, he probably wouldn't be able to stand it.  Usually power like this came from a crowd: plenty of opportunity to channel it, spin it out again, let it flow through him like a revolving door.  Here there wasn't an outlet big enough to relieve the pressure.

"Yes," RJ was saying.  "I suppose so.  As you yourself have noted, though, it's mostly an emergency measure.  It doesn't usually last this long... does it?"

He sounded uncertain, and Casey couldn't keep the calm that suffused Lily and Jarrod from touching him, just a little.  "That's--"  He was desperately afraid that he wouldn't be able to get it out before RJ said something.  "Can you feel that?  I can't stop it; I'm sorry.  I should go."

"No."  RJ's hand closed around his arm.  "Feel what?  Don't go.  Thank you; I didn't realize what you were--obviously--"

Casey laughed before he realized how it would sound, and he risked a glance at RJ's face, just for a second.  "Okay, you definitely can't feel it.  I think it's having the opposite effect on--"

RJ's eyes were purple.

Casey broke off, staring at him for longer than he should have.

Of course that was when Dom walked in, and Casey yanked his gaze away even as RJ pulled him closer.  "I didn't tell you to come over here so I could hit you," RJ said calmly.  He shouldered in front of Casey, keeping his back to the table as Dom surveyed the room.  "I was trying to get you out of the line of fire before the rest of the clan got here."

"Theo's in the kitchen."  Casey blinked, surprised he had been too distracted to notice.  Was that why it had taken Dom so long to get back?

"Yes," RJ agreed.  He and Dom were staring at each other across the room.  "Everyone's here.  And I don't have a vote right now, so I think it's best if you stay as close to me as possible."

7. The Vote

He didn't think they'd hurt Casey.  At least, he didn't think they'd override him if he told them not to hurt Casey.  But he couldn't technically keep them from doing it, not without fighting.  He wouldn't fight the clan.  Casey would, unfortunately, but Casey would also listen to him.  Probably.

"Okay," Dom said.  "Fran says this is all going to turn out rosy, but here's the thing.  Theo's ready to kick some serious butt over all of this, and RJ looks like he's ready to go to the mat for... someone.  Lily and Jarrod apparently don't get any say, which, frankly, seems unfair since neither of them actually hurt anyone."

RJ turned his head a little, murmuring to Casey.  "I think that's your cue, amigo."

"I can't."  Casey sounded genuinely frustrated, and his voice carried.  "I tried."

"Look, this is ridiculous," Theo declared, shoving through the kitchen door with the jaguar at his side.  "Casey's a liability.  He brought that trash here, he trapped the wolf, and now he's brainwashing Lily and Jarrod.  He needs to go.  Tonight.  Now.  Goodbye."

"Casey got rid of them," Dom countered.  "And the wolf obviously defended itself.  If RJ's not throwing him out, I don't think we should jump to conclusions."

"Trapped?" Casey said, his voice low and close in RJ's ear.  "I trapped the wolf?"

"No," RJ murmured.  "It's fine."

"Why, so we can end up like Lily and Jarrod?" Theo demanded.  "How long do you think it takes him to make us that calm?"  The word twisted when he said it, and RJ winced.

"Casey," he said quietly.  "Why can't you?"

"Because it has to go somewhere."  Again, Casey utterly failed to keep his voice down, and Theo and Dom both glared at him.  "I'm sorry!  My power's through the roof; I don't know what you expect me to do with it!  I was only trying to make them--to keep them from--"

His voice broke.  RJ closed his eyes because he knew it shouldn't affect him, but it did.  He couldn't fail to respond.  "Jarrod threatened him," he said.  "Casey did warn him first."  And then, because he could, he added, "I don't know what Lily did."

"Um, that's true," Fran offered.  "Jarrod kept saying he was going to hit him.  But Casey was on the ground, 'cause RJ..."

When she trailed off, RJ said, "I'd already hit him.  Very mature, I know."  Turning his head again, he said over his shoulder, "I'm... sorry about that."

"Please," Casey muttered.  "I had it coming."

"Um, that's probably true too," Fran said.  "I heard RJ screaming.  And if the wolf did that to Casey's arm, it must have had a good reason, right?"

"Do you have any idea how hard it is to make RJ mad?" Casey countered.  "It was me or Katie, okay?  And if you think that isn't gonna keep me up nights, you are so wrong."

RJ thought that was an odd thing to lie about, given that he was likely to know whether Casey had trouble sleeping or not.  "I assume I had to forgive something she would be convinced was worse than anything she could say?" he asked.  "Did you really think she'd have better luck making me angry than you would?"

"She knows a lot about me," Casey muttered.  "Besides, it doesn't matter whether I think she can or not.  It matters if she thinks she can."

"Interesting conversation," Dom interrupted.  "Really.  I'm sure Lily and Jarrod would like the chance to participate."

"You'd be surprised," Lily said, slow and thoughtful and not at all like herself.  "It's actually... kind of a cool way of getting people to be quiet."

"Lily?"  Theo leapt forward, reaching for her arm solicitously and then pulling back just as fast.  He looked like he wanted to check her over somehow, but he had no idea where to start.  "Are you all right?"

This time she rolled her eyes, and she sounded a little more normal when she said, "I'm perfectly fine.  I wasn't in hibernation or anything.  I just--didn't care enough to say anything."

"Very humane," Jarrod ground out.  He more than Lily sounded like he was struggling through some kind of trance.  "You can talk... you just don't want to."

RJ felt a gentle pressure on his shoulder and reached for it automatically, assuming it was Casey's hand.  His fingers encountered hair instead, on something larger and more solid.  Casey was resting his forehead against the back of RJ's shoulder.

"Is there anything I can do?" RJ said softly.

"Practically speaking?"  Casey's voice was just above a whisper.  "No."  Then he added, "Thanks."

"I'd feel a lot better about this," Jarrod growled, "if RJ and Casey would stand a little farther apart."

"Shouldn't have let him talk," Casey whispered, breath warming the back of RJ's shirt.  "Can't I make him just a little happier?  No one will notice.  Like a drop of rain on the ocean, seriously."

RJ tried not to smile.  He reminded himself that Casey had been ready to seduce Jarrod last week.  The abrupt turnaround wasn't exactly reassuring.

"Since they're the only ones who know what happened," Dom said, "I think we'd better let them stand wherever they want.  Casey seems pretty convinced he saved RJ's life, and I haven't heard RJ deny it yet.  We could try the novel approach of letting them talk."

"Some people came looking for Casey," RJ said.  "He told them to leave.  They did."  He held his hands out, careful not to move too much.  Casey hadn't lifted his head.  "That's pretty much it."

"I know everything I need to know," Theo said darkly.  "Call me when you're ready to vote."  He turned around, heading for the kitchen when Jarrod stopped him.

"Theo.  You have something better to do?"

"Do we still have guests?" Theo countered.  "I'm going to warn them."

"What's this about voting?" Casey murmured against RJ's shoulder.  "Do I want to know?  Are you sure I shouldn't leave?  I will.  If it'll make you more comfortable."

"Are they going to come after you the moment you step outside?" RJ asked quietly.

Casey didn't answer right away, and he couldn't tell if that meant the answer was yes, or if the question hadn't occurred to Casey because it was so impossible.  Or maybe it had never occurred to him because he hadn't thought that far ahead.  RJ actually believed him when he said there hadn't been time for warnings--or decisions, RJ thought.  Not conscious ones.

Which meant that Casey had defended him instinctively.  He wasn't sure how he felt about that.

"Fran," Jarrod said.  "Would you mind going upstairs and making sure everyone's all right?  RJ?" he added, before she could answer.  "Are you okay with that?"

Always nice when they remembered that he lived here.  "Of course," he said aloud.  "If Fran doesn't mind."

"What," Casey muttered, "she doesn't get to vote?"

"No," RJ said, just as quietly.  "She doesn't have an animal spirit."

"Sure.  I mean, I can totally do that."  But Fran didn't move until she caught Dom's eye and he nodded.  That was going to be a problem.  Dom was nominally subject to Jarrod's authority, but Fran wasn't at all, outside of work, and if she decided she was tired of following clan hierarchy...

Well, she would be like Casey, wouldn't she.  Loyal to one member of the clan and one member only.  Their strength came from the alliance of the group, not a few individual bonds.

"I have an animal spirit," Casey said.

"You're not part of the clan," RJ said softly.

"RJ," Jarrod said.  "Do you want us to throw him out?"

He was very aware of Casey's warmth at his back, of Jarrod's entirely justifiable wariness, Lily's reluctance and Theo's refusal to listen.  Dom would support him no matter what, and they all knew it.  Theo wouldn't.  Which still left two people to whom he owed the best explanation he could give.

"No," RJ said.  "I don't."

He felt Casey's huff of laughter against his shoulder.  "That's very convincing, thank you," Casey murmured.

"Look, RJ," Lily said, kind as ever but careful.  "We need more than that.  Tell us what happened.  And maybe if Casey wanted to... wait somewhere else?  Just while we're talking?  That would help."

He felt Casey draw in a deep breath, head lifting slowly from his shoulder.  "I'll go," he said, maybe loud enough for them to hear.  "I should anyway.  I can't stay here like this."

"And I can't let you go out there like that," RJ said evenly.  "Tell me you'll be safe."

"No one's ever safe," Casey said.  He leaned over RJ's shoulder to kiss his jaw, then took a step back.  "I know what I can and can't do.  I'll be fine."

RJ turned around, turned his back on the clan, tried to resist the urge to hold on somehow.  "Come back."

Casey smiled, eyes brilliant and light and oddly affectionate.  "Leave the light on if it's safe to come inside," he said.  "See you later."

No one tried to stop him as he went to the front door and let himself out.

RJ wasn't surprised to find three large cats staring at him when he turned around again.  Jarrod's lion was by far the most imposing, and Jarrod's own expression wasn't particularly friendly.  Frowning, arms folded, he had Lily standing beside him with one hand on her hip and an expectant look on her face.  Her cheetah was at her feet.

Theo didn't bother with curiosity.  He was sitting on the counter, fiddling idly with the coffee stirrers while his jaguar draped itself awkwardly over a couple of stools.  Dom was looking at his watch, which made RJ smile.

"I appreciate the fact that you feel the need to look after me," he said quietly.  "I assure you, the feeling is mutual.  I won't allow Casey to compromise your energy or your identities."

"Then what was he doing tonight?" Jarrod asked bluntly.  "Those people weren't looking for him, RJ; they were looking for you.  It's only a matter of time before they figure out you're not the only one."

"That's the risk we take by being here," Dom interrupted.  "Psychic vampires exist, okay?  They're out there.  If we make the only one willing to help us leave, how does that help us?  It's not going to stop the rest of them from coming."

RJ eyed him with some amount of appreciation.  That was a remarkably concise argument.  And it didn't involve any of his strongest points, those being that he would rather have Casey for a short time than have no one for a long time.  And the hint of a turf war never failed to make life more exciting.

"They wouldn't have found us if it wasn't for Casey," Theo was saying.  "And what makes you think he's going to help us?  RJ hasn't been in top form since he showed up, and it looks to me like he's getting worse, not better."

"I think it's safe to say they would have stumbled over me eventually," RJ said, unable to let that go.  "Everyone seems to.  And I'd be happy to demonstrate my form for you any time, Theo.  If you think you can handle it."

"We're not going to fight this one out," Jarrod said firmly.  "If the spirits want to tussle, that's one thing, but the rest of us should be capable of talking about this like adults."

RJ tilted his head, and the night crept in.  Bright and moonlit through the trees, it was nevertheless a reminder and an invitation.  They were as much of the jungle as they were of the human world, and if they wanted to solve this with jungle magic, then he was happy to step up.

He saw Jarrod's gaze flick around the clearing quickly, assessing the environment that had replaced JKP before he caught RJ's eye again.  Lily lifted her gaze in unabashed wonder, smiling up at the stars through the leaves, and even Theo looked grudgingly impressed.  Dom just smiled, tipping an invisible hat in RJ's direction.

"May we tussle now?" RJ asked, very politely.

"RJ," Lily said, studying him under the trees in a way she hadn't in the restaurant.  "Where's Wolf?"

He was caught without anything to say.  He could bring the jungle, but he couldn't make the wolf manifest.  Not now.  Not after Casey had attacked it with a ferocity that threatened the uneasy balance between human and spirit.  He had fallen off on the side the masters had always wanted him to channel better... and now he was stuck there.

"You came to me for training," RJ reminded her at last.  "I don't need the wolf to best you."

Lily glanced at Theo in a way that was possibly neutral.  Theo's return smirk wasn't.  Not in any way.  Which meant that Casey had been right: he did take too much attitude from the clan.  But as it harmed none, he was happy for them to make their own mistakes.  One's own lessons were often the most effective teachers.

This, though.  There was harm in this if he let it continue.

He knocked the jaguar aside without effort; its enthusiastic lunge was a distraction, nothing more.  Lily and Theo were a team that had honed their skills under Jarrod's tutelage long before they'd come to him, but they weren't master level.  Not yet.  With Jarrod's help, he thought they might present something of a challenge--but Jarrod wasn't helping.

He did have to use both hands.  He supposed that was a credit to their effort.  And he used magic against their spirits, because he wasn't foolish enough to take on corporeal jungle cats bare-handed without it.  But Lily and Theo went down with nothing more than a redirection of energy, a step to one side, an easy deflection and a readjustment of balance.

"Would you like to try again?" RJ asked mildly, staring down at them on the jungle floor.  He hoped it felt softer than the JKP floor.  "Perhaps with Jarrod, this time."

Jarrod didn't move, arms still folded, eyeing the scene with a flicker of amusement he didn't acknowledge aloud.  "I'd prefer a discussion," he said.  "I've always known where I stood with you, RJ.  I don't like to think that's changed."

"Why would you think it has?" RJ wanted to know.  He offered a hand to Theo, who, to his surprise, took it with muttered thanks.  "My involvement with Casey doesn't change my commitment to the clan.  It never did.  And it doesn't now."

Lily got to her feet on her own, her cheetah nosing her hand in sympathy as she stood.  "RJ, you told us you'd lie to us to protect him.  You told us you weren't sure what he wanted from us, but you were willing to find out the hard way--and I think you did.  It's just luck that it was you tonight and not one of us."

"Not true," RJ said.  "Casey sent you away on purpose.  He knew they didn't know about you and he didn't want them to find out."

"If he had time to warn Lily," Dom said, "why didn't he say anything to you?"

"It was a note on a napkin," RJ said.  "Not a letter of intent."

"Okay, I didn't actually get the whole story," Jarrod interrupted.  "If someone could fill me in, that would be great."

"They came looking for Casey," RJ said, before anyone else could offer their interpretation.  "I'm guessing they were looking for his food source.  He and Fran were the only ones on the floor when they came in, so he sent her out back with a note for Lily and a message for me: to come out.

"I did, of course," he continued.  "Casey picked the one thing he knew would make me furious and did it, then asked me to forgive him.  Apparently it's some psyvamp way of posturing, of proving your... power.  It made five people who were clearly planning some kind of havoc turn around and walk away, so I'm not complaining."

Theo raised his hand halfway.  "I am."

Lily gave his wrist a gentle slap.  "Shh," she told him.

"What did he do?" Jarrod asked, point-blank.

"Does it matter?" RJ wanted to know.  "I forgave his actions and I appreciate his motivation.  I don't see that it affects the clan one way or the other."

"Yes," Jarrod said.  "It matters to me."

RJ considered that, found it fair, and tried not to sigh.  "He tried to force the wolf spirit to manifest."

Jarrod's expression didn't change.  "How does he know how to do that?"

"I'm afraid I..."  RJ frowned down at the moonlit ground, aware of the restless movement of air and the rustle of leaves.  "I've done it to him.  Twice, now.  He... picks things up quickly."

"Wait, you've done it to him," Lily repeated, "but you haven't shown him how to do it?"

RJ shook his head.  "He picks things up... very quickly?"

Unexpectedly, it was Theo who said, "He does that with everything."  When they all glanced at him, he shrugged.  "He learned to wait tables in an hour.  He learned the cash register by watching me.  And Jarrod says no one ever taught him to close."

"It's possible it has to do with his--"  RJ waved a hand at his head.  "Psychic-ness.  He knows what people expect of him."

"Knowing what people expect and knowing how to do it are different things," Lily pointed out.  "Does it worry anyone else that he can apparently do anything we've done around him?"

"I think we're past the point where caution is a realistic option," Jarrod said bluntly.  "He absorbs energy and information instinctively, automatically.  And, let's face it, he's dating RJ.  There isn't anything about us he hasn't been exposed to."

Theo gave him a skeptical look.  "Maybe you've heard of damage control?"

"Theo, the attitude is unnecessary," Jarrod snapped.  "We have two options: accept that Casey is a risk and trust him until he betrays us, or cut him out of clan life and lose any control we might have had over him."

Jarrod would vote with Dom, then.  Which meant, given that Theo wouldn't budge, Lily was the only one he still had to convince.  And she had liked Casey until he told her--

"He does listen to me," RJ said quietly.  "When I told you that you couldn't trust me around him, I was angry.  I thought he..."

He hesitated, but they all knew already.  "I saw you," he told Jarrod.  "I mean, I... saw him, with you.  That day, out back, behind the kitchen."  He glanced at Theo.  "That was when I told Lily about Casey.

"And no," he added, looking at Lily, "I didn't trust myself then.  I could see--Jarrod and I, fighting.  Over him.  The clan splintering."

"I would never--" Jarrod began, and RJ interrupted.

"I know," he said.  "I would have, though.  That was enough."

They were quiet for a moment, only the sound of insects and quiet cat paws as the jaguar circled, restless.  RJ supposed he had just changed the way they saw him, inevitably and probably for the worse.  But it was certainly more important for them to know the truth than it was for him to appear in any particular way to them.

"He asked if it was all right with me," he said at last.  "Afterwards.  He... when you left, Lily, he came into the kitchen.  To... ask my permission, I suppose.  In an odd way.  I wouldn't give it."

"Wait," Jarrod said.  "Your permission for what?"

RJ waved wordlessly in his direction.

"To date me?" Jarrod demanded.

He was pretty sure the phrase Casey used had been "pick him up," but.  "Effectively, yes," RJ admitted.  "It wasn't something I was willing to consider, I'm afraid.  I didn't expect him to simply... give up.  Just because I told him to."

There was a moment of silence, and finally Jarrod said, "He did, though."

"Yes," RJ agreed quietly.  "He did."

"Great," Theo remarked.  "He figured he could get more from RJ than he could from Jarrod.  That doesn't make him trustworthy; it makes him not stupid."

RJ couldn't help smiling.  "I think that's a fair description of Casey," he admitted.  "And given that, I believe he knows it's in his best interest to... stay on our good side, so to speak."

"What about you?" Lily wanted to know.  "Would you rather be on his good side, or ours?"

"Lily."  Jarrod sounded irritable tonight.  "Deliberate provocation isn't a positive character trait.  Maybe you could phrase that in a slightly less confrontational way."

"Sure," she agreed readily.  "Who do like better, RJ?  Him or us?"

Jarrod caught RJ's eye with a long-suffering look.  "Obviously you don't have to answer that."

Amused yet again by their insouciance, RJ remarked, "It's a relatively easy question.  I like you better, and I don't know why you'd think otherwise.  But I love him.  That... changes the way I express my affection for you, sometimes."

"And that," Dom said, from where he was leaning against one of the trees like he was just waiting for them to finish, "is why I think we should keep Casey around.  Because when was the last time you heard RJ sound like that?"

RJ blinked.  "Like what?"

"Like that," Dom said, nodding in his direction.  In a way that was less than helpful.  Oddly, though, no one else asked for clarification, so RJ let it go.

"Oh, all right," Lily said in a tone that was just short of a sigh.  "I'm not going to tell anyone I don't trust the fact that they're in love.  Even if it is with a vampire."

"Vote," Jarrod said simply.  "Keep Casey, or throw him out?"

This time Lily did sigh.  "Keep."

"Keep," Dom echoed.

"Throw him out," Theo said, making no apology for it.

"Keep," Jarrod muttered, glancing back at him.  "But RJ... don't keep this stuff to yourself.  Tell us if you need help.  That's what we're here for."

RJ hesitated, but it was a fair request.  And it was one they'd been entitled to make for months now.  "Understood," he said.  "I... need help."

Jarrod raised his eyebrows.

"In his effort to make the wolf manifest," RJ said carefully, "Casey unbalanced my spirit.  I'm afraid the wolf is..."

"Trapped?" Theo suggested.

"Yes," Jarrod remarked.  "We know."

Lily looked indignant.  "I didn't!  Where was I when the memo went around?"

"You think his eyes always look like that?" Theo inquired.

Lily squinted at him, then shrugged.  "First off, it's dark, and second, it's RJ.  Maybe he has purple contacts.  How am I supposed to know?"

"Didn't the masters tell you to work with your human side more?" Dom asked.  He hadn't moved from his position against the tree.  "Maybe this is your chance."

"I think that's a bad precedent to set," Jarrod interrupted.  "He asked for help."

Dom considered that for a heartbeat, then straightened.  "Good point."

It was unnerving to hear them talk about him like they were the ones making decisions.  Still, he supposed, that was the whole point of having a clan.  If he hadn't gotten used to it by now--and he definitely hadn't--maybe it was time to start.

Lily might have been the last to know, but she was the first one at his side.  And Theo, for all his dislike of Casey, was right behind her.  They pressed up against him, Lily's hand sliding into his, and Jarrod slung an arm over her shoulder and RJ's as he joined them.  Dom stopped, half a step away, searching his expression as if to ask forgiveness.

He had it, RJ thought, and Dom must have seen that because he smiled.  "You know I love you, man."  He closed the distance, leaning into RJ, sliding an arm under RJ and Lily's clasped hands and pulling Theo closer on the other side.

It was a fundamentally cat-like way of reassuring broken animal spirits, but RJ had seen them do it before.  And sure enough... the wolf came slinking out, of its own volition, as though it had never been gone.  It was easy enough to make RJ wonder where he went wrong, sometimes.  If they, as students, could make things happen with a hug, why couldn't he will them to occur?

"That's the power of asking," Jarrod rumbled, close and quiet and very kind.  "Welcome back, Wolf."

"Thank you," RJ murmured.  "All of you."

Theo didn't answer, but he felt Lily squeeze his hand.  Then Dom said, "Fran's gonna kill us," and Lily giggled a little.  Jarrod's grip loosened, patting his shoulder once.  Theo pulled away.

The wolf was sitting there, in the middle of the clearing, cats twining around it as the little group broke up and the jungle began to fade.