some only had hearts that were brave and true

books-and-bodies

Karen Teller is having a really, really, really terrible month.

(In the privacy of her own brain, she is willing to admit that if ever there were a month that was downright shitty, this would be it.)

Her sister is dead. Not, like, gone to heaven dead, stuck on earth as a ghost dead. Her niece is still a werewolf, and is making progress on her apparent goal of scratching up every piece of furniture in the house. Also she got a D on a history test. Just straight-up got a D, on a history test, because she's been too dead all month to even listen during lectures. And she's too - proud, or scared, or something, to call in her parents for help, so she's just living in this house with a ghost and a tiny werewolf and an elementary schooler and hoping that nothing goes horribly horribly wrong before she graduates.

She has a job. It even pays enough to hire the nanny all day. Which is, you know, super. It starts at six and ends at nine, and is all the way across town, and she can't drive, so when she's lucky she gets home around ten, and she mostly doesn't take a stab at her homework because by that time she doesn't want to do anything at all. She does manage to take a shower, usually, because she's been handling dead bodies, because, oh yeah, she works at a cemetery, which is why it pays so well.

Also, she finds out today, there are zombies. Just, y'know, actual zombies, wandering around the catacombs under the mausoleum, which is probably why the caretaker gave her a mace, although honestly this is a thoroughly ridiculous way to handle this problem and you would THINK, if you knew that there were zombies infesting your catacombs, you would be able to seal them off and move your business somewhere safer, or at least come up with a solution that's less completely stupid than arming sixteen-year-olds with medieval weaponry and expecting them to fend for themselves.

This is mostly what she's thinking about when she takes out the zombie that's about to take a bite out of her coworker's shoulder. She has to assume that the actual contact is, like, instinct, or something. She hits it again, after, for good measure, and again, until its face is completely smashed in, because maybe she can't beat the crap out of this horrible, horrible month, but at least she can make sure this fricking literal walking corpse isn't going to make anything any worse.

"There. Dead zombie. Hopefully it stays that way this time."

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not-like-i-care

"Well, I like you. And I think you're a good friend. And I guess things could happen that'd make me mad at you and not your friend, but, but it's not, uh, most slavery things wouldn't do it and lots of things that aren't slavery things would do it, like talking about how I'm stupid and can't read, and - I can't lie and I'm not even good at acting, I don't think you could make me act like -

- I'm actually not sure you could make me do anything I didn't want to, I think probably if you tried then I'd try to listen and not be good at it and it'd be a big disaster and I guess it's important to avoid that but not because it'd let you pretend people cared about you, I really doubt it'd do that -

- and also you don't have parents so I think it makes sense that you'd want to be really sure you could have - people who have to act like they care about you - only you don't have that. So I'm sorry, I guess."

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books-and-bodies

- oh, that does kind of make sense. There is a logical explanation for the amount of pathetic inside her. She kind of wants to cry about this, like it's a relief that all of the awful is coming from not wanting to go back to her parents' house and that she doesn't have an extra, second, unrelated source of awful inside her that's going to keep spewing even more awful everywhere.

"I guess."

not-like-i-care

"I am gonna stay with you and take care of you and of Zana and little Connor. I just actually think if you were actually being mean - and I bet you don't even know how - it wouldn't work."

books-and-bodies

- he can't lie, he can't lie, if he says he's going to stay and the universe doesn't hurt both of them for it then he has to actually believe that's what he's going to do.

"I do have, like, some idea how people go about being mean, actually? I think it would be really bad for me and probably make me sick, but - "

not-like-i-care

"I don't - I guess maybe what I mean is that if you were trying to be mean you'd hurt yourself more than me but I don't think that's the only thing I mean, I think also humans and fairies are different and it's kind of important because you're - trying to stay well clear of what'd hurt a human when actually you could do lots of things that'd hurt a human and you wouldn't be hurting me. - We probably shouldn't try this. But it - seems important that you're being cautious enough to protect someone else, someone much more fragile than me."

books-and-bodies

"...I guess."

not-like-i-care

"And it's good that you're being cautious. It's one of the ways you're nice. I just - wish you weren't so scared."

books-and-bodies

...nod.

"Do you want me to tell you to do stuff, or - I am maybe confused about exactly what you're trying to get at, with this conversation - "

not-like-i-care

"I guess I would like it if, when you wanted something, and I could give it to you, and it was just for you not for little Connor or Zana, you'd - well, it wouldn't get disqualified just because you wanted it."

books-and-bodies

Nod.

not-like-i-care

"And I like holding you and I wish - we had a concept in common which we don't. But that's harder to fix."

books-and-bodies

"...what concept?"

not-like-i-care

"It's kind of -

- I don't know how to explain it. You know how it wouldn't be weird if Azalea had...the ability to hug people...and she hugged you? Not like if some stranger did?"

books-and-bodies

"Yeah?"

not-like-i-care

"So among fairies this is also a category where things - aren't weird - but not in the same way."

books-and-bodies

"I... don't know if I followed that."

not-like-i-care

"I'm not very good at explaining things. Uh, let's say you hadn't saved my life, and then we went to the dance, for the same reason, it'd be really different, right, because - because we'd be classmates and I could ...get advice on how to tell if I could kiss you and things like that and also because if we both hated it I'd just go to my home and you to yours and we'd both be sad but it wouldn't be - it wouldn't be really important that we not screw it up."

books-and-bodies

"Yeah?"

not-like-i-care

"And so - the thing we are is a completely different kind of thing than that, right?"

books-and-bodies

"Yeah, I guess."

not-like-i-care

"And, in a way, it's more like the sisters thing. Because a thing about sisters is that you - can't mess up? And you might imagine that'd make things worse since it raises the stakes but actually with my brothers at least it mostly makes things better because you don't need to be scared you messed up."

books-and-bodies

"I guess that makes sense.

"So - you think it is unlikely that the thing we are will be, like, messed up by things?"

not-like-i-care

"Yeah."

books-and-bodies

"So you think that if I want a thing for me or I maybe want a thing for me and I tell you this and you try giving it to me, it, like - might go badly but nothing horrible will happen. With us, I mean, I guess in theory I could tell you to do something that could end up having unrelated disastrous consequences involving zombie apocalypses or something - "

not-like-i-care