Author Games: Empty Night

Quarterfinals: Alexander King

No two houses smelled the same. It was an odd fact Alec had realized over the years. No matter if they were the same species, gender, decade, or a million other differences that he'd seen in the people of Chicago, the dragon had never stepped foot in two separate homes that had the exact same scent. The same rule applied to the small apartment he was stepping into, but this scent was one he had become familiar with. Cigarette smoke, coffee grinds, and a heavy dose of Vanilla & Cream air freshener. The taste was tattooed on his taste buds as strong as any other, and he swiped his forked tongue out past his lips to inhale deeper as he closed the door behind him. It clicked with a slight protest, the lock jimmied every so slightly out of place.

The room sitting before him was empty. An old, leather couch was pressed up against one wall and a television hung up facing it. Beneath a cheap, glass coffee table was a flat, stained, blue rug. The amenities weren't big or fancy, though, if you could say they existed at all. It was a small place but felt bigger without all the crap piled around it like his own apartment. In comparison, the walls were all but bare. No pictures hung on the walls or were set on the end table near an old armchair. The closest thing to a "touch of home" the apartment had was a clay key bowl that sat by the entryway.

Wandering through the place, the dragon left his shoes on and strolled across the hardwood floors slowly. He wasn't looking for anything, really, eyes seeking aimlessly. It was the same furniture he'd seen before. There was nothing interesting about a used, stainless fridge with a dent in the handle or a jar of peanut butter left out on the count with a dirty spoon still leaning up against it. In fact, that was the only sign that anyone had ever lived here at all.

Alec would've called the apartment a ghost town, but even ghost towns had their ghosts. This place had nothing.

With a sigh held between his lips, he crossed over to the couch and sat down in the spot closest to where a blanket was draped over the back of the cushions. It was a soft silver, all plush and barely used by the feel of it. How long it'd been here was a mystery because Alec couldn't remember ever noticing it before. He was never over here enough to notice anything.

The one thing he did know was what sat inside the box sitting on the lower shelf of the table before him. Leaning down, Alexander flipped open the lid and reached inside to pull out an opened paper carton. He slid a cigarette out with his thumb and pulled it the rest of the way between his teeth. Two flicks of his thumb against the pad of his hand and a light sparked between his fingers. A deep breath of smoke filled his lungs and spilled out his nose, curling up and breaking it apart once it hit the ceiling. It trickled over the smoke detector Melia had yanked the batteries out of ages ago, and Alec took another long drag.

There was nothing to do but sit and wait. Wait for what exactly, he wasn't sure. Maybe a part of him, some small part of him, wanted her to come back out of the back room any minute now and ask him why the fuck he broke into her house.

And he'd tell her "It's not a house, it's an apartment."

Only to get her to snort and roll her eyes at him the way she always did. Her nose scrunched up tight and her pink lips pulled into a frown, but it was the kind you couldn't help but find cute. Because he knew she was always joking. Then, she'd place a hand firmly on her hip and insist "That doesn't change the fact you're breaking and entering," which would only make him grin wider.

He would get up off the couch to get as close as possible to her and promise the fae that "I only did it because I couldn't wait a second longer to see you." It'd make her smile, but the funny kind of smile she always gave him when she knew he was lying. Then, after giving his shoulder a good glare at the reminder that punching it would hurt her more than him, Melia would pluck the cigarette from his lips and blow a stream of smoke right into his face to piss him off right back.

But that wouldn't make him want to kiss her any less.

Not that it was real.

Instead, Alexander stayed stretched out on the girl's couch, his head tilted back in hopes of finding some useless pattern sketched into the ceiling. There were a few cracks in the white paint the looked kind of like Africa, if he squinted just right. Blowing another ring of smoke, the dragon's head rolled over on the cushion and his head turned toward the front door. Alec couldn't name the number of times he'd stumbled through it tipsy and riding some sort of high, or how many times he'd come through with a Starbucks cup in hand in the early morning. It wasn't many. Not nearly as many times as she'd come over to his place.

And maybe there was a reason for that. Or maybe there wasn't. Melia had always lived in secrets. He still didn't know how old she was or the year she was born. He didn't know her last name or where she'd been born. The scars on her back were as much of a mystery as the iron she always wore painfully clipped to her ears.

For a fae who could tell no lies, she'd told surprisingly few truths. Although, over the months he'd learned to stop asking. They'd had fun. That was all that he could have asked for with a girl like her anyway. That was the most he could ask of anyone.

Still, she'd been different. The first time they met, and she looked him right in the eyes. No one ever did that. A smile curled around his cigarette at the thought.

He'd met her out on a job. Not a case, but the normal shakedowns and scares he was hired for. Quick, easy money for a dragon like him to snatch up. Talk a big game, show a brief glance of red, glowing eyes, and they scattered like flies. And, if they were dumb enough not to, it wasn't like they ever made it far enough to tell the tale. Not many people carried around God's metal on the rare chance they'd run into an endangered species.

But Melia, she'd been different. Like always. And maybe he'd fallen a little too far.

Alexander wasn't sure when he had pulled out the small jewelry box from his pocket, but it rested in his free hand now, balanced lightly on his knee. He gave it a small shake to hear the rattle, then ran his thumb over the soft coating. All it was now was a waste of money. Sighing smoke, the dragon took the box and set it down on the coffee table as he stood to leave. For good measure, he ground the ashes of the burning embers into the glass and left the rest of the stick there to smolder. No one else would be coming here and giving a shit anytime soon.

All that happened when you died was you stopped existing. It was sad to watch. Somehow, Alec had expected more.

He ran his tongue over the taste of tobacco glued to the inside of his checks and walked over the apartment door. The sooner he got back, the sooner he could continue to lay low and let everything with the Court that the other investigators fucked up blow over. He gave one last look around the room, sighed and said a silent goodbye before the door closed behind him, the doorknob melted down to nothing.