Inhuman - Reaped Pt. 01

He stopped in front of me and pulled me into a gentle hug. "Get some more sleep and call if you need anything, okay? And do something with your hair."

I laughed and nodded. "Thanks for sniffing my stuff."

I slept like a baby after that.

===

I had my computer out on the island, trying to write a pitch to my editor to get a serial. The words just wouldn't come, though. I knew better than to stare at that screen. I needed to go out, go take a shower, wash the damn dishes, anything but look at that blank screen. I turned some music on and flipped over to the internet to look at some hair dye.

My last name was White because I had pale gray hair, and the foster system didn't have any other name for me. I'd been left at the front door of a church with a note that said Rebecca might be a nice name for me and nothing else. When they filled everything out, my white hair had given them some small spark of inspiration. I'd spent the first sixteen years of my life dyeing my hair a natural color with the hopes a new family wouldn't think I was a freak. The constant talking to myself didn't help. After the last foster family got me on meds, I stopped worrying so much about looking normal.

I picked a rainbow of neon colors and threw them into the cart and hit the order button before I could back out of it then turned on some music and started dancing. Movement would help free up the thought process, I hoped. There's a reason I don't dance in public, though. Pretty sure I looked like a duck trying to walk on its wings, but every now and then an idea would come to me and I would write it down before swaying away again. My hands were in my hair and I spun around the island when a black cloaked figure appeared right in front of me and I crashed into him.

"Charos?" It hadn't felt squicky to touch him. "I didn't think I called you."

~"You did not. Moira said I should check on you."~

"Okay," I draw the word out and shut my computer. I'm not going to get any work done. "I'm still having some issues believing you're not a hallucination, even though Jake said he smelled Moira this morning."

~"I did not know reapers had a scent,"~ his eyes swirl with gold and pink.

"Jake's a shifter. He couldn't see her, but when she was here he could smell her and he said she smelled almost like me," I said. I was betting Charos would smell a lot more like me than Moira had. Now that I wasn't freaking out, I could feel a draw to him I hadn't noticed the night before. "I think it would be kind of hard for him to have the same hallucination I am."

His eyes flashed orange before fading again, ~"You are not hallucinating."~ He did something with his sleeves and then reached out and I saw his hand even as I raised my own to meet him halfway. ~"I am very real, Rebecca."~

"I've spent a long time thinking the things that were touching me were in my head. It's going to take me a little while to get used to this." I didn't let go of his hand, though. Touching him felt good. "I can't promise I won't freak out when you show up."

~"Moira said,"~ he cleared his throat and then imitated her voice pretty well, ~"learn some modern things and don't fuck this up."~

I pressed my lips together, but I couldn't hold back the laughter at that. "I can show you TV shows, I guess. Never thought I'd be watching TV with the grim reaper." I pulled my hand from his and grabbed my computer, rubbing the palm of my hand on my pants as I walked into the living room. He followed, not making a sound but his sleeves rubbed together. Apparently the discomfort of not touching went both ways. I sat on the couch and opened the computer, pulling up Netflix since I didn't own an actual TV.

"Netflix and chill with the grim reaper," I muttered, then looked over at Charos standing by the arm of the couch. I patted the seat next to me, "You'll see better if you sit."

~"What is Netflix and chill?"~

My face was burning. "I didn't think I said that out loud. It basically means to watch a movie and relax." And I really hoped he didn't say it to Moira because she'd blow that lie out of the water.

He sat on the couch next to me and somehow the cloak didn't bunch or fold or spread all over the place. It was the best behaved tent I'd ever seen. His hands stayed in his lap and he sat ramrod straight on the seat, but the cloak behaved. ~"What is a movie?"~

I tapped the computer, "They're like theater plays that you can watch over and over whenever you want, and it's the same every time. I play them on my computer because I don't watch a lot of TV so I don't have one."

~"I have seen theater,"~ he said.

I tapped the play button and leaned back against the back of the couch and put my feet up on the coffee table next to the laptop. The intro music started and he jumped a little, but when I looked I couldn't see anything other than the cloak. When the movie itself started, he leaned forward and I could see the pink glow of his eyes reflected against the screen.

About twenty minutes into the movie, he slumped, ~"I need to go. Can we watch it again when I return?"~

I reached out and paused it. "Go. I'll start it again here when you get back."

He disappeared and I got up to make a bag of popcorn. They might not be able to eat, but I could and movies almost required popcorn. The microwave had just gone off and I was trying to get the bag open without burning myself when he reappeared.

~"What is that?"~

"Popcorn," I said, and waved to the couch. "I'll be there in a second and I can start the movie again."

He was less stiff when he sat on the couch this time, and I hit play before resuming my position next to him. It was more entertaining to watch him react to the action in the movie than it was to watch the movie. He leaned forward, back, even clasped his hands in his lap at times. When he had to go, I paused the movie and just waited for him to come back.

The movie ended a few minutes after he'd returned, and the hood turned to me, ~"Is there more?"~

I smiled, "There are countless more movies, Charos. You can't watch them all at once."

~"You can show me more, though?"~

"Yes," I laughed and got up to throw away the popcorn bag. "But not tonight. I need to eat dinner and get some work done, and I need my computer for that."

~"More pictures?"~

"Uh, no, actually." I dug through the fridge and came up with another frozen meal and stuck it in the microwave. "I'm trying to pitch a longer term writing project to my editor but don't have any solid ideas. I might have one more reaper article in me before I need to change things up or have to find a new paper to write for."

~"I do not understand."~

"And I don't really know how to explain it so you do," I said. "I write for a newspaper, sort of. Most of what I write is fiction, just storytelling. I need a new story to tell."

He looked at the computer and sighed, and I had a thought. I went to the small closet that was meant for coats and pulled out a box and dug out a notebook and a few pens. One of them had to still have ink in it. I scribbled through a couple of them before I found one that still wrote, and set the stuff on the coffee table beside the laptop.

~"What is this?"~

"I can write on anything, and you can watch another movie." I went to grab my food from the microwave and then sank to the floor in front of him and found a comedy I thought he'd enjoy. The cloak was warm against my back as I ate then started writing down fresh thoughts and ideas.

My hair moved a second before his fingers touched the back of my neck. I leaned back a little into the touch, but kept writing. It struck me that Anne Rice had gotten away with her Vampire Chronicles novels, why couldn't I do a Grim Reaper serial? It wasn't as fast as typing, but the pen still skated across the paper as I put down ideas and even though it felt good, his touch wasn't going to get me to stop. His sliding down between my back and the couch did get me to stop for a handful of seconds.

The bottom of the cloak stretched out on either side of me under the table, ending in what I could only assume were his feet even though I couldn't see them. Curious, I reached down and touched the fabric by my hip and pulled, and it stretched. When I let it go, however, it didn't act like I'd just stretched a bunch of it up. It went right back to how it had been. Whatever the cloak was made of was some amazing stuff. His hands didn't leave my shoulders, or even go far enough down my arms to impede my writing. When I glanced back at him, his eyes were swirling green and still locked on the laptop.

I could feel him against my back when he laughed at the movie, and decided to just go with this. The touching felt good, and I didn't think he realized he'd slid down to the floor. I crossed my legs and scooted just a little closer to the table and kept writing, losing myself in expanding the points I'd put on the page. Then the hood came into view over my shoulder, but when I turned to look it was nothing but inky blackness underneath and his glowing pink eyes. The movie had ended and I hadn't noticed.

~"Do you need help with this?"~ His hand snaked around to point at one point where I thought I'd do an interview with a reaper. His eyes bled to the same green they'd been when he'd laughed at the movie, and I got the impression I was amusing him somehow.

"Are you offering?"

~"I do not know how if I cannot be seen."~

I slid the computer more in front of me and pulled up the pictures I'd managed to get of him. He gasped and leaned around me to see it closer. "I've managed to get five total pictures of you that are clear enough to use in articles. I know I've seen Moira, but her pictures are always blurry."

His hands went up to the edge of his hood like he might take it off, but then he pulled them back down and covered his hands with the sleeves. ~"You would need other pictures?"~

"I have to get this approved by my editor first. Anything else is just planning. The more I have planned out the more likely he is to go for this because it means the content will be faster. My editor hates nothing more than chasing his journalists for articles." I looked back at the picture. It was the one that I'd gotten of him looking right at me, his eyes burning orange beneath the hood. I'd seen the color in both his and Moira's eyes now, and I still had no idea what it meant. But I was pretty sure the colors gave away their emotions though Moira's whole face gave hers away. I didn't have that visual cue with Charos. Only the flashes of his eyes. "If I called you into a park, I could try to get more pictures and it would just look like I'm taking pictures of the trees. Or any other part of the city."

He didn't say anything for a minute, then he tensed, ~"I need to go. I will return."~ And he was gone. Except it felt like he took about half of me with him. My back was suddenly colder than it should have been. At my worst on the meds I hadn't felt this bad.

My head was on the table when he returned. I didn't have to look up because it was better just having him in the room. It got even better when he sat back where he had been. ~"Moira said I need to learn modern things. Call this Netfix and Chill with the Grim Reaper. She laughed so hard she snorted when I told her you said that."~

I felt my face heat up again, wondering if she'd explained the meaning of the phrase. I wasn't going to ask, though. So instead I asked, "Does it hurt when you leave?"

~"No. Not physical pain, at least,"~ his fingers slid along the edges of the straps of my tank top. ~"It is not comfortable, but I have to do my duty. The soul will stay with the body until I reap them, and that is a torture no soul should have to endure. The souls must go home."~

I wrote that down. The serial could have whatever title my editor decided he liked, but having the real stuff in it would ground it better. Considering it was going in a tabloid and would be assumed to be completely fictional, I could include a lot of real and the readers wouldn't know the difference. "I'll keep that in mind. It kind of felt like I was being ripped apart in a way. It wasn't so bad when it was only our hands touching."

~"Do you want me to stop touching you?"~

"No," I shook my head, but kept writing. "It's worse when you stop. Do you want to watch another movie?" I flicked the end of the pen toward the laptop.

~"I think the discomfort will fade with time,"~ he said. ~"I do not want to disturb you with the movies."~

"You're not disturbing me anymore than I already am. I'll need a shower at some point, but other than that I'll be out here working on how to pitch this to my editor." I turned to the computer, but pulled up my email before looking for another movie. Nothing from my editor meant he'd either not seen what I sent in or I was in for some major revisions. I pulled Netflix back up, "What would you like to watch?"

~"The violent one was nice."~

I started Mr. and Mrs. Smith for him and then leaned back to watch the movie with him for a little bit. He had to leave six times during the movie, and each time I told myself he needed to be gone for the souls. It didn't get any easier, but it also didn't get any worse than that first time right after he slipped between me and the couch. I told myself it was growing pains. All inhuman abilities came with growing pains, and I couldn't imagine this was worse than the pains a shifter went through.

This time when he came back, I held a finger up to stop him sitting behind me, "I need to sleep tonight, and this feeling of loss thing dulls out after few minutes. I think it's about all I can take tonight."

He sat on the couch and I started the last bit of the movie. ~"Can we do this again?"~

"Yes," I nodded. "But I'm totally calling you out into a park or something for pictures."

~"Does this count as modern things?"~

I laughed, "Yeah, I think it counts. Moira will be jealous." I got up. "The movie will end in a few minutes and I need a shower. If you have to go and then come back and I'm not out here, don't just appear in my bedroom, please?"

The hood nodded and I went into my room and shut the door. I stood there a minute, leaning against the wood and wondering if I was just in shock. Would I have a breakdown later, or was this just my new normal? I shook it off and stripped on the way to the bathroom. This time I didn't linger in the shower, just got it done and got out. Not wanting a repeat of the night before, I put on sleep pants with a tank top before leaving my room. Charos wasn't in the place at all, so I grabbed a pint of ice cream that was almost empty and a spoon and checked my email again.

This time I had a reply from my editor and it was a butt load of revisions, so I settled in on the couch to work through them. I couldn't fix the photo, so I ignored that. After that it was just a grind. I finished around midnight, stretching back over the arm of the couch and trying to reach the floor until my back popped. The little bit of ice cream that had been in the container was long gone. Then I sat back up and started typing the pitch for the new serial. Pitching was easy, waiting for a response... not so much. My editor would either go for it or not, there wasn't a whole lot of in between. I finally shut my laptop around two in the morning and went to bed.

===

I woke to my phone ringing from right beside my head, and I fumbled to get it into view to see who was calling me.

"Yeah?"

"Morning, Becca," Jake's voice came through clear and way too loud. "Tell the gate guy to let me in."

"Fucking let me sleep one of these days if I do?"

"You can sleep later. You work from home most of the time."

"Let him in, I'll kick him out later," I grumble and hear a bunch of laughter before the line goes quiet. I looked at the clock and it was ten, so at least I'd gotten more sleep than the last night.

I rolled out of bed and went to unlock the door and then retreated to the bathroom. Finishing in there I found Jake on the couch. He looked at me and groaned, "Go back in there and get dressed. We're going out to celebrate. I got the promotion, and I'm taking you out to lunch whether you want to go or not."

"Congratulations," I called over my shoulder and went to change into some jeans and a random band t-shirt from my drawer. Socks and boots and I was ready to go to lunch. "I pitched a serial to my editor last night."

"Sweet!" He jumped off the couch and hugged me. Then he paused with his face in my hair. "You smell different. Did something happen yesterday after I left?"

I stepped away from him. "How do I smell different?"

"The meds are completely gone now. They were still there yesterday morning. Kind of expected them for a while because those things tend to linger. What happened after I left?"

"I spent most of last night watching movies with a grim reaper. The one I'm supposed to be a moira for."

"No names?"

I grabbed my camera bag from the counter and made sure I had everything, then we walked out through the front of the warehouse. "If I say either of their names, they show up and I'll wind up talking to myself in public. I haven't done that since middle school, so no. No names."

"You don't need your camera, Becca."

His truck was parked at the front of the building in the business lot, and we got in and he got us up on the highway. "The serial I pitched was a fiction based around a day in the death of a reaper type crap. He offered to help, so we're going through a park for a photo shoot because the only usable images I have of him have already been used in the other articles. I figure you can use the time to smell him, too, but don't get too close."

"Why don't they want to get close to anyone else?"

"Apparently, moira can't have their souls reaped," I looked over at him. "You still can. So don't try to get close unless I tell you to, okay?"

"It would have helped if I could have smelled both of you in the same space yesterday. You didn't even have to say she was gone. The smell disappeared completely. I'd almost think I was hallucinating with how fast it was gone, but I could smell something similar on you. I still can, and it's stronger now that the meds are gone."

"So, big promotion. No more stuffy uniform?" I ask.

"I get to wear my nice clothes now," he laughed. "I find out my assignment tomorrow."

We pulled into a resaurant and had lunch, then he drove out to a rest area not far from the warehouse that butted up to a state park. Walking along the trails I tried to find some place that would work for taking what amounted to vanity pictures of the grim reaper. Would it be insulting to ask him to a cemetery? Probably, but the thought made me giggle.

"Share the joke?" Jake was looking around at the scenery and every now and then I saw his nostrils flare as he smelled things around us.

"I was just wondering if it would be completely wrong to do this in a cemetery. Charos could answer, probably." I'd just spotted a big oak tree dripping with moss at the edge of some other trees I couldn't identify by sight.

~"Cemeteries are for the living,"~ Charos appeared far to the left of me and Jake.

"Can you stand by that oak and I can see if I can get any pictures that will come out clear?"

Charos glided over to the tree, but when Jake tried to go like I was talking to him I grabbed his arm to stop him and shook my head. He nodded that he'd stay there, and I walked toward the tree and got my camera up. I tried for artsy shots, and plain boring shots and everything in between. Just hoping for one or two that would turn out clear.

~"This is odd."~

"I'm almost done. Do you want to see them later?"

~"Yes. I would like that."~

I turned the camera off and let it fall to my chest and stood from where I'd knelt. "Uhm, Jake wants to try to smell you. Is there any way for him to get close enough to do that?"