An Eye For An Eye

Quarante Et Un

I headed back to the guest room to change into pajamas. Seeing the photograph of my mom, I picked it up and brought it with me as I headed back to Deuc’s bedroom. It was small, even in the frame, and surely he wouldn’t mind too much.

Shutting the bedroom door behind me, I noticed he was already lying on top of the covers. I walked over to the side of the bed that I had effectively claimed the night before and sat on the edge of the bed. After standing the photograph up in its frame on the bedside table, I smiled.

“What’s that?” he asked.
“A photo of my Mom,” I said. “You don’t mind me putting it here, do you?”
“No, why would I?” he asked. I shrugged. I wasn’t sure.
“She was a hunter,” I said as I lifted my legs up off of the floor and lay down next to him.
“She’s never hurt me, as far as I’m aware,” he said. “And I have no reason to hate her. If you want to put her picture there, you can.”
“Thank you,” I said, moving over on the bed to kiss his cheek.

“You said, a few weeks ago now, I think,” he started. “That you hadn’t been with anyone for three years.”
“When did I say that?” I asked, furrowing my brow. I couldn’t remember telling him that but apparently I had.
“Not long before Tasha came to the penthouse and you told her we had been too busy dancing to notice she wanted to visit,” he said and I nodded. My cheeks heated up as I remembered what we had been doing.
“Yeah, I remember that now,” I said, laughing a little.

Looking over at him, I could see his smile.
“I’m a little curious.”
“About my ex?” I asked, raising my eyebrows.
“A little,” he said. “But you don’t have to talk about them, if you don’t want to. It’s probably a little odd that I’m asking you.”

I took his hand and turned to look at him.
“I don’t mind. Her name was Jeanette, we met at work, before we both quit together cause our manager was sexist and a bastard,” I said with a laugh. “She was nice, we kept talking to each other and ended up going on a date, we'll, more like a few. She had such a nice smile and… she was great. We were together for a year.”
“But it ended,” he said softly.
I nodded. “Yeah, it did.”

Taking a deep breath, I squeezed his hand.
“We had plans, we moved in together and we were planning on adopting a cat. But… she wanted to meet my father,” I said. Deuc seemed to know and his other hand moved so he was holding mine with both of his. “As my girlfriend. Gerard isn’t exactly open-minded. And our family dinners are already bad, every time we have them he just interrogates people, trying to see if they’re supernatural or if they’re… bad, by whatever impossible standards he has.”

“You’re not straight.” I had a feeling he would say something like that. And I could only wonder how he felt, I wasn’t very good at telling people’s emotions.
I took a deep breath. “No.”
“And he doesn’t know?” he asked.
“No, and never will,” I said. I guessed he couldn’t disown me for having a girlfriend now. “But she broke up with me because I couldn’t tell him I had a girlfriend, I was too scared of being alone. Seems like that hasn’t really gone away.”

“I’m not going to leave you alone,” he said softly and I smiled.
“You’re not going to make a comment about threesomes or how I’m just confused?” I asked. I had gotten that a lot before.
“Why? Do you want a threesome?” he asked with such a serious tone I couldn’t help but laugh. I wasn’t expecting him to ask that with a straight face.
“I don’t know what to say to you,” I said between laughs. “I just wasn’t expecting that.”
He chuckled. “Good. And you have nothing to worry about, my love.”

I moved and pressed a kiss to his cheek.
“I’m glad,” I said. I rested my head against his shoulder. “A few people didn’t react as well.”
He sighed. “I have a feeling another family member may be included.”
“Yeah,” I said quietly. “Namely Kate. I used to argue with her a lot anyway, it just made it worse, I think.”

“She’s the youngest of you, isn’t she?” Deuc asked. I hummed and nodded even though I was leaning against his shoulder. “I thought younger people tended to be a bit more open minded.”
“Yeah, but she’s too much like… like Gerard, that’s why, I think,” I said. I frowned and snuggled closer to him. “She didn’t like the idea of us not being able to have children, can’t really adopt together. Can’t really pass down the hunting tradition.” It really was a little bit like a cult, taught to believe certain things and they weren’t fond of people marrying people who weren’t hunters.

“And you think werewolf families are bad,” he said, chuckling.
“No,” I said, shaking my head. “I don’t any more. It’s just… it annoys me a little that I could never marry her if I wanted to. In fact, in some countries, I’d be arrested or killed for it.”
“That’s… horrifying, actually,” he said quietly.
“Yeah. I guess it doesn’t really matter though, no one thinks I like both because I’m kind of with you,” I said. I hated that people assumed I was straight just because I was dating a man. “I still do but people can’t understand that apparently.”
“Only some people,” he said. “And I’m not one of them.”
“I know,” I said, smiling as I spoke.

I couldn’t put into words how glad I was that he didn’t think of me differently. Only Kara had managed that so far, Chris… Chris didn’t really understand it but he had tried to be supportive.

“You’re wonderful,” I whispered. I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. “And I am utterly infatuated with you, you know that? It’s borderline annoying. All I could think about in those seven days back… back there, when I couldn’t leave, all I could think about was the little things. I couldn’t listen to the Beatles, I couldn’t write the story with the waterfall, I couldn’t read to you or drink tea or dance or… or see you. I thought I wouldn’t see you again and I really didn’t like that.”

“I missed you reading to me,” Deuc said. He was smiling a little. “And I missed teaching you how to dance. I just missed… you. I missed you.”
“I missed you too,” I said honestly. Even if I didn’t realise it at the time, I had missed him a lot. “But we don’t have to any more, right?”
“No,” he said before pressing a kiss to my forehead. “But we should probably sleep.”
I nodded with a grin on my face. “Yeah. Goodnight, Deuc.”
“Goodnight, Liza, my love.”

After a few moments, something was bothering me.
“The light is still on,” I sighed as I opened my eyes.
“It’s not going to make a difference to me,” he said. Reluctantly, I moved away from him and I switched the light off before lying next to him. It was far too warm to sleep under the covers, but not warm enough to stop us from sleeping so close to each other. “Sweet dreams.”
“You too,” I mumbled but I was already drifting off to sleep.