A/N: Surprise double release!
***
Sunny stared up at the rafters and tried to remember how to breathe.
His skin was slick with sweat and the sheets were a disaster, Nephis lay curled against his side, the light from the setting sun shining through a crack in the shutters reflecting off the wet sheen of her skin, her cheek was on his shoulder, silver hair spilled across his chest, with one leg hooked over his possessively.
For a long while, neither of them spoke. There was only the sound of their breathing slowly settling and the faint creak of old stone somewhere outside.
"Sunny," Nephis murmured at last.
"Mm?"
"Do we have time for a bath?"
He turned his head and looked at the tub in the corner, the one that had sat unused for weeks. Then he looked at the thin line of light creeping through the shutters. Cassie's mother had said breakfast was at eight. Nephis had a meeting at the manor at ten.
He did the math.
"No," he said. "Not really."
Nephis's fingers, which had been tracing idle circles over his ribs, went still.
"…But yes," Sunny added, before she could say a word. His Flaw twinged at the contradiction, and he scowled at the ceiling. "We don't have time. I don't care. Yes."
She laughed, a soft, breathy sound against his collarbone, and he decided that every hour of sleep he was about to lose was worth it.
"Then we should hurry," she whispered, and kissed his jaw.
Neither of them was late for anything that mattered.
***
Sunny woke to a face full of silver hair and a very good reason not to move.
Nephis was draped over him, one arm across his chest, her nose buried in the crook of his neck. Her breathing was slow and even. Sunlight filtered through unfamiliar curtains, and there was a quilt that wasn't his and the faint, unmistakable smell of someone else's house.
'Right. Cassie's place.'
The other half of the bed was empty, the sheets neatly drawn back. From somewhere to his left came the rustle of fabric and a soft, cheerful hum.
It didn't take him long to recognize the tune.
'Never Quitting Super Cupid.'
Sunny groaned.
"Good morning!" Cassie sang without turning around, running a brush through her hair in front of the mirror, fully dressed and wide awake. "How was the Sanctuary?"
"Sweaty and--" Nephis began into his neck, her voice thick with sleep. Then she seemed to think better of it and tightened her arm around him instead. "…Five more minutes."
"Breakfast will be ready soon," Cassie said.
"...make it fifteen."
Sunny stared at the ceiling.
'Who replaced Changing Star with a cat?'
He had spent months watching Nephis wake before dawn on the Forgotten Shore, sword in hand, ready for anything. Now she was nuzzling his shoulder, completely shameless, making a contented little sound that was making it very hard for him to think.
She pressed a lazy kiss to his collarbone.
"Neph," he whispered. "Cass is right there."
"I know," Nephis murmured, not moving.
"She can hear everything!"
"I know."
"Then-"
"Not. In. My. Bed," Cassie said with a smile that didn't match the twitch of her brow before she sighed. "I'm just going to pretend I'm deaf. The blind part I've got covered." She crossed to the door and paused with her hand on the frame. "Please be decent before you come downstairs. Dad's already in a mood."
***
By the time they made it downstairs Cassie had already left.
"She said she had a meeting to attend," her mother told them, pressing a wrapped container of leftover braised beef into Sunny's hands. "For lunch. Don't argue."
"I wouldn't dare, Auntie."
Cassie's father sat at the end of the table behind a tablet he was clearly not reading. Sunny bowed. "Thank you for having us, sir."
"Hmm," said the tablet.
Outside, the morning air was crisp and clean. Nephis pulled on her sunglasses, touched a hand to her hair, and watched it shift from silver to black as her disguise memory settled into place. Then she slipped her arm through Sunny's, leaned her head against his shoulder.
Sunny's legs felt like jelly. Whatever he had been expecting from last night, this was not it.
"So," he said as they strolled down the quiet terrace. "Where to now? The manor?"
"Your house."
"Mine? Why?"
Nephis didn't answer right away. Her ears had gone pink. She glanced up and down the empty street, at the narrow gap between two houses, and then back at him. She bit her lip.
"…You want to do it here?" she asked, very quietly. "I wouldn't mind."
Sunny's brain stopped.
It didn't short-circuit. It didn't stall. It stopped entirely, like a tram that had run out of track.
"Wha-... No." His voice cracked an octave higher. "No! Absolutely not! Not here!"
"I wasn't opposed."
"I WAS!"
A woman walking a small dog glanced at them as she passed. "Good morning," she said politely.
"Good morning," Nephis replied, perfectly composed.
Sunny wanted to dissolve into the pavement.
'What kind of monster have I unleashed?'
When the woman was out of earshot, he turned to Nephis with wide, desperate eyes. "We are going to my house. Right now. Like normal people."
Nephis smiled and tightened her grip on his arm. "As you wish."
Sunny stared at her profile, at the pink tips of her ears, at the corner of her mouth tugging upward.
'Was she joking? She's terrible at jokes. She's… she's not joking, is she?'
He decided he didn't want to find out, and walked faster.
***
The house was quiet once the front door closed behind their daughter's friends.
Cassie's father put down the tablet. "That boy," he said, "slept in my daughter's bed."
Cassie's mother, who was stacking plates at the sink, did not turn around. "Along with Nephis, dear. And they were all fully clothed."
"How do you know?"
"Because I checked."
"You should've checked twice."
She turned around then, drying her hands on a cloth, and gave him the look she had been perfecting for twenty years. "They're friends. Good friends. They helped her in that horrid Forgotten Shore and brought her home. You wanted her to have friends, remember?"
"I wanted her to have friends who didn't sleep in her bed."
"They were sleeping, not-" She pinched the bridge of her nose. "They are just friends."
Her husband picked up his tablet again, found it was upside down, and turned it right side up.
"For now," he grumbled.
***
Sunny was fairly certain he was going to die.
Not from a sword or a nightmare creature. From exhaustion. He had spent the entire day in the dream realm active, and the rest of the morning in the waking world on something that had absolutely nothing to do with rest, and was now sitting in the back of the PTV like a man who had been wrung out and hung up to dry.
Nephis sat beside him, looking like she had spent the morning in a meadow.
She wasn't literally glowing, but it was close. Her shoulders were relaxed and her whole posture had lost the tension he had spent a year learning to read.
"You're staring," she said, without turning her head.
"How are you not exhausted?."
She gave him a sly smirk "Why would I be exhausted?."
Sunny flushed and glanced at the driver's seat.
In the front seat, Sid made a small, strangled sound that might have been a cough. Sunny caught her eyes in the rearview mirror. They were crinkled at the corners.
"Because of what we were doing" He hissed before he widened his eyes in realization. "Wait, don't tell me you healed yourself between…"
Nephis looked at him with faux shock as she gasped. "Do you really think I would use my aspect in such a way?"
Sunny looked at her, his mouth opening and closing, unable to form words..
'Did this insane woman really endure agonizing pain just so we could keep going?'
Nephis smirked knowingly at him.
'She did! She totally did!'
"You-!" Sunny started, but was interrupted by Sid barking out a laugh at his expense.
"Not a word, Sid," Nephis said mildly.
"Wouldn't dream of it, Lady Nephis."
The Immortal Flame manor rose out of the afternoon haze: a sprawling estate of dark stone and wood with tall windows, ringed by walls and guarded gates. Sunny had avoided the place for weeks, partly out of pride and mostly out of dread. The moment he stepped through the doors, he remembered why.
Every single person in the entrance hall looked at them.
It wasn't the usual look. It was a different look. Warm, and sly, and knowing. A young maid carrying a stack of linens took one glance at the two of them and became very interested in the ceiling. A pair of Awakened guards at the end of the hall exchanged a nod and a smirk. Someone behind a pillar whispered, "He's still alive," and someone else whispered back, "For now."
Sunny kept his eyes fixed on the floor.
'They know. They all know. How do they know? We haven't even said anything!'
"It's the walk," Nephis murmured next to him, as if reading his mind.
"The what?"
"The walk. You're limping slightly."
Sunny grimaced, straightening his posture while trying to maintain his normal stride.
They parted ways at the door to her office, a heavy oak thing with an Immortal Flame crest carved above it. Nephis stopped, turned, and cupped his cheek.
"Get some rest," she said. "You look tired."
"Wonder whose fault that is," he muttered.
She kissed him. It was quick and soft, and it left him feeling as though he had walked into a wall.
"I'll see you at dinner," she said, and disappeared into her office.
Sunny stood there for a long moment with his hand on his cheek.
Then he shook his head, straightened his shoulders, and headed for the outbuilding behind the manor where the Hunters had made their home.
***
The outbuilding had once been a guardhouse, and it showed. It was a low, solid structure with narrow windows and a wide front room that the Hunters had converted into something between a common room and a barracks. There were mismatched chairs, a scarred table with a knife embedded into it, a few desks buried under paperwork, and the unmistakable smell of too many people cramped into one space.
Sunny pushed open the door and stepped inside, still half-asleep on his feet.
A stocky Hunter looked up from a card game. "Hey Mongrel."
"Hey," Sunny said absently, raising a hand in greeting. "Morning."
He was three steps toward the nearest chair when his brain caught up.
He stopped.
Slowly, he turned around.
The stocky Hunter was grinning. Beside him, a lanky Hunter had frozen with a card halfway to the table. Across the room, another hunter set down a mug. In the sudden, ringing silence, Sunny could hear his own heartbeat.
"…What did you call me?" he asked.
"Hmm? I just called your name.," the stocky Hunter said, with a cheeky grin.
Sunny's eyes narrowed. "No you didn't, you called me something else."
The hunter raised his hands. "What? Me? No way! That's ridiculous."
The lanky hunter nodded in agreement. "Absolutely ridiculous, almost as ridiculous as someone calling themselves something crazy in the dreamscape, like, say, Mongrel."
Sunny's mouth went dry.
"That's- I wouldn't say it's that crazy… I mean, have you seen some of the names out there? Downright moronic I tell you…"
The hunter at the bar nodded along while cleaning a mug. "True, true… you seem pretty knowledgeable about the dreamscape…" He looked up at Sunny with a smirk. "Have you ever participated in it?"
Sunny's eye twitched.
It was a simple question. Yes or no. Yesterday he would have laughed it off, spun some ridiculous story, and let them come to their own conclusions. But he was tired, he was cornered, and the pain at the back of his skull was already warming up.
"Lo;ts of people have." he said. "It's a standard training tool."
"That's not what I asked," the Hunter at the bar said pleasantly.
Sunny stared at him. He could feel the pressure building behind his teeth.
'Say no. Just say no. It's one word.'
"…Yes," he ground out. "Once or twice.."
"Really? What do you call yourself?" the lanky Hunter asked.
Sunny cheered internally 'Yes! I can use that!'
Sunny lazily gestured. "Oh a few things, Nothing, You, Bastard, The Weapon-"
"Mongrel?"
"Yes- FUCK!"
The Hunters stared at him.
Sunny stared back.
"I KNEW IT!"
A head popped up from behind the bar. Gemma shot to his feet, knocking over some cups, and pointed at Sunny with a trembling finger and an expression of pure, vindicated joy.
"I KNEW IT! I knew I recognised that sword!"
"Gemma-"
"Do you know how much these sons of bitches made fun of me for losing to some masked weirdo!? And you sent me the video, you bastard!"
Sunny closed his eyes.
'That was supposed to be a warning not to skip work…'
He tried, gods knew he tried, to think of another way out of this. Another half-truth. Another dodge. But every Hunter in the room was staring at him with the cheerful, merciless expectation of people who had just caught their leader doing something embarrassing.
He sighed.
"Fine," he said. "Yes. It's me. I'm Mongrel."
The room exploded.
"Lord Mongrel!"
"I have your keychain!"
"Sign my forehead!"
"He's going to kill us for this. Do it again, say it again!"
"I will end every single one of you," Sunny said, to the ceiling.
It took several minutes for the noise to die down. When it did, the Hunters had arranged themselves in a loose circle around him..
"Don't worry, Boss," the stocky Hunter said, wiping his eyes. "We won't tell a soul."
"Really?" Sunny asked suspiciously.
"Really. Cross our hearts." The Hunter grinned. "It'll be way funnier this way."
"Much funnier," the lanky Hunter agreed. "Imagine the look on Kai's face. His agency had to issue that statement."
"I'm aware," Sunny said grimly.
"We're going to watch you squirm for months," someone added, and Sunny did the only thing he could, which was to pinch the bridge of his nose and sink into the nearest chair.
Gemma dragged another chair over and dropped into it, still wearing a smile that stretched from ear to ear. "You can't be mad. You dumped your paperwork on me. With a video link of you stomping me into the sand."
"That was the point."
"I know that now!"
Sunny rubbed his face with both hands and decided to change the subject before Gemma had a chance to start another victory lap.
"How are the Dens?"
"Honestly?" Gemma leaned back, hands behind his head. "Great. Better than I expected. The citadel is built right into the side of a canyon. We've got actual running water. Cold and hot. And there are hot springs."
Sunny's eye twitched.
"…Hot springs."
"Yeah, natural ones. About a two-minute walk from my quarters." Gemma sighed happily. "I soak every night. Best decision I ever made, taking that posting."
"I hate you."
"I know."
"We have a tub."
Gemma put a hand on his shoulder "A tub isn't the same, Sunny."
Sunny grumbled for another minute, Gemma let him, grinning the whole time. By the time he had finished complaining, the Hunters had drifted back to their card games and the room had settled into a comfortable murmur.
Sighing, Sunny leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees.
"Gemma. I'm thinking about starting a business."
Gemma raised an eyebrow. "A business?"
"Memories. Buying them, selling them, procuring them from the Dream Realm. We have access to a lot of good ones, and nobody knows what to do with half of them."
"Huh." Gemma scratched his chin. "Why?"
"Because we need money. A lot of it." That was entirely true. It was also, he noted with some relief, entirely vague. "And I don't want to depend on handouts, or on anyone's goodwill."
"For what?"
"…Things."
Gemma gave him a long look. Sunny returned it with polite blankness.
"Sure," Gemma said. "Things."
"I want Kido," Sunny continued. "She's the best artisan we have. If she's in, the others will follow, and the quality of what we sell will speak for itself. I need you to talk to her."
"Me?"
"You live together, who else would I ask?."
"I'll ask but she's terrified of you."
Sunny raised a brow, "Why?"
"I don't know, maybe because she had a front row seat of you singlehandedly butcher Harus and a dozen guards."
Sunny furrowed his brow. "Only half of those guards actually died."
"Not the point'"
Gemma hummed as he thought over Sunny's request. "I could probably convince her," he admitted. "She's been wanting more freedom with her work. But we're going to need someone to actually run the thing. Day to day. Inventory, contracts, paperwork." He held up a hand. "Not me. I'm a Hunter. And you're… you."
"What does that mean?"
"It means you'd probably throw the books at someone else anyway, so we may as well skip that step."
Sunny opened his mouth to deny it, felt his Flaw tug, and closed it again.
"We need a manager," Gemma said.
"I agree." Sunny leaned back in his chair, and a slow smile spread across his face. "Don't worry. I have someone in mind."
Gemma's eyes narrowed. "Who is it?"
Sunny just kept smiling. "Someone we know."
***
A/N: Alright, now that freaky star is established I'll probably hold back on the more sexual implications going forward unless I find it funny. Let me know how I did.