Shiki wasn’t sleeping when the explosions started; except for the trips to find Shasta and the visit from Andraeon, he hadn’t quite dared to fall asleep for very long. The weight of the wards pressed down on him so heavily that he was half-afraid they would crush his lungs if he let himself relax too much. Mostly he caught quick twenty-minute catnaps throughout the day and spent the night carefully feeling out all the wards to see if there was any point where he might be able to break them. They had been extremely well-constructed, he had to grudgingly admit, and he admired them even as he mentally cursed Aloria and the Lockwood family for producing her. It wasn’t fair and he knew it—Shasta was a Lockwood as well, after all—but it made him feel better as he sat in his cell and waited to see what they would do to him.
Now he sat up from his slumped position against the wall and listened to the dull sound of explosions outside. Part of him cringed away, expecting the alarms to go off and drill into his head again, but the alarms stayed silent. He raised a hand to his nose just to check and made sure there was no blood, then got to his feet and went to the window to try and see what was going on. He could hear distant yells and then the sound of another explosion that rocked the floor and sent him stumbling backwards. Clumsy under the heavy wards, and still feeling weak from the effect of the alarms, he tripped over his own feet and fell, probably saving his own life as the window exploded inwards. Chunks of glass flew over his head and embedded themselves in the wall and door. Flames began to lick along the window’s frame, quickly warping the wood and causing the paint to peel off.
“Shiki?” Shasta’s voice, coming from the other side of the door, startled him. “You better be in there, I don’t have time to look all over this damn place.”
“I’m here,” Shiki called, pushing himself to his feet. “What the hell are you doing here?”
“Questions later. Get away from the door.”
Shiki almost asked why then decided he didn’t really want to waste the time. Retreating to the corner furthest away from the door, he crouched down and covered his head with both arms. He was glad he did when the door blew inward with such force that the top half went spinning into the opposite wall. Shiki spared a glance for it, and for the fire creeping along the wall toward it, then got up and headed for what was left of the doorway.
He stepped out of the room and immediately went down on his knees as the wards tightened painfully around him. All the air left his lungs and he reached up automatically to his throat, fighting to take a breath, as an invisible something tightened around his neck. He was dimly aware that Shasta was shouting something at him but he couldn’t hear it over the roar of his own blood in his ears as the wards strangled him.
Shasta grabbed hold of him so hard that he was left with spectacular bruises in the shape of fingers later, and dragged him into the between world. Beneath Shiki’s fingers the force tightened around his throat took the form of a thick leather cord, digging into his skin and cutting off all his air. He struggled to pull it away, then Shasta slapped his hands down and slid something cold and sharp between the delicate skin of his throat and the cord. A moment later the cord parted and fell away, allowing him to take a deep, painful breath of cool foggy air.
Shasta pitched the cord away with a grimace like he’d just touched something slimy and took Shiki’s face in both hands; a gesture so familiar that Shiki smiled despite the burning pain in his lungs and around his neck. Shasta scanned his face anxiously then visibly relaxed, leaning in so their foreheads touched.
“And you say I get myself into too much trouble,” he muttered.
“You do,” Shiki said, voice hoarse. He wrapped his arms around Shasta’s waist and pulled him into a hug. “Thank you.”
“Hey, I’m not dealing with your mother all by myself,” Shasta snorted, but his voice trembled a little and his grip on Shiki was still almost too tight for comfort. “Fuck, that scared me.”
“You? Think how I felt.” Shiki intentionally kept his tone light and pushed Shasta back a bit, planting a kiss on his forehead. “Now tell me just what the hell you were doing there, and where you’ve been.”
“I came to get you. I went looking for Jonesy because... well, it’s all a long story. I’ll tell you later.” Shasta got to his feet and offered a hand. “Short version is that I went to your mother for help and she’s off with Jones to try and rescue Drae and Emily. So let’s go home and wait for them.” He pulled Shiki up and started to step away to open a gate, but Shiki pulled him back. The look of wide-eyed innocence Shasta gave him was the same look Shasta had used all throughout his childhood, usually when he’d done something he’d been expressly forbidden to do.
“Spill it.”
“Spill what?” Shasta asked.
“Whatever it is you’re hiding. I’m going to get it out of you anyway so just tell me now, or else.”
“You know you can’t ground me anymore, right?”
“I’ll find a way.”
“I might have kinda sorta got myself shot,” Shasta said, so fast it all jumbled together like one long exotic word.
“How?” Shiki swallowed against the sudden spike of fear that tightened his throat painfully, taking Shasta by both shoulders and looking at him carefully. Now that he wasn’t distracted he could see how pale Shasta was under his tan, and the dark shadows under his eyes. He looked thinner as well, the angle of his jaw just that little bit more pronounced.
“I’m okay, Shiki, don’t get your panties in a knot.” Shasta tried for a bright smile but it faded when Shiki didn’t smile back. “I went looking for Emily, okay. I thought... you know, ‘cause I was such an asshole to Jonesy, I could make it up to him.”
The anxious look Shasta gave him made Shiki rethink the lecture he was about to launch into. Instead he just ruffled Shasta’s hair and bit back a silent sigh. “Next time would you please just ask me for help.”
“Then we both would have been shot,” Shasta said, and raised both hands in surrender when Shiki glared at him. “Okay, I’m sorry, I’ll ask for help next time. Cross my heart.”
Shiki looked at him for a moment longer, eyes slightly narrowed, then nodded. “All right. Now we can go home.”
“Sir.” Shasta saluted and made the gesture to open a gate back to Kaede’s house. Nothing happened and Shiki saw him frown a little, then make it again, sweeping his entire arm through a broader stroke this time. The air in front of him remained stubbornly unchanged, though glancing around, Shiki saw that the fog was growing thicker around them.
“Need some help, Shas?” he asked.
“I don’t know what’s wrong,” Shasta said, glaring at the fog in front of him. “This happened when Drae booted me here, but I don’t see why it’s happening again now. Actually, I don’t even know why it happened when Drae shoved me back here. This is supposed to be my place.”
“Let me give it a go.” Shiki tried moving them from the between world to his mother’s house then, when that didn’t work, to his own cabin in the jungle. Nothing happened except that the fog rose higher around his legs, its damp touch making him shiver.
“Shiki.” Shasta’s voice was soft. “Something’s watching us.”
Shiki didn’t reply but he turned his attention outwards, to the fog around them. After a moment he felt what Shasta had picked up; a presence out in the fog, invisible to his eyes but just there on the edge of his senses. All the hairs on the back of his neck stood on end and he reached out slowly to wrap his fingers around Shasta’s wrist, drawing Shasta back to his side. Leaning in until his mouth was next to Shasta’s ear, he murmured, “When I say go, run. Take us to your place.”
Shasta nodded slightly, his gaze sweeping the fog around them. When Shiki told him to go, he went, bolting in the opposite direction to the thing they sensed out in the fog. Shiki followed right behind him, keeping a tight hold of his hand. Out in the fog something turned towards them and began to lope forward. Shiki saw Shasta cast a quick frightened look over his shoulder, then he wrenched open a gate to his own house, tumbling them both through it and into his bedroom. The gate snapped shut behind them but not before Shiki caught a glimpse of something dark and endless rushing like a steam train towards them. Then the gate vanished and there was nothing but the other wall of Shasta’s room and their own panting breaths to keep them company.
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