hollow

Plump lips (who the hell needed them that big?) pursed, then curved in a smile sour enough to hopefully turn the son of a bitch away. That was what happened with those frogs in South America, wasn’t it? Made themselves taste as bad as possible so they’d get spit out and the fool thing that had tried to take a nibble in the first place regretted enough that they wouldn’t try it again. In those clunky feminine shoes (the ones that made his neighbour look like a damn prisoner officer - more like a prison officer), Mitch clomped onto the elevator. He puffed out a breath as the sleazebag in the expensive suit half turned to glance at him.

Piggish brown eyes (a stark contrast to the lips) fixed on the flashing numbers above the door and refused to budge. The guy shifted, his coat flapping open to reveal the cheap paisley polyester lining as he dipped a hand into his inside pocket to grab his phone. Did he know their dirty little secret? Junior and Senior had told him to keep his fucking mouth shut about it all, but he wouldn’t put it past his dad to have a slimy asshole cleaning up his messes for him. Someone had to make sure that reputation was spotless after all.

For years it had been Andrew Wiesner – the weasel, as he’d called him as a kid – handling it. Wiesner had been old money, the sort of man who’d probably approved of Junior’s extracurriculars – it was for the sake of his marriage, not to the detriment of it. Wiesner had retired just as he’d pulled the ripcord and had left the job Junior had so carefully set up for him. Supposedly it was to spend more time with his wife, but Mitch had wondered if it was something far more than that.

Paisley was his successor – or so he’d sold himself over the phone last night. In town on some unspecified errand for his father – ’you know, all that political glad-handing'. It had taken nearly ten minutes for the invite to arrive, ten seconds for the no thanks. He’d resisted the childish urge to tell the guy (what the fuck had his name been? Aramis? Porthos? Edourde, that was it, slick and pretentious mwith that hint of a Quebecois accent) to go fuck himself. Maybe if he had the message would’ve been received a little louder nad a little clearer.

The footsteps had continued behind him as he’d slithered past him with a squeaked ”afternoon” on his part. When he’d slammed out into the lot there been a driver waiting there with the town car. He had a radio in his hand and a pinched look on his face, but there’d definitely been a look in his direction. Not daring to get into his own car and drive away, he’d walked instead, head held up, those solid heels hammering on the sidewalk until he was out of sight. For the next couple of hours he’d played hide and seek with the assholes around town. Almost sure that they knew, he’d changed his appearance twice more. Each time worse than the last, as though muscles were tiring of it the same way his patience was.

By six he was sure they were gone. He hadn’t seen the car in an hour, but that didn’t mean anything when you spent your life dodging your political opponents. Mitch worked his way back up the stairs, now a short hispanic man instead of the stolid Greek woman he’d left as. He slipped into his building, meaning to hole up in his apartment, lights out, like a rat skulking in the dark. Paisley was there though, talking to his neighbour and was already glancing up as he heard the door open. Mitch backed up, cursing as he slammed out into the parking lot, his keys clutched tight in his hand.

Don’t! The word snapped sharp as a bullet through his mind. A warning he couldn’t listen to. He’d never found out if there was a limit to how many times he could shift in a single day, although there were times he’d pushed the envelope and been swallowed up by a hangover that had lasted days and left him practically fucking useless. In the shadow of the building, he pushed the thought aside and shifted again. This time it was like he was ripping himself out of that other form, his body straining, his heart feeling like it shuddered to a stop for a moment before it all kicked back in and he was laying sprawled in that dark, a teenager’s body, reed thin and pale (not surprising, if he’d gone for big again his heart might just have exploded in his chest.

The car was gone by the time he staggered upright. He stayed out there for another couple of hours before he dragged himself inside, almost literally. A handful of shifts in a single day had hollowed him out. Even if he wanted to become himself again, Mitch wasn’t sure he’d make it. He crawled into the shower, washed the effort of it all off himself and then sank down on the tile and fucking slept there. Waking stiff and cold at dawn had been the cherry on top of the fucking pie.

It took a while to work himself up to it, to turn back. Oh, it still hurt, but it was that good sort of ache, like muscles that had been worked just a little too hard. A run was well beyond him, he needed to get out of the apartment though. In case. As the giant ginger asshole (well, that was only a hair off of being just him) he strolled out of the apartment. His car stayed in the lot, a fuck you to his dad’s ass licker if he did come around, but Mitch angled off into the woods. No poutine munching mofos chasing him, no need to shove his body through the meat grinder again, just that late summer sun prickling the back of his neck, the trees, and a road that woulda led him out of town if he wanted to just keep going.

Maybe he should’ve guessed that he was following that line that was tied to the most delicate part of him. Mitch huffed a breath out through his nose as he saw her out on the bridge he would’ve skirted otherwise. That tiny form hunched at the rail, like the answers to the universe were contained in the dark waters she was staring down at mournfully. A modern day Ophelia – not that he could imagine Lucky actually wading out there. It was more like fuck you with that one than woe is me. Was he in the mood to have what was left of his skin after yesterday ripped off with her tongue? You fucking betcha.

Mitch strolled up slow, his gaze ticking back every few dozen yards. It’d be just about his luck that Edourde showed his botoxed face again now. The scuff of his size twelves not dragging her out of the – when the fuck did she get melancholy about anything? - coma she was obviously in. He could practically have reached out and touched her when she looked up, dark brows puckering for just a moment before she reached out like he was a ghost – softer than she had at any point before. This wasn’t a woman given to tender touches.

”Oh, don’t you fucking start,” Mitch hissed out in a sigh. Did he look that bad? He hadn’t bother looking in the mirror before he’d left, knowing it’d be state anyway. She didn’t - for a second – but then she was shoving him back. Her frown of a moment ago was returned with a scowl as he rocked back and snatched for her wrists. He could practically see the swing that mighta been coming next. ”I don’t know what the fuck you’re talkin’ about. Me, die? Did something honestly crack in here this time?” He drew up one of the hands he was holding shackled, tapped it against the side of her own head while his stomach dropped towards those boots. Died. Well, he almost fucking had, hadn’t he? Pushing himself to the brink for the sake of avoiding another lecture. ”It was a night, alright. I don’t need you ripping my balls off about it. Keep these to yourself, hmm?” And stop employing that psychic streak that always felt like it was just the wrong side of the bullshit line. He swallowed hard, his adam’s apple bobbing just beneath the scruff of his beard as he pulled her in towards him.

Tagged: LUCKY CHRISTMAS * Word Count: 1450

With his old man rarely leaving his little kingdom in Alberta, it was easy to forget just how hard he could push, just how many lines he’d manipulate his way over. Sending some toadie in his place with invitations to meet was one thing, not taking no for an answer and practically having heavies battering down his door to make it happen were another. If Jnr’s plan was to wear him down, to force him into it when he was too exhausted to fight anymore, then he might just have managed it. Maybe he’d finally learned what a war of attrition was and how to win it.

Mitch squared his shoulders against the swing that was gonna come one way or another. Maybe Jnr ought to have taken lessons from Lucky instead. So far he hadn’t managed to do much more than hold his own against her, any thought that he’d come out on top when she’d been the one to chicken out first just a delusion that he wouldn’t admit to her. Today, weakened as he was by a day of playing hide and go fucking seek with the slimy assholes who believed they were doing the world a favour by going into politics, she could’ve dropped him to his knees with one tiny fist.

Hazel eyes narrowed at her, ticking away from her eyes to the shadows beneath and the even paler than usual skin – was it possible to end up transparent in the end? If it was she, of all people, could probably get close to it. His brows knitting together, his scowl snapping fully into place as he’d grabbed for her to ward off the swing that might’ve come after that shove, the one that might’ve dropped him.

Using his grip on her, he’d pulled her close. She couldn’t get a knee up towards his balls for putting his hands on her and scoffing at the insanity (alright, maybe not so fucking crazy, but she didn’t know that). She wouldn’t stand still for it of course. ”Fucking felt what? Hung over? Pissed at me like everybody fucking else? Join the line.” She certainly looked like she’d had a night as rough as his, but he wasn’t getting the wash of booze off of her that would’ve left him believing she was still drunk along with … wait, was she crying? He’d seen her angry, frustrated, smug, satisfied (although she’d probably have scoffed at that idea), but never with her eyes glittering.

He kept his grip, his palms suddenly feeling clammy. She’d known things before and he’d called her psychic for it. This was more than just picking up on the cues he must’ve been radiating like laser beams though. Mitch felt the burn in his muscles again, the expansion and contraction of his skin as though each pore, each cell, was rearranging itself. The sick feeling that had preceded every one of those changes. He pressed his lips together as she whimpered, trying not to let those echoes roll over his body again, maybe forcing a change he had no fucking intention of going through today.

”What did you drink last night?” he croaked, letting go of her as a shudder ran through him. His biceps twitched, that sick feeling rolling up on him again. ”I wasn’t scared. I don’t know what you think was going on, but it wasn’t anything. You’re delusional.” But she looked like he had when he’d looked in the mirror this morning didn’t she? Like she’d come off of an almighty bender and was gonna spend the next handful of days getting over it (as though he’d ever been that hungover in his life).

Letting go of her with one hand, Mitch dragged a hand over his face, almost stunned by the feel of his own features beneath his palm instead of somebody else’s. ”My father sent his people to pay me a visit yesterday. Just for a little talk, probably to try and force me into throwing my hat into the ring for some political seat back home again instead of trashing every fucking one of them in print. Disgust isn’t fear.” But it’d been more than that, hadn’t it? That uncertainty if the chase would ever end, or if he’d tear himself apart in trying to get the fuck away from them. Like a kid sure he could outrun a stranger, he’d been an idiot and she’d … ”You look fucking awful,” he muttered as his hand dropped away. Like him. The thought had already swung through his mind, but now it was settling in, raking claws at his flesh and brain in one go. Frowning, he wrapped his free hand around his other forearm, nails digging into his flesh in a way that had him biting back a hiss. Were they things out there that could read your body as easy as they did your mind? If so why the fuck hadn’t he noticed before, when he’d been tossing her around his kitchen, digging his knees into the dirt as he’d hovered over her out in the woods.

Tagged: LUCKY CHRISTMAS * Word Count: 850

He’d have scoffed at her demand but in his state it probably would’ve just finished him off and choked him. And she wasn’t just being a bitch and pushing him for the sake of busting his balls. There was a strain to her voice, to her body that wasn’t all that fucking difference to his, like it was the pair of them strung tight, fraying rapidly at the edges, instead of just him.

It was no good telling himself he’d been through worse – getting shot at, feeling bullets strike close enough that it might just have been a single breath that had shifted you enough for it to miss – but last night had been brutal in a way he couldn’t explain to her. Mitch let his gaze flick to her as he mentioned the word father, knowing what was gonna come and look at her, never fucking disappointing him.

”That’s it,” he growled out between gritted teeth. The tears were building in her eyes, her lips had been clamped together like she was the one about to puke over that railing. Like she had a fucking clue what had ever really gone on with Jnr. Oh, she thought she knew, that superior feeling rattling around in her, spewing out in the vicious little jabs she’d learned early on that he’d respond to. ”We could always swap places if you wanna get a taste of my old man for yourself.” That ability only ran one way though and he was the one cursed by the whole fucking thing, not only tasting the consequences of his own behaviour, but Snr’s too, all of it bitter enough that he was having to swallow it back hard now.

His lips were pressed together hard now, but not in the same way hers had been. He was biting back the truth just as hard as he was the nausea. Every time they’d met she’d been determined to pick away at his weaknesses like a kid unable to leave a scabbed knee alone. This was no different, but it wasn’t just about proving that he was no chicken now. He’d tossed aside everything else Jnr and Snr had ever told him, but you didn’t go telling every mouthy asshole your secret. It didn’t matter that they tried to convince you that they already knew it, that they felt every fucking second of it happening to you.

Curling his lip at her, he sneered as she shook his head, denying more than just his fear. ”You’re right. I stayed the fuck away from them, because that’s one conversation I don’t wanna fucking have … just like this one.” His heart fluttered in his chest at the thought of having to do it again. They weren’t gonna see this as a final no, they’d just keep coming and who knew how many changes he’d have to suffer through the next time just to avoid what Jnr would see as his inevitable shift from dicking around with his little rebellion to taking his place on the throne. Each change coming harder than the last, the pain feeling like it would end him as he forced it through his body. It was no wonder he felt wrung out this morning, seeing echoes of how shitty this shifting hangover was in her.

She got huffy the minute he let go, bitching at him for how bad she felt. The snort rolled out, freezing in his throat as she didn’t just jab at him about how weak he was. For someone so lacking in physical size, it was a wonder she had a mouth that could feel like a fucking sledgehammer to the gut. His brows furrowed, his gaze locking on her. There was no fucking way she’d gone through every second of that with him. It wasn’t the way this thing worked, but she did look like shit.

And so did he.

The bite of his nails was only a momentary pain, like stubbing his toe on a doorframe or the quick sting of a razor scraped sloppily over his jaw (when he went through the bother of cleaning up), but that quick bite of pain had her hissing just as loud as him.

”Fuck me.” The words slid out on a growl, any follow up snapped away as she smacked his hand to stop him. His fingers were around her wrist the minute she bared her arm, dragging it up to get a better look at it. The marks on his arm were already fading, but they were still bright on her skin as he smoothed his thumb over one of them. ”You’re not the only fucking one. You already figured it out, didn’t you? You said it yourself, you can’t change your face, but I can. It doesn’t take a genius to make shapeshifter out of that, but what about you? Psychic? Witch? What the fuck did you do to me?” It wasn’t him alone that had caused this. If tethering someone’s body to yours was that fucking easy Jnr would’ve done it years ago, using it to get the sort of kicks that sickened him just at the thought of them.

Tagged: LUCKY CHRISTMAS * Word Count: 863