Voicemail!

[napking]

"Hey, you've reached Gray, I'm...probably asleep right now. Leave a message and I'll get back to you when I can."

*BEEP*

Comments

[afraid_of_marshmallows]

She also didn't want to receive medical care from a crab! Or the alien who only knew how to escort the dying over the threshold. SHE DIDN'T WANNA BE ESCORTED, GRAY!

"No?" Arden said, sounding confused. "I'm on the roof."

[napking]

DON'T GO INTO THE LIGHT, ARDEN.

"The roof?" Gray asked, and then remembered, "Oh, right, air...stuff...fresh air! Fresh air is good for everybody." Even people who were totally humans.

[afraid_of_marshmallows]

Especially people who were totally human.

"Yeah," she said. And then, "Everybody knows. At least in Midnight. I, uh. Nearly made a tornado in the house, I guess."

[napking]

"And how did--how did the house feel about that?" Gray. Not the point here. "Don't--I don't really care about the house's feelings." File it under: sentences not even he ever imagined himself saying. And yes, he knew that Arden probably cared about the house's feelings, but whatever. "The important thing is you, okay?"

[afraid_of_marshmallows]

Of course Arden cared about Midnight's feelings! It was a very good house.

"I meant that people...people saw. And even if we could convince people to believe that the whole digging the nails out of my arm thing could happen to anybody, I don't think they'll buy that. So, yeah. My whole house knows I'm not normal."

Because she'd been so super-good at hiding it.

"I'm not okay. Not really. Not on a bunch of levels."

[napking]

"There were nails in your--hang on." Gray was silent for a moment, listening to something, even though no murmuring or anything of the like was audible on the phone. "Al's coming over there. And duh, of course you're not okay."

[afraid_of_marshmallows]

"Alastair?" Arden squeaked. "Why? I'm really safe here, I promise!"

[napking]

Gray kept any doubts he had about that, considering she'd somehow ended up with nails in her arm, to himself. "He can help," he told her instead. "Nephilim have a little bit of healing ability."

Actually just him and his brothers, but fun story, they were so isolated from most Nephilim due to bullshit celestial politics that they didn't know that.

[afraid_of_marshmallows]

That hadn't happened in Midnight, it had happened in the junkyard! Super-different.

"Oh. I didn't know that." Because you weren't a Nephilim specialist, Arden. "He won't mind you asking?"

Also, real quick, was that isolation Laz's fault? Asking for a friend.

[napking]

"I didn't ask," Gray told her. "He's just going."

No, actually! Lazarus was for once completely blameless.

I know, I'm shocked, too.

[afraid_of_marshmallows]

Lazarus was...what? That doesn't seem right.

"...Oh," Arden said again. This time she sounded absolutely flummoxed. "You and your brothers are all...very, very good people."

She just had to sit with this for a few seconds.

"I don't know how to handle this all sometimes. People being good like this." To her. "I never learned."

[napking]

I know, it sounds fake, but it's weirdly true. This one time.

"We do our best...and that's all right," Gray told her gently. "You can learn! I'm way older than you, and I learn new stuff all the time."

[afraid_of_marshmallows]

Maybe he could learn that his pickup lines were bad.

"I know, I just...flail around a lot right now, trying to figure out how to handle it. I think...oh, I think I see your brother." Arden was going to very properly look down at the blanket so she didn't end up checking out Alastair's chest when he got close enough.

GRAY AND HIS BROTHERS WERE HOT DON'T BLAME HER, OKAY?

"I'll let you go? Sorry for calling--" like a monster "--but thanks."