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]

"Hey, Gray." It sounded like Arden at least: faint, exhausted, and raw like she'd spent a lot more time than was good for her screaming, but like her. "Please don't ruin his afterglow? I feel like roadkill already." She chuckled softly, but it turned into coughing a second later.

[napking]

"Arden?" Gray asked, frowning at the phone. "What's wrong? Are you sick?"

[afraid_of_marshmallows]

"Uhhh...sorta?" She sighed. "Okay, so don't be mad? But Callista was here on Friday. I'm recovering."

Sure, Arden, that would work.

[napking]

"Callista?" Gray repeated. Had that name come up when Arden was telling him about her murderhappy home universe? Was she one of those elfwatch people? Wait, no, that was definitely not the right word. He didn't need to remember details to glean from context clues, "Callista is someone you need to recover from for two days?"

Hey, was Callista still on the island, or...? Asking for a friend.

[afraid_of_marshmallows]

Please, like Callista had lived this long and accrued this much power by hanging around full of pissed off powerful people.

A long silence before she admitted, "I'll be down a lot longer than that."

But let's just zoom right past that and to why she called! "But anyway, I was hoping that you'd message your brothers and pass along my apologies that I didn't get a chance to say goodbye? I mean, it's okay if they didn't notice or whatever, but I just don't want them to think I was rude."

[napking]

Callista was a coward, check. Adding it to the dossier.

"Okay, so you're hurt real bad," Gray translated. "Are you at the clinic?" Please say you're at the clinic. "No one's mad at you. In fact now we're all real worried about you." And he meant that, because of the whole telepathy thing!

Okay, one of them was a little too far away for him to get a read on beyond 'basking in afterglow,' but he was sure that if Daman had been close enough to get what the others were getting from Gray, he would have been worried, too.

[afraid_of_marshmallows]

One hundred percent absolutely. Please show her on the chart where being brave led to survival.

"Gray, you know I can't go to the clinic," she said. "I haven't been to the doctor in years. Usually my healing is enough but it's a little busted right now. When it's better, I'll be better."

Assuming they got the residual poison out in time but Gray was already worried enough.

"Healing human slow, can you believe it?" she asked, trying to laugh and make a joke of it. "Embarrassing, right?"

Her expression would never sell it in person, but maybe over the phone it would work.

[napking]

Were they talking about the same clinic? The one where most medical care seemed to be provided by a crab?

Gray said a very bad curse word in a dead language, because if Arden had been at the clinic, she could have had five Nephilim to help heal her! One night only offer! Alone, Gray or Raiden couldn't do much, but in combination with their brothers they probably could have really gotten somewhere. But Gray had told his brothers enough of his concerns about how the town had gotten its boarding house that Alastair wouldn't let him go in there even if Gray himself hadn't been extremely concerned the house would find a deadly sin that slept most of the time too tasty to pass up even now that it was reformed or whatever.

He never got much off Alastair, but something Gray had thought caused some shift in his mind, something like an idea. Something like...hope? But Alastair didn't say anything, so he didn't think it was related to Arden.

Wait. "Do you need rescuing from somewhere?" he asked hopefully. Did he think Arden would call to apologize for not being around to say bye when she needed rescuing? Honestly, kinda.

[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."