Chapter Text
December 12, 2025
The Nine Hells
Nicholas Foster was faintly aware that somewhere on his bed his phone was buzzing with a notification, but every scrap of his focus was locked in his current playthrough of Slay the Spire.
It was late in the afternoon, and the last few beams of hellish orange-red sunlight seeping through Nick’s half-curtained window were the only light source besides a dim lamp. Fake snow was sprayed on the glass of the window, vaguely shaped like a horned angelic being.
It was only one of many signs that the winter holidays were near. Decorations were mandatory on Lucifer’s orders, but Nick had been a bit lackluster with the holly and ornaments this year. Not like anyone was gonna check.
On paper, every day was Christmas in the spiraling plane of eternal torture that was the Nine Hells. Yet the partying got considerably rowdier and intenser when people on the Material Plane had put the Halloween costumes away and switched them out for Santa hats and candy canes. As the common saying went, “when you hear Mariah Carey, shit’s about to get scary”.
This was evident from the sounds of the streets. Outside, amidst random fires that smelled like rotten eggs, a small flock of demons was drunkenly caroling. Their off-key singing was accompanied by what sounded like a guitar and a poorly-played glockenspiel. The words were slurred as they stumbled out of the demons' mouths, but Nick knew the lyrics of the carol well enough to absent-mindedly hum along as he accumulated damage to pummel down this act’s boss.
Hark! The hellish demons shriek
“Revel in the Christmas week
Blood and sin and that’s the start
Gods and saints all flayed apart”
Joyful all the layers rise
Bring the chaos to the skies
Rock and roll gives the applause
Satan too loves Santa Claus
Hark! The hellish demons shriek
“Revel in the Christmas week”
Some of the demons continued to mumble through the rest of the carol, while others started screaming their singing was dramatically off-key. The unmistakable sounds of a rough-and-tumble fistfight followed.
Nick tried to tune their yelling out, but his desktop volume could only go so high. He paused his game and pushed himself off his desk, his chair smoothly rolling over towards the window.
“Hey guys!” he yelled, leaning out of the window as far as he could without toppling over. “I’ll give you a dollar if you shut the fuck up and get out of this street.”
It took the drunken louts a moment before they found the originator of the offer. Most of them were already flipping him off, but hazy recognition flickered on their twisted faces when they noticed him three stories up.
“Lil’ Nicky!” one of the demons enthused.
“Go ‘n shove that foreign money up y’r ass,” another said, wobbling on his cloven hooves. The one who had recognized Nick shushed him with an effective jab of the elbow to the side.
“Shut the fuck up, Lloyd. That’s Close’s boy. He’s good for it.” He craned his head and turned back to Nick. “Er, how much is that?”
Most people knew him either as the Close kid, the Foster kid, or Crazy Dee’s grandson. The first and the latter usually worked in his favor. With Jodie it was kinda fifty-fifty, depending on the individual demon.
“Same conversion,” he lied easily. “One gold. Just ask Glenn!”
“We got a deal, bro!” the demon said, sticking up two thumbs.
Nick held back a snicker as he plopped back in his chair. He took a crumpled dollar bill out of his wallet and folded it into a sleek, aerodynamic airplane. It zoomed elegantly through the hot air and harmlessly crashed against a devil’s exposed pecs. The group all gathered to look at Washington’s countenance. Every single one of them seemed confused, but none of them were bold enough to admit to it.
“Merry Christmas, Nicky!” the one who had agreed to the deal waved at him. Upholding their pact, they grabbed their instruments and cleared the streets.
“Yeah, yeah,” he mumbled, waiting for them to fully leave. His opposite neighbor, Lady Krazinthia, peeked through her curtains and noticed him dangling his feet over the windowsill, sitting like a gargoyle. She narrowed her bloodshot eyes at him – suspicious hag, she was – and jerked her head in a stiff nod. Nick flashed his most charming lopsided smile and gave a little two-fingered salute.
Krazinthia had an elderly hellhound who didn’t deal well with loud noises. As soon as those hooligans had started screaming bloody murder in the streets, he’d picked up on its soft, whining howls.
When his neighbor had snarled in distaste at his kindness and disappeared behind her crimson curtains once more, Nick slammed the window shut and plopped back into his chair.
Before rolling back to his desk, he took a detour to his bed, grabbing his phone to see if Terry had finally come up with a comeback to Nick’s hilarious ‘yo mamma’ joke, or if he had admitted defeat.
It wasn’t Terry, though. Instead, Nick found himself staring at his screen until his eyeballs started to feel dry.
>From Lark:
can you come over? I need a hand with a project.
Nick rapidly blinked to get rid of the pinpricks in his eyes, and let his thumbs hover over his keyboard.
A text from Lark wasn’t anything out of the ordinary. Even though most of the messages in their history came from Nick’s side, mostly memes and reminders of show recommendations he’d mentioned during some of their hangouts, Lark always made the time to respond and crack jokes back at him. Their friendship had remained stable since their shared summer two years ago, for which Nick was grateful. Not everyone got along with Lark as easily these days.
Lark usually wasn’t one to initiate things, though. Nick was the self-described idea guy, a job he happily fulfilled. So his curiosity was sufficiently piqued.
>From Nick:
For sure dude np!!! where you wanna meet?
He scanned the text twice before he sent it. Three exclamation points wasn’t excessive, right?
He promptly mentally scolded that insecure part of himself for worrying about bullshit like punctuation or coming across as anything other than the way he felt. Not his style.
>From Lark:
I’ll send you the location
>From Lark:
I’m on my way now, be there in 20
True to his word, Lark sent a string of coordinates, instead of dropping the spot with Google Maps or giving him the address like any normal person would. Nick quickly looked the coordinates up and turned on Street View to get a good picture of the surroundings for teleportation purposes.
“DAD!” he yelled at the top of his lungs. “I’m going out!”
“First help me with the lights!” came his father’s protest from the living room.
Nick groaned loudly, mostly for show, and saved his game progress. Poking his head around the door, he was met with a sight he immediately captured on his camera to later show Glenn.
Jodie Foster was surrounded by an enormous rat nest of dark green and gray cables of colorful Christmas lights, sprawled all over the floor. He was trying to unravel the mess, but in the process his arms and wings had gotten tangled up as well. He turned to his son with a look of utter defeat.
“What happened to your ‘Boy Scout ingenuity’, dad?” Nick smirked.
“For some reason they never taught us how to untie the knots. Probably because it would drive us to insanity.” Seeing that his pout failed to move his son, Jodie lowered his head and sighed. “Now get me a knife to release either me or these lights from this suffering.”
“No need to get ahead of ourselves.” Nick lifted his dad’s arm and began to tug the rubber-coated strings. Once his dad had been liberated, they sat opposite of each other on the floor, both criss-cross applesauce, and explored the raggedy ball in search of one of the ends, loosening knots and twists as they went. Nick kept one eye on the clock the whole time.
“Great job, Nicky,” Jodie said when the task was done. About forty feet of Christmas lights took its full space in the room. “Just got… sixteen more boxes of decorations to go.” He pinched the bridge of his nose with the kind of exasperated exhaustion only the hell holiday stress could bring out in him.
Nick gave his dad a comforting pat on the shoulder.
“I do wish we could chat longer,” he said, doing his best Anthony Hopkins impression, “but I'm having an old friend for dinner.”
Jodie blew a raspberry at him. “Five out of ten. Not your best voice.” He painstakingly wriggled a set of AA batteries into the see-through plastic case and flicked the row of cheap lights on and off. “You’re going to Terry, I take it?”
“Lark.”
Jodie wasn’t as subtle as he thought he was. At the mention of that name, there was a faint angle to the dark eyebrows he’d long since worn thin with worry and the left corner of his mouth drooped ever so slightly. All of it gone within a blink, of course. “Right. Well, have fun kiddo. Oh, and if you run into his parents, tell them we’re gonna miss them at the party, and wish them happy holidays.”
“Will do!”
He’d help his dad out some more when he got back. First, Earth.
With practiced ease that had gotten a lot of time to perfect, Nick imagined the streets of San Dimas and dragged the nail of his index finger over the air in front of him like one would cut through the tape of a box. A little rip into the fabric of interplanar space was created, looking almost like a narrow blooming flower. Fire broiled around the edges of it, expanding until the tear was a flickering flame as tall as Nick. In one swoop motion, he jumped through.
Going from hell to Earth was a bit of a shock these days. The glaring lack of a sun meant that California winters were actually chilly, for a change. Even though a Hallmark movie-type of white Christmas was probably not in the cards for them, a crispy layer of frost coated the small patches of grass next to the sidewalk and Nick’s breath blossomed into a baby cloud that disappeared before he could study it too hard.
Nick shivered as he drew his biker jacket tighter, cursing the fact that he always forgot to bring a scarf when hopping between planes. The fifty percent of infernal genetic material in his DNA regulated a much-appreciated cooling system for when he was hanging around in the sweltering heat of hell, but it also meant that when the temperature dropped below sixty he felt like a walking popsicle.
The coordinates Lark had sent him led him around the back of a run-down strip mall. Most of the shops here hadn’t survived the retail apocalypse and were permanently closed down. The only two places that were still open were a greasy 7-11 and an Italian restaurant that was almost definitely a front. Packed between those two was a car repair shop with rolled-down shutters on which someone had spray painted ‘CLOSED FOR BUISNESS’. Bricky Mickey’s Automotive Garage, a hanging sign above the shut entrance once read. Or that was Nick’s best guess, at least. Most of the letters were faded beyond recognition, and he was just using context clues to paint the picture.
Lark had many haunts he preferred over his parental home, all of them equally shitty. This one definitely fitted the bill.
Ten minutes passed. Nick was just about to pull out his phone once more to check if he got the location right, when a figure in a dark green coat and a gray scarf obscuring half his face strolled his way.
Puberty had been unfairly generous to Lark Oak.
At some point in the last two years he’d grown taller than Nick, which was just a cruel joke on the universe’s part. His shoulders had broadened but still retained a leanness reminiscent of an athlete. His hair was long and wild, twisted into a messy knot on the lower back of his head that did little to help contain the bronze strands. His resting expression was what Nick liked to call “handsomely broody”, which made the teen appear more grave and serious than Nick knew he was.
One of his hands was buried deep in his pockets, the other was not visible at all. The sleeve of that arm hung limply to his side like a deflated balloon.
Nick raised one hand to wave at Lark, then quickly tucked it under his armpit again in his fruitless attempt of keeping himself warm. It was probably useless to hope this creepy garage had a space heater.
“Yo, dude, what’s up with the arm?” he said in lieu of a greeting when Lark had approached. “Picked a fight with the wrong guy?”
“Something like that,” he said vaguely, which was good-humored Lark-talk for ‘none of your business’.
“Broken?”
“Just bruised. It barely bothers me, but Mother insisted on putting it in a sling.”
Picking up on the vibe that Lark wasn’t especially interested in a discussion about his injury, Nick clicked his tongue and jerked his head at the garage.
“So. This place is new.”
“Yup,” Lark said conversationally as he got a key and clumsily stabbed it into a fist-sized padlock attached with a thick chain to the industrial roller shutters. Nick danced behind him on the balls of his feet.
“What, were you looking for another haunt ‘cause the last one didn’t scream ‘serial killer hideout’ enough?”
Lark exhaled hard through his nose; Nick thought he’d deserved a sensible chuckle, at least. “This one was free. Gift horses, and all that.”
“Your horse looks like it’s full of cocaine.”
“You’re just picky.”
“Picky, but not judgy. If you need me to bury some of the bodies you’ve got stashed away in there, I’m in.”
Lark paused his one-handed struggle with the lock and considered that, his head at a tiny angle. One corner of his mouth twitched upwards. “Good to know,” he said with a hint of appreciation. “But not this time.”
“Raincheck,” Nick grinned. “You need help with that…?”
“I can manage.” Proving his point, the padlock sprung open and Lark pulled off the chain. With the screeching sound of rusty metal against even rustier metal, he pushed the shutter up.
They stepped inside. It wasn’t as though Nick had been expecting a garage like Dominic Toretto’s, but his brows still arched up when he saw just how decrepit and barebones this place was.
Paint was flaking off the walks and Nick caught more than one corner housing a spider. As for materials and furniture, it was mostly picked clean. All equipment had either been uninstalled when the previous owner abandoned the lot, or was thoroughly looted by creatively entrepreneurial spirits. The last thing that most likely used to belong to the old repair shop was a hulking cast-iron workbench freckled with yellow-brownish spots of corrosion, supporting a vice that had probably always done its intended purpose, but Nick had seen too many movies and his mind immediately imagined it being used for something more violent. To complement the age-old layers of oil, dirt, and rust, was a set of tarnished tools that looked like they were just one good hit against a hard surface away from falling apart. A dark blue locker cabinet stood on the other side next to the clouded window, so dented that it was not completely ridiculous to imagine that someone once used it as a punching bag. On the concrete flooring next to the workbench were dozens of spray cans, containing either grease, paint, or anti-rodent solution.
The literal centerpiece of the room was what Nick first mistook for some kind of modern piece of art. A mechanical skeleton of grimy, greasy metal, with tubes and wires running all over it. After a moment of squinting, Nick identified a heavy engine block and two wheels with petal-shaped spokes, missing their tires. Two massive underseat pipes stuck out from behind the torn saddle, clogged with some kind of black mud. On the opposite side, a pair of hideous bug-eyed twin headlights seemed to stare straight into Nick’s soul with ill intent.
Lark watched him closely with a smug tug at the lips. Nick scratched the back of his head. He didn't know exactly what he was expecting Lark’s invitation to result in, but it certainly wasn't this.
“You know, a corpse would have explained more than whatever that is.”
“It’s a motorcycle.”
“No,” Nick said. “It’s the dead husk of what once was a poor excuse for a bike.”
Lark’s self-satisfied look didn’t falter. “And here I thought you’d recognize a Harley Davidson when you saw one. Seems like that jacket’s just for show, huh Nicky?”
He was about to say something in defense of his beloved leather jacket, when he noticed that Lark wasn’t bullshitting him. What Nick had originally disregarded as pieces of trash, he now recognized as the disassembled fiberglass fairings of the bike. The manufacturer’s brand name was emblazoned on the rear fender. It was legit.
“Oh, fuck off.”
“Yes,” Lark said, not hiding the hint of pride in his voice. “Want to revise your earlier statement?”
“Boat with a big hole is still just a glorified colander, Oak.”
“That’s what I’ve been working on.” He crouched down and waved for Nick to come over. Pointing at various parts Nick didn’t know the names of, he explained: “The engine had sustained severe water damage. Most of my efforts so far have been in fighting the resulting corrosion. I’m still working on cleaning that out. After that, the spark plugs, battery, and brakes all require replacements. Reinstalling the fairings should be fairly easy after that.”
“And you got to find some tires somewhere,” Nick noted.
“Eventually, yes. But that should not be very hard.”
“Seems like quite the job.”
Lark nodded and stood straight again, shifting his shoulders the slightest bit in a way that betrayed his nerves. “Seeing as how I’m currently not in peak physical condition,” he said, gesturing at his lack of a functioning arm, “I would value your assistance.”
Lark had gradually lost his over-articulate speech pattern as the swirling, sucking void that was the American high school system methodically discouraged any deviations from the mean. Only when Lark was feeling out of his depth, he fell back into it. Hearing that familiar intonation made Nick swallow back a soft chuckle.
Nick was more than eager to say yes, but when an Oak proposed an offer, one had to know what they were getting themselves into. Nick, blame-taker for many a prank, knew this intimately.
“Not that I’m complaining, but why me? This seems like a typical Oak twin project. Is your brother busy or something?”
Lark had crossed his arms. He hovered in the middle of the garage like he was the guest here, seeming suddenly a bit out of place. “I wished to keep this as a surprise from Sparrow,” he said hesitantly. “I will show him. Eventually.”
“Gotcha.”
He quickly continued, even though Nick had no plans of prying further. “Furthermore, you have a basic understanding of engines and machinery.”
“I doubt knowing how to hotwire a car counts as mechanical skills, but sure.”
“And… I appreciate your company.”
Nick’s chest swelled and he couldn’t contain his smile from breaking out when Lark admitted that. He grabbed the fabric of his shirt, just above his heart, and theatrically swooned.
“You can't just say these things, Larkie.”
He was expecting the key ring that came flying at his head and quickly ducked out of the way.
“Don’t make me regret this, Foster,” Lark threatened jokingly.
“No one ever regrets my company,” Nick shot back with a wink that was borderline flirtatious. “Alright,” he said, sticking his thumbs in his belt loop and jutting his hip out to the side. “I’ll help. On one condition.”
“Shoot.”
“As soon as this thing is done, you’re not just gonna take it to ride into the sunset and be never heard from again, are you?”
Lark scoffed. “I am not a beatnik.”
“First of all, judgment’s not out on that yet, and second, that’s not an answer.”
Lark pursed his lips and stayed quiet for a longer moment of consideration. “I might sometimes use it to get away when things get to be a bit too much,” he said slowly. “But I have no intention of leaving for good, no. San Dimas is my home.”
Good enough for Nick. He held out his right hand for a predator handshake. Lark chuckled and smacked his outstretched arm away. For a second Nick wondered if he should be offended, but then Lark cleared up his confusion when he grabbed Nick’s left hand, which matched the one Lark could use. Whoops. Great start.
They shook hands and bumped their shoulders against each other. They had once practiced a longer, complicated handshake a few years back and while Lark most likely still remembered it, Nick did not.
“Alright then, let’s do this!” Nick exclaimed. “First things first. What song you wanna put on loop?”
“Grant’s playlist is–”
Nick interrupted him with a flick of his wrist. “Nah, nah. If we’re gonna go full Greased Lightning on this, we gotta have an equally awesome montage song!” He pulled out his phone and started scrolling through his Spotify search history.
Lark was unconvinced. “And you want to play this on loop for the entirety we’re here,” he stated.
“Yup,” Nick said, popping the ‘p’. “That’s why it’s gotta be a real good song.”
“Forgive me for being skeptical.”
“A montage is a state of mind, racebird. Don’t feel bad if you’re not on my galaxy brain level yet.”
Lark huffed in amusement, either at the new nickname Nick had just given him or at the foolish amounts of confidence in his statement. It was a sort of huff that didn’t part his lips, and barely moved his head. Why was it so hard to get him to laugh these days? It used to be the easiest thing in the world. Nick was going to drive himself mad until he managed it.
“The Touch.”
“Huh?”
Nick had still been zoned in on Lark’s lips, he realized belatedly.
Lark quirked a brow. “By Stan Bush?”
“Oh! Transformers!” Nick’s eyes grew wide, and he burst out laughing. Genius. “You, my friend, have one of the most wonderful minds I’ve ever come across.”
“I’m aware,” he said with a smirk of satisfaction.
Nick connected his Bluetooth box to his phone and set it on the workbench. Both teens grinned widely when the first electric guitar chords vibrated through the air.
You got the touch! Bush sang.
“You got the POWER!!” Lark and Nick simultaneously belt out in some sort of harmony. They snickered for two whole minutes afterward.
They got sick of Stan Bush within half an hour. Defeated but stubbornly refusing to admit it, Nick put on Grant’s ‘songs that vaguely sound like other songs’ playlist, pretending that Grant’s taste in music was simply more diverse than Lark’s.
And so it started.
~~~~~
They had a little over a week to tinker with the motorcycle before Lark would leave for South America, where he would spend the holidays with his family. Nick’s main role in their partnership mostly consisted of holding things in place and handing Lark the wrong tool when requested, and then after a few more tries handing him the right one. He watched YouTube videos to catch up with Lark’s wider expertise, but motors and machinery wasn’t really a big interest of his. Lark, more proficient with the inner mechanics of vehicles, though Lucifer knew where he had picked that up, often tried explaining what he was doing, but it was a bit too technical for Nick. When his usefulness truly started to feel limited, he took other roles upon himself.
First, brightening this god-awful place up a little. Nick smuggled lights and cheap plastic garlands out of his hell home and strung them around the bleak garage. Biting the inside of his cheeks so he wouldn’t yelp out in fear, he removed the dusty cobwebs and their creepy eight-legged residents. Then he started bringing his acoustic guitar with him. While Lark grumbled about carburetors and oxidation, he’d strum little ditties.
When Nick wasn’t playing music, he was talking. Somehow he never seemed to run out of stories when he was with Lark. With Terry, he could just sit in comfortable silence, but with Lark, noise was his preferred setting. They cracked jokes and blasted Metallica and AC/DC from noon, when Nick would arrive, till dinnertime, when Lark would close up shop and say “see you tomorrow”.
Lark had asked Nick not to tell his parents about what they were doing here, claiming he really didn’t want his own dad to know where he went when he ran off from the chokehold he described his home to be. Nick, more than used to picking Lark’s side over the Oak parents purely for loyalty reasons, had not made a big deal over it. And so he had spun a story to his mom and dads about how he was teaching Lark how to play the guitar and the drums in the San Dimas community center; a lie that honestly seemed like an equally fun activity. Maybe he could ask Lark about that later.
A week after their mechanical venture had started, Nick found himself flush with sharp spikes of anger as he entered what was once Bricky Mickey’s automotive garage. “Fucking–stupid–wanna melt his face off…” he sputtered, hands curled as he imagined crushing a certain high school teacher’s head between them.
Lark was, as usual, sitting with his legs crossed on the floor next to the bike, though this time he was sitting on one of Nick’s pillows. He was doing– Nick actually had no idea what he was doing. Something with the exhaust pipes. “Just got the mail?” he inquired as Nick threw himself on the poof in their “living corner”, still muttering to himself.
“What a fucking asshole, am I right?”
“The coward could not even bring this news to us face to face. He most likely knew we would unionize and riot.”
“Hell yes I would. This has to go against school regulations, right?”
Mr. Brioche, the infamous Chemistry teacher at Teen High, had just notified his students that they were expected to prepare themselves for a test about stoichiometry formulas. During winter break. Bastard.
Nick had already vented his frustrations to Terry in a long string of barely intelligible texts, but Terry, who could occasionally be a bit of a teacher’s pet, had not expressed any annoyance at the sudden drop of unwelcome responsibilities. At least he had offered to help Nick out with the material.
“I am so happy we’re almost done with all this shit,” Nick sighed, trying to put the matter out of his head. For a long time, he thought he’d never make it to senior year. Now all that was in his way to freedom were a few more months of agonizing boredom.
“Hear hear.”
“You got plans for college?”
Both of the twins were very naturally gifted. He doubted he’d ever seen them struggle during class, which was remarkable given that they rarely paid attention to the teacher when seated together. It used to be the only thing Nicholas found impressive about them. If they set their minds on it, they’d probably be able to get into any university of their choosing.
Lark’s face scrunched up in an indecipherable expression. “Nah.”
“‘Nah’ as in no plans or as in no college?”
“No college.”
“US Army got its hooks in you, then?”
That got an amused huff out of Lark, and he shook his head. A lock had gotten free from his knot and fell in front of his eyes. “No. I threw that plan away a while back. Don’t think that would be a good place for me.” He looked a bit sheepish as he rubbed his head. The timid expression lifted Nick’s spirit in a way he didn’t completely understand. “I’m just gonna keep doing the same thing I’m doing now. Learn as I go.” He leaned back from the bike, his greasy palm leaving marks on the concrete floor. “What about you?”
“Didn’t sign myself up for nothing either. Talked about moving to hell, like, permanently. Maybe a gap year-type of situation, maybe something more. I don’t know.” He stretched his arms, feeling the joints pop. “Reckon I’ll be alright. It helps to have dads in high places.”
“Yeah, maybe they can secure you an internship.”
Nick snorted. “That’d be something. Me, making coffee for the nastiest motherfuckers in the underworld.” He considered if that was a possible prospect and promptly decided not to think too far ahead. “I was more thinkin’ about something a little bit more grandiose. Butter up to Lucifer and become his heir. Maybe I can be, like, Satan 2.0. Satan-Nick. The old Nicky.”
“Ambitious.”
“That’s me,” he said, patting himself on the chest. He clicked his tongue. “Look at us. Couple of autodidacts-to-be.”
“At least we’re not going to drown in student debt.”
“Hear hear.”
~~~~~
“Brought my laptop and some seasonal flicks!” Nick proudly put his silver Chromebook on the little coffee table he’d taken with him from Glenn’s living room, and scrolled through the list he’d prepared. “Elf, 8-Bit Christmas, which I know you love, and of course, the best Christmas movie of all time.”
“Don’t say it.”
“Die Hard!”
“Remind me to teach you the meaning of the word ‘genre’,” Lark groaned in mild amusement as he put his wrench down and scrambled out from under the bike.
“Anndd I downloaded Sint, which I’m not completely sure is a Christmas movie but the poster looked sick as fuck. Gives us plenty of choice, eh?”
Yesterday, when the clock got near the six and it was their usual time to close up shop, Nick had blurted out the idea to someday have a good old-fashioned movie night. Lark had been delighted at the idea, though his delight was dampened when Nick insisted that because he had come up with it, he should get to pick the movie selection.
“I say we start with anything but Die Hard.”
“Unfortunately I got first pick, and you chose wrong!”
“You should rethink the amount of police propaganda you consume.”
“Don’t pretend you don’t love the amount of explosions. You think Rambo is the highest work of art.”
“Rambo criticizes police brutality, the way the government treats veterans, and American interventionism,” Lark countered grumpily.
“All of that is very true,” Nick said cheerfully, “but it’s still not a Christmas movie.”
“I hate you.”
Lark grabbed one of the red-and-green plaid blankets and wrapped it around his shoulders like a Roman cape. Nick had been stealing almost every pillow and blanket in the Foster/Freeman household to protect them from the December chill. Nick patted the spot on the IKEA rug next to him as he snuggled up in his own wool-lined blankie.
He hit the spacebar and logos started to roll in. Before he could retract his arm back into his cozy burrito, he gingerly patted Lark’s cheek. “You’ve got a bit of oil there,” he lied, knowing Lark couldn’t check because he had left his phone next to the bike.
The tips of Lark’s ears turned red at the contact. He kept his expression carefully in check as he tried to wipe the nonexistent stain off his cheek. He stared straight at the screen as John McClane’s plane touched down, lips drawn tight like a pencil.
Aww, he was getting flustered. That was cute.
Nick decided he quite liked making Lark flustered. It completely obliterated the whole ‘tough guy’ facade he had going on. Made him look a bit more like the teenager he was.
It was a bit unhealthy, but Nick couldn't help but feel a little proud of the fact that, from as far as he could tell, he was the only person aside from Sparrow who Lark ever really softened up around.
~~~~~
On their second to last day before Lark would leave for South America, he had opened the garage, waved for Nick to enter, and said: “Be right there”.
So naturally, after less than five minutes, like a bored cat looking to annoy its owner, Nick had strolled back outside to find Lark leaning with one foot against the back wall of the 7-11, a lit cigarette in his mouth.
“Since when do you smoke?” Nick asked as he adjusted the scarf Lark had given him a few days ago and joined him.
“I keep bad company these days,” he mumbled, which was not an explanation. He held the cig out to Nick. “You want a hit?”
Yes. “No.” He jerked his shoulders in what liberally could be called a shrug. “Asthma,” he needlessly explained.
“Right.” Lark took another drag and stared into the distance. He blew the smoke away from Nick.
Nick opened his mouth to justify his refusal – yeah dude, sorry, it’s just that one version of younger me used to be absolutely baked the better part of each day, while the other version was convinced that if my lips so much as touched anything that could be smoked I would instantly die – but he opted for silence instead. Lark didn’t care either way, he rationalized.
After a minute of just enjoying the other’s quiet presence, a loud ping came from within the lining of Lark’s jacket. He immediately flicked the cigarette to the ground and grabbed his phone. Whatever he saw on the screen seemed to disappoint him, as he sagged back against the wall and huffed.
“Waiting for a call?” Nick asked nonchalantly as he stomped on the discarded cigarette, hoping to get rid of that awful, tempting smell.
“Not everyone is as desperate for attention as you are, Nick,” Lark insulted him casually. He kept looking at the screen.
Nick gasped in mock-offense, but betrayed himself with a low chuckle. “No, but really. What’s got you on edge? You got a special someone?”
Lark snorted as though that was a ludicrous concept. Nick kept wiggling his brows in suggestion as he leaned in closer and closer, trying to get a peek at what was on the screen.
Lark’s phone was an old brand that Nick wasn’t even sure was still on the market anymore. He had both the front and back cameras taped off. To prevent people spying on me, he had once explained, which seemed a bit much. Nick didn’t understand why Lark was so paranoid. A minor but forgivable character flaw, Nick supposed.
Nick didn’t spot a juicy text conversation he could use for blackmail purposes. Instead, Lark was looking at a black-and-white picture or video of some kind of narrow room or hallway, where two wooden walls met each other. There were multiple blurry objects on the floor, like someone had turned a trash can upside down.
“Stop that,” Lark said, quickly turning his phone off. “I’m not texting anyone.”
“Then why are you–” He faltered when he recognized the tension in Lark’s stance. Nick cursed under his breath, berating himself that he hadn’t seen it before.
“You and your dad had another fight?” he said in his softest, most genuinely sympathetic voice. It didn’t explain what he assumed to be security camera footage, but Nick knew that not everything Lark did made a lot of sense. He also knew how and when to be a good friend.
Lark’s eyes widened a fraction. “What makes you say that?”
“You got that little crinkle between your brows. It’s very Henry-specific.”
Lark’s body stiffened, as though merely the mention of that name made him flinch. He remained tense for a few more seconds before sighing and deflating. He bumped his head against the wall and closed his eyes. “Yes. With our trip so near––everyone is just very––wound up.”
“Wanna vent?”
“I don’t think that would be productive. I would only lay the blame on Father, while Samantha says I need to focus on “cognitive restructuring” for successful anger management.” He could only do finger quotes with one hand, but this did not stop him. “It has not been going well so far,” he chuckled with dark levity.
“You’ll get there,” Nick said with full certainty. “And you know you’ve always got me if you wanna focus that anger in a more destructive way.” It had been a while since they had made a good ol’ rage room for themselves.
His friend was quiet for a while. He grabbed a new, pre-rolled cigarette and twirled it absently between his fingers, unlit. The silence stretched on for so unnaturally long that Nick started to wonder if he had said anything wrong. Then Lark bumped his shoulder against Nick’s. “I am really glad you are my friend,” he said. The next thing that came out of his mouth was so soft Nick nearly didn’t catch it. “You just make life so much easier. Your presence means the world to me, especially on days like this.”
The rush of warmth Nick felt from Lark’s words was so great that his mouth nearly fell open. He glanced up, but no pigs were flying overhead, about to shit on him. That was good. Pig shit in his hair sounded awful. Nick returned Lark’s serious gaze with one that dripped endearment.
“Likewise,” he said from the bottom of his heart.
There. Out in the open. We mean something to each other. Nick almost wanted to do a little jig.
“Can you give me a light?” Lark muttered, looking almost embarrassed. He held his new cigarette out to Nick. He steadily kept his face in the opposite direction.
“What else are friends for?” Nick replied jauntily. He snapped his fingers and created a bright spark that set the tip of the roll aflame. Even though the smell of tobacco was both tempting and terrible, he stayed where he was until Lark flicked the bud away and they went back in together.
~~~~~
“Two Napoletana à la Italian mobsters,” Nick sing-songed as he entered, balancing two brandless cardboard boxes containing still-hot pizzas on the palms of his hand.
Lark immediately dropped the bolt he had been staring at with an intense frown into a grimy ziplock bag and wiped his hand on a rag that was more dirt than fabric. “Took you long enough!” he said, grinning.
“I may have distracted Tony a bit,” Nick chuckled. “We were in so deep about The Good, the Bad and the Ugly that he totally forgot the second pizza was still in the oven. Haven’t seen anything burnt black like that in my life, and that’s saying something, ‘cause I gotta deal with hellfire on a daily basis. But hey, to make it up he gave us fifty percent off!” He opened the box and inhaled the tantalizing smell of molten mozzarella cheese and basil.
A few days ago, the teens had been working on the bike until neither of them could feel their fingers anymore. It was the coldest day of the year so far, and the open space of the garage provided exactly zero insulation from the December freeze. They’d decided to warm up in the neighboring shop, a little pasta and pizza place with the unimaginative name of ‘Casa Nostra’. The running theory was that it was a front for some kind of shady gang.
Not wanting to get caught-up with something they should steer away from, they had been more than a bit hesitant to find warmth there. But since the seemingly-only employee in the 7-11 had more than once threatened to call the police on them for loitering, they decided to just give it a go. When the two nearly frost-bitten mechanics had shivered their way inside, they were met with overbearing hospitality and concern.
The whole ‘run by gangsters’ situation was neither confirmed nor debunked, but at least the two forty-something employees were incredibly kind. They’d offered them the flameheater that stood unused on their patio so the teens would get an actual source of heat in their workspace. Nick had never thought as closely about potentially joining the Italian mob as he had when the two men even helped them carry the thing inside.
Lark abandoned the bike and joined Nick on the pillows. “Oh, pizza, how I missed you,” he sighed, grabbing a slice and holding it up as though it was a holy relic.
Nick tore his gaze off Lark. Some of the hot cheese dripped onto his pants, and he quickly scooped it up with two fingers and put it into his mouth. “So. Last meal of the year we’re sharing, huh?”
“Getting sentimental, Foster?”
“I always get sentimental around Christmas. It’s in my blood.”
“So is impudicity.”
“Hey now.”
The conversation lulled naturally and they sat in a comfortable silence.
“You excited to go?” Nick asked after a while.
Lark thought for a second, then agreed. “Yes. My aunts are amazing cooks and have a lot of stories, but I am mostly looking forward to seeing my abuelo Pablo again. I remember him being very cheerful, especially after he has had something to drink. He used to be an artist before he got arrested because of the anti-authoritarian messages of his work. Mother says that Sparrow and I have inherited our creative spirit from him.”
“I really hope that’s code for ‘he’s just as crazy as the two of you’. Can’t wait to hear what the three of you combined will get up to.”
“I hope so,” Lark said with an absent grin. “Mother says he is the most deranged eighty-eight year old man she knows.”
“Please keep me updated.”
Lark lowered his voice and leaned in a bit closer to Nick. “I am a bit nervous about the flight, though.”
“Ah.” Nick shifted his weight, almost bashful to hear Lark Oak confessing weakness. It wasn’t a surprising fear, though; the fact that the Doodler had become a permanent part of Earth’s atmosphere sometimes made him wanna shit his pants too when he thought about it too long. To have to travel right below it, with the pilots and fellow passengers not understanding what danger they were scraping by? No wonder Lark’s knuckles were getting pale.
Nick soundlessly smacked his lips, and a memory of a teary-eyed ten-year-old version of him came to mind. “I used to be pretty scared of cars for a while. Long rides especially. Terrified that we’d drive off a bridge or crash or something. You wanna know what I did?”
Lark cocked his head in curiosity, but then frowned. “Tell me to make fists with my toes and I will punch you.”
Nick opened his mouth and closed it again. Lark scoffed in exasperation and punched his shoulder. Nick immediately retaliated by grabbing the pillow nearest to him and beaning his friend in the face with it. A full-scale pillow fight threatened to break out, but Nick laughed a surrender as Lark sent a flurry of hits his way and waved an imaginary white flag.
“That’s not what I wanted to say though!” he said as another hit landed square on the nose. “I just thought it was cute you were referencing Die Hard! Mercy, please!”
Lark narrowed his eyes and let him continue.
“Okay, you ready?”
“I’m not setting myself up for more disappointment.”
“So this is what I would do.” He halted for a dramatic pause. “Clench my butt.”
Lark snorted a laugh, half-heartedly smacking him again. “For hours?”
“Yup. Just kept it clenched until the ride was over. It gets hard after a while, so it’s a great distraction!”
“Absolute garbage of advice.”
“You can thank me later.”
Another silence crept between them, which Nick made companionable by drumming his fingers against his thigh on the beat of Master of Puppets. They finished their pizza, yet neither of them moved to leave this place that had become a haven to them both, simply because the other was there.
“I’m going to miss this,” Lark mumbled after a while.
“Now who’s getting sentimental?” Nick said playfully. He felt the same way, though.
Lark’s mouth softened and he pushed himself to his feet. He put his hand on Nick’s shoulder and gave a brief squeeze. His pinkie briefly brushed against the bare skin of his scarfless neck. “Merry Christmas, Nick,” he said.
“Happy holidays, racebird,” Nick replied, fighting off the urge to grab Lark’s hand and rub his thumb over his bony knuckles. “Till next year.”
With that, Lark dipped his head in a wordless goodbye. After throwing Nick the spare set of keys to the garage he had let a smith make him two days ago, he turned around and disappeared.
Even when Nick was back in hell where the scourging heat was worse than any Angeleno could ever imagine, he felt the spot where Lark’s finger had touched him burn like an infection. Hours passed, and that burn was still present. It felt good.
~~~~~
Christmas came and stuck around for almost a full week. The holiday was serious business in hell, after all. Nick had to attend festivals, dinners, sacrifices to Satan – by the end of it he felt like that kid from Christmas Every Day. Just spent.
But as always, it was fulfilling as well. Earlier this evening, after a certain number of glasses of champagne, Nick and his mom had teamed up by slyly suggesting to end the night with a bit of karaoke. Glenn had jumped on the chance to show off, but Nick and Morgan had suggested he and Jodie do a duet. Another flute of champagne later, they were doing a surprisingly good rendition of Rocketman. Nick couldn’t remember cheering and clapping as loudly as he did by the end of it, and he had been to a lot of concerts.
It was the night before New Year’s Eve, and Nick had gone to bed at a time even old people would consider early. He fully intended to spend every minute of it deep asleep, restoring his energy for the explosive New Year’s party they and the Stamplers would attend at the Wilson household.
So when he was awoken by the sound of his ringtone – Happy by Pharrell Williams – his sleep-addled mind considered throwing his phone out of the window in a fit of infernal rage.
Instead, he tried to block out the sound by smothering himself with his pillow. Probably some kind of prank call, or wrong number. He really should turn off the sound at night.
Hnnnnshut up shut up shut uppp…
The phone went quiet. Nick carefully loosened his hold on the pillow, peeking out from underneath.
Because I'm happy, clap along if you feel like a room without a roof, because I’m happy–
Nick groaned loudly. “You got Nick,” he said in a groggy voice, picking up without so much as glancing at the caller ID. “You’re calling out of office hours. Please leave your name and number and I’ll get back to you as soon as possible.”
“Hey Nick. It’s Lark.”
That shot a jolt of energy through his cotton-stuffed mind.
“Hey racebird.” He pinched his tear ducts, willing his mind to wake up. “Listen, I don’t know what time it is in Ecuador right now, but here it’s not really–”
“I’m not in Ecuador,” Lark interrupted. “I’m at LAX.”
“... what?”
Well, that was interesting. The Oaks weren’t scheduled to arrive back in LA for another week.
“Can you pick me up? I need to be somewhere, fast.”
It wasn’t lost on Nick that Lark had used the single subject in that sentence. He threw the covers off and stumbled over to his desk chair that was covered in a pile of semi-dirty clothes he really should have put with the laundry by now. “Aren’t you supposed to be eating grapes with the mountain goats, my man?”
“Nicholas. Please.”
He put a white-ish t-shirt on and suppressed a sigh. “Yeah, yeah, I got you. What terminal are you at?”
Less than five minutes later, Nick made a rip in space that brought him to the absolute pandemonium that was LAX Airport. Even in the middle of the night, cabs and passenger cars were competing in a deadly dance to get the best spots without any regard for personal safety.
Lark was already there. He was sitting on a bench with an air of dour misery, hunched over as he was breathing deeply and deliberately. Little clouds were created as his warm breath met the cold air. One of his legs was bouncing up and down with a fast-paced rhythm. His right arm was freed from the sling and he had his hands clasped in his lap. A dark gray suitcase covered in stickers stood next to him.
Nick casually walked up and pretended to hold a sign in front of his chest. “Foster Taxi service, calling for a ‘Lark Oak’.”
Lark’s head snapped up.
“I’m really sorry about this,” he said immediately, rising to his feet. “If you want, I can pay you–”
“You can ask me for things, dude. I just wish you’d wait for the sun to come up before you did.” Nick fought off a yawn. “Just– why are you here? Where’s the rest of the family tree?”
“Still in Quito.”
It took a second before Nick found his words again. “They know you flew back?”
“I told Sparrow, so yes.” He impatiently ran a hand through his loose hair. He needed a haircut, Nick noticed. “Look, I’ll explain everything later. Just drop me off at the garage. I’ll get where I need to go from there.”
Nick snorted. “Yeah, fuck no. You’re not getting out of this that easily. This is kinda messed up, Lark! You just left them?” If Nick were so stupid as to walk out on a family event, his mom would drag him back by the ear no matter what part of the world he was in. And then he’d be grounded for the rest of his life.
“I–”
“I know it’s not always easy friction between you and your dad, but you can’t deny that your family fucking adores you. You really gotta do them like this?”
Lark had covered his face in shame. “I know,” he groaned from behind his hands. “I didn’t want this either, okay?”
“Then why?”
He sighed deeply and seemed to steel himself, the lines in his face hardening. “I will explain as we go.”
“I think I’m the one in charge of the going,” Nick said staunchly.
“Nick!” Lark all but begged, loud enough that a few of the other people waiting at the terminal turned their heads at them. In a hushed tone, he said: “I wasn’t joking when I said I was in a hurry. There’s something very dangerous that I need to take care of, now.”
Nick’s firm composure fractured at the pleading note in Lark’s voice. Although he did not yet understand the reason behind it, he felt the urgency radiating off Lark like a furnace. Continuing to argue about this seemed very pointless all of a sudden. Lark was already back in California, and neither of them could reverse that.
“…’kay,” he replied. “Only if you call your parents as soon as you can. Deal?”
“Deal,” Lark agreed with blatant relief.
Nick shook off the feeling that he was somehow enabling Lark’s self-destructive behavior and held his hand out. “You ready for this?”
Lark’s mouth softened and he squeezed Nick’s hand once.
Nick’s hell portals weren’t the standard teleportation type of deal; he could only create gateways to and from the Nine Hells. Like Nightcrawler, only a little slower and with a bit more dramatic flair. Nevertheless, that small detour was still a massive improvement over the old fashioned way of transportation.
Fire surrounded them. Even though Nick had taken Lark through his portals many times, he still flinched at the heat. Mortals were never gonna get used to the primordial power, it seemed. To Nick, the flames were as mundane as the wind.
From the airport they landed directly in Nick’s room, which was the most private place Nick could think of. He didn’t give Lark enough time to get a good look at the chaotic state of his room. Half of his stuff he had dragged over to the garage, and the remaining half was part of an absolute mess he had long since given up on cleaning. The second portal opened, and Nick grabbed his friend’s hand to drag him through. The rolled-down shutter of the car repair shop met them with indifference.
Lark moved like someone was on his heels, throwing the shutter open with more force than necessary. The motorbike, close to what they hoped to be half-finished now, was left ignored in the center of the space. Instead Lark headed straight to the rusted locker he had claimed multiple times to be empty.
It wasn’t.
“Jesus fucking Christ, Lark.”
Three revolvers, a snubnose, a sawed-off shotgun, and more blades than any person could carry. Lark had been storing a whole arsenal in this eight by three foot locker. There was even a folded up compound bow, inscribed with little runes that were vaguely familiar.
“Some of these are magic,” Nick noted, his voice caught between bewilderment and awe. “How the hell did you get your hands on magic weapons on Earth?”
“By not limiting myself to Earth.” He fastened a gun to a leg holster and sheathed an 8-inch long knife to his belt. “I’m going to try to kill something that’s going to try to kill me back,” he said matter-of-factly. “This is not––how I wanted to ask this question. But I will still ask. Do you want to help?”
Nick turned around to meet Lark’s grave eyes. A grin curled his lips.
“Fuck yeah,” he simply said. Something inside of him was itching with excitement.
Lark released the tiniest of breaths, and he gave a grateful nod. “Take whatever you want. I have another gun taped to the back of the workbench, if you want a different model than the ones here.”
“Of course you do.”
Nick let his eyes run over the makeshift armory, and found that he had very little interest in the guns. Instead, his attention was drawn to the blades attached to the locker door. There was a machete and a shortsword, as well as a long black and red katana. Heart skipping a beat, Nick lifted the last weapon off its frame.
As soon as he unsheathed it a bit and the strip of metal reflected the beam of Lark’s flashlight, he knew this was the right weapon for him. He pulled the blade completely out of its koshirae and cut through the air with it.
“You look like a nerd at Comic Con,” Lark commented as Nick struck at an invisible target.
“Wrong,” Nick replied. “I look fucking awesome.”
Lark made a sound that was somewhere between a scoff and a snort. “Are you certain you don’t need anything long ranged?”
“My body is a weapon,” he winked, snapping the fingers of his free hand and setting his thumb on fire. He had enough fireballs in him to outdo any gun. “So. You’re going to fill me in or what?”
Lark finished his gearing up sequence by tying his hair up with an office rubber band. He waited for Nick to step out of the garage and locked it. “Walk and talk.”
Nick wrapped the gray scarf tighter around his face, blowing a hot breath into the soft fabric to warm his nose. “You sure you don’t need me to portal us?”
Lark shook his head no. “You would not know where to go, and besides, it is not far. Fifteen minutes, max.”
Lark’s ‘fifteen minutes’ and Nick’s ‘fifteen minutes’ turned out to be dependent on different walking speeds. In Nick’s opinion, it was more of a twenty-five minute walk, but Lark walked with a brisk pace and didn’t slow down when Nick inevitably fell behind. He had to jog to keep up. Ultimately coming to the conclusion that it was the middle of the night in a relatively sparsely populated part of town, Nick let go of his human glamor he assumed whenever he graced the Material Plane with his presence and unfolded his leathery bat-like wings. His hair burnt a reddish-orange against the blackness of the empty night, spilling around the pair of curling horns that were still not fully grown in yet.
Lark turned off his flashlight, most likely to be less of a beacon now that Nick’s veins were lighted up with a luminous glow. The streetlamps, at least those that were functioning here on the edge of town, guided him the way, although Nick knew Lark didn’t truly need them any more than he did. Both of them were pretty good in the dark.
Nick, delighted to be able to stretch his wings in his true form again, hovered next to Lark. “Where we heading, boss man?”
“You know the Sycamore trail?”
“Sure.”
“A quarter of a mile north of the trail’s parking lot is a closed-off public toilet building.”
“If this is some kind of gross, sewer-related adventure, I’m out.” It was a lie; Nick’s curiosity was burning.
Lark continued talking as though Nick hadn’t interrupted him. “I had sprung a trap there, before I left for Ecuador. I’ve been monitoring the building ever since. Twelve hours ago, it was set off. I believe the creature is still in there, but while I was in the air it destroyed my camera, so I can’t be certain.”
“What kind of creature?” Nick asked. With the katana attached to his hip he felt an old craving coming back to him. The need to start a fight, and end it.
“Do you read the newspaper?”
“I follow the LA Times on Twitter, does that count?”
“Have you read that over the past two months, four people got killed by random animal attacks?”
“Yeah, heard about that. Nasty shit. Some kind of feral dog, they said.”
“They were wrong, though not too far off. I investigated the park where the third victim was killed, and I found unusually large paw prints in the mud. They weren’t those of any canine. They belonged to a raccoon.”
“A raccoon,” Nick repeated flatly.
“Yes,” Lark said with a ‘are you dense’-type of raise of the brow. “I concluded that it must not live in the city, or people would have taken notice. So I used food as bait in multiple sparsely populated areas and–”
“We are all geared up like two fucking Witchers. To kill a rabid raccoon.”
“I believe it is some sort of Doodler monstrosity.” A tiny furrow formed between Lark’s brows, and after a second of thinking he shook his head. “No, scratch that. I know it is some sort of Doodler monstrosity.”
“Oh. Oh shit,” Nick said. Pieces started falling into place. His throat got very dry all of a sudden. “Shouldn’t we be calling our parents for this?”
“Most definitely not,” Lark said sharply. “There is no need to get them involved.”
“You sure? Dealing with the Doodler is kind of their whole thing.”
“I understand why you would feel comforted by calling on some authority figure, Nicholas, but we’re almost legal adults. We can act like it.”
Nick couldn’t stop the way his mouth twisted into a grimace. He didn’t mind people calling him Nicholas, least of all Lark, who often used his close friends’ full names. But this wasn’t just a playful jab. This was the same tonality he had used all the time when they were kids, when he would lean in close to Sparrow and loudly whisper “fucking Narcolas at it again”.
Worst part, it had an effect. A part of him, the Nicky that was fire and impulsiveness and carefree laughter, immediately told him to shut it with the nagging objections and just go along with whatever Lark had in mind without being a little wimp about it.
“You don’t have to be such a dick, y’know,” he mumbled.
“...sorry. That was out of line.”
Deciding to be satisfied with that apology, Nick inhaled through his nose and rubbed the space between his eyebrows. “Okay. You’re obviously familiar with this whole Buffy routine. How long have you been doing this?”
Lark inattentively kicked a Red Bull can, sending it out ten feet ahead of him in a straight line. As they continued walking, Lark continued kicking it, and it never strayed from his line of walking. It was as though that dented aluminum can couldn’t resist the magnetic pull of Lark Oak’s presence either. “I decided to take action into my own hands a little less than a year back, but I didn’t actually achieve success until seven months ago. I have kept hunting stray Doodler creatures ever since, to varying levels of success.”
“Was that why your arm was wrapped up?” Nick recalled.
“Yes. There was some kind of shriveled vegetation behemoth that briefly got the better of me.” He stretched said arm and clenched his fingers into a tight fist.
Nick idly wondered how close a call it had been.
“Why risk it? I mean, it’s badass that you’re doing this, but you don’t really need to.”
“How long before we are a part of D.A.D.D.I.E.S., do you think? Months? Years?” Lark’s voice took on a hard edge again. “The truth is that they will never involve us, not as long as they are the ones who run it.”
“Is that what this is about? You wanna be included at the grown-ups’ table?”
“I want to fight,” Lark snarled. “I want to make a difference. I loathe being kept away from any dangerous situation because my father thinks I can’t handle it.”
Nick remembered what Lark had said about his father, when both of them were slightly tipsy from their first drink and they looked out over the burning streets of hell from Nick’s rooftop. It’s like everything he does is somehow wrong, and it infuriates me. But no one else seems to think that. I don’t know if that means I see a truth they don’t, or if I’m just broken.
“They just want to keep us safe,” Nick said softly, because he got it. He didn’t like it, but he got that the adults were the adults and they were their kids.
“That’s selfish!” Despite the cold, Lark’s skin flushed a shade darker around his throat and jaw. His upper lip curled up in disdain at the thought. “The world is coming apart and we can help. Why not let us?”
Nick didn’t want to argue with Lark. Mostly because Lark was a solid debater, who would use big words Nick had never heard of when he was on the defensive. But there was also a little voice inside his head that told him that Lark had a point.
“Does Sparrow know?” he asked instead.
For the first time in five minutes, Lark’s foot missed the Red Bull can. He sighed sadly. The irritation that had briefly flared up seeped away. “No. He would want to join me.”
“Isn’t that something you’d want? Aren’t you two the Wonder Twins or whatever? Seems right up your alley.”
“Sparrow is a fantastic warrior. But–” Lark’s face twisted as he stumbled over his words. “But he doesn’t need this kind of life.”
“And you do?”
He scowled. “I owe something to the world.”
They walked in a heavy kind of silence for a while as Nick mulled over that.
Five years ago, after everything had changed, he had been so overwhelmingly angry at Lark’s stupidity. He refused to speak a single word to him for at least two months. His parents had made half-hearted attempts to persuade him to show some kindness, but Nick couldn’t grasp his mind around their logic. He is only twelve, the adults had said, and for them, that had been reason enough to let it go. Terry, Grant, and Nick hadn’t exactly felt the same way. They had been thirteen, and they hadn’t released an eldritch god bent on tearing out the foundations of their world and replacing it with pure horrific randomness. Their forgiveness hadn’t been as easily obtained, although Lark eventually got it simply by quietly suffering. Now that Nick was eighteen, their parents’ reasoning made more sense. Children were idiots, and none of them had exactly been exceptions to that.
In the past three years, Nick had started to suspect that the only person who hadn’t fully forgiven Lark for his past mistakes, was Lark himself. If that self-flagellation manifested itself through hunting down monsters sent by the Doodler, well– Nick thought that was kinda hardcore.
The concrete pavement of the streets was replaced by frozen clumps of dirt as they arrived at the hiking trail. On either side of them, long, splintery blades of yellow grass that weren’t used to this weather wobbled eerily in the wind. The trail led up a hill, which Nick was grateful he didn’t have to climb.
“We’re nearing the spot,” Lark said after a while. He pointed at a spot where the trail branched off. Nick couldn’t see far enough in the dark, but he guessed that the second road led to the outhouse. “I need you to be quiet right now. I don’t want to alert it of our approach.”
Nick gritted his teeth. The first instincts of worry started to prick under his skin, but they were manageable for the time being. Not wanting the flapping of his wings to give them away, he drifted to the ground and folded them on his back. One hand tentatively wrapped around the hilt of his sword.
The outhouse was a small cabin-like structure with a flat roof and two unisex restrooms, placed under a leafless tree of which the branches looked like curled up spider legs. Withered ivy and grime had caked itself on the sturdy log walls. Despite the protection from the elements it provided, Nick decided that the bushes had more appeal. The door on the right was slightly ajar while the door on the left was shut.
Lark pointed with two fingers at that door, waiting for Nick to give a nod in understanding. He slowly took his gun out of its holster. The sound of him clicking the safety off startled Nick even as he watched him do it. They approached the outhouse like a pair of SWAT agents, their breaths held apprehensively in their throats.
Backs pressed against the wooden wall on either side of the door, they listened. There was no static crackling on the other side, or feral growling. All Nick’s ears picked up was a low rustling, but that could have been the wind. The muscles in his jaw tensed.
Lark took a deep breath and fished a small key out of his pocket. Nick noticed that the lock didn’t match the one on the other door. Had Lark replaced it? Probably part of whatever trap he had sprung to catch this creature. Nick briefly wondered if hanging out with Lark was going to turn his life into an Indiana Jones rip-off.
The lock opened with a click that felt as loud as a firecracker. Slowly as to minimize the creaking, Lark opened the door.
On the ground at their feet was Lark’s Doodler monster. It had the same proportions and features as a normal North American raccoon, but it was much and much larger. Despite its unusual size, Nick didn’t find the creature especially frightening. It was curled in on itself, spooning what looked to be a rotting, half-eaten pineapple. One of its eerily human-like hands was groggily draped over its eyes, like a child playing peek-a-boo. Its chest rose with steady breaths, sound asleep.
Though the creature covered most of what little space there was on the floor, Nick spotted the shattered remains of a security camera next to the shitter, as well as moldy baked goods and pieces of fruit. The planks of the walls were covered in jagged scratch marks, reaching as far as the ceiling. This thing had put up a fight when the door had slammed shut, but somehow the outhouse had won.
“Aw, it’s kinda cu–”
The rest of that sentence was blown away as Lark unloaded his gun on the sleeping critter.
Nick´s entire body flinched as the shots rang in his ears. Birds were jolted awake and fled their tree branches in a frenzied exodus of feathers and screeching caws.
Six bullets sunk into the creature’s chest, exposing ribs and intestines. It let out a shrieking yelp that sounded like hundreds of nails trying to strip a chalkboard of its outer layer. Blood went flying into the wooden planks of the wall, where it sizzled like acid.
Instead of, y’know, dying like any normal thing should do when it got pumped up with half a pound of lead, the raccoon snapped awake and shakily pushed itself up until it stood on all four of its legs. Nick involuntarily took a step back; standing tall like this, the monster was the size of a wolf, and had a similar feral ferocity.
Nick wanted to put it on the record that he had retracted his previous assessment of the cuteness of this thing. Not cute. Not cute at all. More like the stuff of nightmares, now that it had reached up to its full height and was snarling at the two of them with unmistakable bloodlust. A blighted kind of sickness had twisted it. Patches of fur were missing and its skin in those gaps had taken on an unnatural pallor. A multitude of sores gave it a blotchy look. Its glowing red eyes were sunken into its curved skull, and covered with a sort of cataract, but they weren't completely empty, and that was perhaps the most terrifying part. Stringy pieces of unidentifiable gore had dried in the fur around its jaw and the black of its mask.
“We’re screwed,” Nick groaned a fraction of a second before the beast pounced.
Liquid ice rushed into Nick’s blood as he darted to the side. Lark did the same, and the raccoon skidded on the trail behind them. They all turned around at the same time, for a second in a tense standoff as they waited for the other to make the first move.
The raccoon narrowed its ghastly eyes, ringed tail erect like an angry cat. It sized them up with what Nick could only describe as a human-like intelligence. He decided that if this thing started talking, he was out.
Luckily for him, today was not another day in which he had to deal with anthropomorphic animals. The raccoon hissed at them, gaze darting between the two of them. Before it could pick its target, Nick and Lark drew their weapons and attacked.
While Lark’s gun went off multiple times more until it clicked empty, Nick slashed his sword across the beast’s side. He left a large gash that oozed red, but despite how deep it had cut, the raccoon continued to foam at the mouth as it circled around them. It charged at Nick, who kept its teeth at bay by parrying with his katana. Adrenaline rushed through his veins from his chest to his toes. The night turned brighter as he faced his foe, the flames of his hair turning from a lolling orange to a deep hot blue.
Lark fell back a bit, throwing a knife at its abdomen. The beast didn’t even flinch.
“It doesn’t seem all that bothered by what we’re throwing at it!” Nick yelled.
“Go for its legs,” Lark instructed. He had his back pressed against a tree, pausing for a brief second to switch out his magazines.
Smart. If their weapons couldn’t keep it from breathing, then they could at least try to keep it from moving. Nick pointed the finger of his unoccupied hand at the raccoon as it was bolting through bushels of grass, rapidly shooting bolts of fire in its direction, trying to aim at its legs. It was too fast though, and all Nick managed to hit were a few bushes. Nick realized they were ridiculously lucky this winter was so unusually bitter, because if it had been any other season this whole stunt would be a serious forest fire hazard.
Nick cursed when the beast vanished behind a hill and didn’t reappear. Had it run? Had they lost it? He stretched his wings and flew up to get a good view of the area. Lots of thickets and brambles were shifting in the wind, but Nick didn’t spot a dog-sized creature hiding in any of them.
Lark pulled a jagged knife from his belt and held it in a defensive stance close to his face, as he pointed his gun around at every natural breath of the canyon.
Finally, Nick spotted two glowing red dots in a bush about ten feet from Lark, which swiftly blipped out of existence.
“Look out!” he yelled in warning.
A blur of movement leaped at where Lark had been, but the teen rolled out of the way, grunting as his face met dirt and frozen solid mud. The rubber elastic he had used to tie his hair snapped as it got caught on a twig, and unkept locks curtained his ugly snarl.
Even before he fully had scrambled back up to his feet, Lark spun around, grabbing his gun with both his hands. A flash of gunpowder, and the beast wailed in pain and fury. Lark had blasted off its front left kneecap.
It was about to throw itself onto Lark, when Nick dove to the ground.
“Hey, trash panda!” Nick taunted as smoke rose from his eyes. “Prepare to get fucking obliterated.” He tried to lace the words with a stinging kind of psychic damage, but the raccoon’s mind was not developed enough to be offended. Nevertheless, Nick got what he had aimed for. It turned on its heels and made eye contact with the now-grounded half-demon.
The raccoon charged at him with a limp, still plenty fast. Nick’s firebolts missed it as it advanced. It jumped up, jaw ready to bite his face off.
It was just a second too slow, hindered by its broken leg. Instinct took over. Nick surprised himself with his perfect timing, as he reached out just in time to stick his hands in the scruff of the creature’s neck. Its flesh was disturbingly squelchy, and Nick’s arms sunk in until he could feel the jut of its sharp shoulder blades. Gross–gross–gross–gross. Despite the thoroughly unpleasant experience, Nick’s upper lip snarled up, straining to keep it in place. The raccoon was pressing all its weight on Nick as it furiously tried to get closer, its hind legs digging into the earth as Nick kept it out of arm's reach.
Letting out a grunt of effort, Nick moved his left hand to grab a piece of bone somewhere in the mush of sickly flesh and organs. He removed his right hand for a moment to unsheath his katana. With a cry, he stabbed the zombie raccoon through the ribs. The punctured lungs didn’t seem to deter its murderousness, but that hadn’t been what Nick was going for.
“Gotcha,” Nick heard himself say, and without thinking, he summoned a fireball straight from hell.
Immediately, Nick’s world turned orange and hot as flames erupted in his face. A pillar of heat exploded outwards, choking his breath. He hissed through his teeth, wincing as the temperature became uncomfortable even for him.
The thing stuck on his blade howled in agony, frantically squirming to get free. It reached out, pushing itself further onto Nick’s sword, to swipe its claws across his face. It only managed to break his skin once, across his cheekbone. Nick could feel the streams of blood on his face boil. When it lunged again and its razor-sharp nails came dangerously close to Nick’s eye, he pulled his katana back and dropped the beast to the ground. As much as he wanted to be a bit more like Glenn, he had no inclination to copycat his dad’s look.
The smoke and fire that had roared around them in those stretched-out seconds cleared up. Nick blinked a few times before his vision returned to normal. Sparks were everywhere, fluttering through the air like stray fireflies, contrasting against the dark of the night. The raccoon was on the ground, its flesh charred. Chunks of its muzzle had melted off, exposing its knife-like teeth in a permanent, horrible grin.
It was spasming in uncontrolled fits, its growls garbled and gurgling as it choked on its own blood.
Fucking hell.
Before Nick could move a finger, Lark ran over and point blank emptied his magazine on the burning creature. The gunshots echoed through the canyon. If anyone happened to hear them, they would most likely disregard it as fireworks. With a final horrifying death rattle that sent shivers up Nick’s spine, the monster stopped twitching.
Neither of them said a word as they kept waiting for it to come back to life a second time. Minutes passed. This time its death stuck.
It was over. Done, finito. They did it.
Nick huffed a laugh of joyous disbelief. He stumbled away from what had once been the corrupted raccoon, out of the ten feet diameter circle of scorched earth he had been the center of. Frigid air rushed into his lungs as he breathed in short, heavy bursts. Little black dots were beginning to dance around the periphery of his vision, but he didn’t feel as though he was about to pass out.
Lark put his gun back into his holster and broke away from making angry faces at the dead monster to check on Nick. “Are you okay?” he asked, a strong hand wrapped around Nick’s bicep. He didn’t sound cool and collected as he had before the fight. There was something very captivatingly human in his eyes; worry.
“‘M gonna lie down,” he muttered in response, and followed through.
The grass tickled his back. He panted, a mix of elation and ecstasy taking over as the terror seeped out of his system. He burst into a fit of abrupt manic laughter and found he couldn’t stop. Lark stared at him with blatant concern. Then his composure started breaking, and soon he was laughing too. He joined him on the grass, sprayed out like two snow angels. Neither of them commented on the idiocy of this action.
“Fuck,” Nick said after their laughter had died down. “That was exhilarating.”
“Right?!” Lark’s deep breaths evened out. He straightened himself in a sitting position and lighted a cigarette. Charcoal puffs of smoke darted up into the tree canopy. His hands were trembling the slightest bit, Nick noticed. But then again, almost every part of Nick’s body was shaking as well, so he could give Lark that.
“Why do I wanna do that again?” he said with a stupid grin. Adrenaline was still coursing through his veins. He felt like he could take on three balors all at once.
Nick lay in the grass for an indeterminate amount of time. His heartbeat eventually returned to its normal pace, though it felt as though Nick’s rib cage had permanently expanded a size. Lark sat next to him, wistfully staring up at the dark, cloudless sky-that-was-not-a-sky. The corpse of the fucked-up raccoon crackled as the flames ate away its last remains. It smelled a little bit like roasted turkey.
Eventually Nick pushed himself up to his elbows. “I get why you’re doing this now.” He laughed again, the sound only slightly less delirious than before. “This is crazy, right?” He turned his head to look at Lark for confirmation, even though his friend was the last person in the world who’d give it to him. “And you’ve been doing this all alone?”
“The only other people I would trust to have at my side with this are our friends. But it seemed unwise to expose Grant to operations like this. And Terry and Sparrow– they don’t revel in the thrill of battle the way we do.”
“We.”
“Yes.”
“You knew I was gonna love this.”
“Yes,” Lark said again. Nick wondered if roping him into this adventure had been Lark’s plan all along. “Can I make you a proposition?”
“Sure, but I’m warning you right now, I don’t do eye contact, and no kissing on the lips.”
“I can work with that,” Lark said easily, looking him over. Nick couldn’t tell if he was joking. He had to be. “But nothing of that nature, no. I’ve wanted to ask you this for a long time.”
“Feel like you should go down on one knee for this,” he quipped. “Or two. That works too.”
“Nicholas, can you refrain from making mediocre jokes for twenty seconds so I can try to ask you to permanently join me in monster hunting?”
Nick, still in his state of post-battle euphoria, ripped a handful of grass out of the earth and threw it at his friend. “No promises.”
Lark rolled his eyes and scraped his throat. “I fought alongside our parents when we battled my grandfather. The past few years, I’ve done everything I could to prepare myself for the fight to come. I am suited for this.” He said it without a hint of pride or bluster. “And Nick, you’re a literal hellspawn, looking like– hm.” He swallowed something back. “You might have lacked battles, but you do not lack the prowess.”
“No, no, finish that sentence.”
“The sentence was concluded.”
“Nope, try again. I wanna hear the original draft of that thought.”
He sighed in frustration, his cheeks dusting with pink. “Jesus Christ, Nick. You look like the lovechild of Bruce Lee and Henry Golding, okay? There. Satisfied?”
“Extremely,” Nick purred.
Nick wished that his darkvision could better differentiate between different shades of colors, because he could have sworn that Lark was slowly turning red. “...you know, never mind, this was a terrible idea.”
Nick cackled. He rolled over and grabbed his friend in a hug. “Fuck yes do I want to do cool shit like this with you, Lark! I’ve never felt so alive.”
“It could be dangerous,” Lark warned before returning the hug.
Nick blew a raspberry in dismissal. He pulled back, both of his hands still on Lark’s shoulders.
“Hey, since you’re here anyways – you comin’ to the Wilson’s New Year’s party? Mr. Wilson’s ban on lighting fireworks got pulled back, and I hear they’re planning to go all out.”
Occasionally a shadow of Lark’s classic Chesire grin would slip through, and people would mistake that for a smile, but Nick recognized those as expressions of manic delight instead of silent pleasure. In truth, Lark’s genuine, soft smiles were a rare sight, reserved for special occasions.
So that made it all the more meaningful when he beamed brightly at Nick, his face splitting in two. Nick’s kneecaps felt as though they were made from Graham’s crackers, brittle and about to snap from the slightest increase of pressure. He was lucky he was still sitting on the dirt. “They got mortars?”
“Willing to bet my life on it.”
“Perfect.”
“Alrighty,” Nick chuckled. “New year, new team. Partners?”
“Partners.”
They helped each other to their feet and stumbled back to the trail. Below them were the glittering lights of San Dimas as it started to wake up, unaware of the threat that had been taken down. There wasn’t gonna be a whole lot of glory in this job, Nick thought to himself.
He stole a glance at Lark, who had a deep frown set on his forehead as he plucked bits of raccoon intestines off the lapel of his coat, and decided that he didn’t really need the prestige and recognition anyways. He had everything he wanted.