The Edifice

19. Levi Juniper Noble

LEVI

I need a fucking cigarette.

It's long past the stage of nicotine withdrawals, though I welcome the rush of mellowness that washes through my veins from the very first draw. Rather it's that acrid, smokey taste that scorches my palate and crowds my lungs. It's punishing. Grounding. Defining.

I'm neither a fool nor a stranger around addiction, but the truth about cigarettes, far beyond chemical dependency, is that they're fucking delicious.

Tucked away at the furthest corner of my sunroom converted to greenhouse, I chain-smoke frantically and pretend my hand isn't shaking. Weed would be an easy relief from my predicament. A decent joint to numb the bone-deep jitters and silence the cacophony of agitated thoughts crying for acknowledgement. Tonight however, I want this painful clarity.

Bitterness. Talk about an underrated addiction.

Because this discomfort is not unfamiliar, give or take nine years and a jump between dimensions. Something I haven't felt since back when I was human.

There's someone in my home. A piece of Hersely has hunted me down and taken up residence in my bedroom and all these memories and jumbled feelings of shame have shunted away until I'm pushed up against the very boundary of the building.

I'm back to being that 15-year-old boy, terrified to traverse his own home on Mulroy Street and struck to the bone with that furious, self-preserving instinct to run.

The instinct to run from Olivia Porter, of all people. The tiny little lamb of a woman, clinging to her moral compass like it's going to stop her being any less of a victim in a world like this one. All tender hands and wide eyes. No wonder she ate up my father's sob story, was dragged around by a bunch of drugged up pixies last night. Selflessness is a fatal trait in the Edifice. In humans, at least.

She's still pretty, though...

The thought pops up, unbidden and unwelcome. I don't want to be that person, to put the pressure of reciprocation between us when she has nowhere else to go. It's bad enough that it was my portal to the Edifice she fell through to get here, still active hours after I'd passed through.

I'm not going to shoot my shot with someone on the far end of a power imbalance. If kindness itself is fatal here, I'd hate to think what loving me could do to someone like her. Pretty or not, it's not a fate anybody deserves.

I think I need another cigarette.

I'll be the first to admit that I'm not an easy person to like. Downright impossible, attested to by friends and ex-partners alike. At least I've always had a preference for absolute cunts, in that case. Cruel, messy lovers that will eat my alive, ruin my life and won't care when I do the same to them.

Scrolling through dating apps is an empty relief of the time on my hands.

Too many friendly faces. Sweet smiles promising romantic walks, obsessive attempts to 'get to know each other' and blind infatuation. What the fuck ever happened to so called hook up culture?

It keeps my hands busy, though. Sitting out in the cold and swiping through colorful faces until the sun begins to rise and I get ready for work..

-

Olivia is still fast asleep upstairs when my first client of the day arrives. Most bookings I'd hastily cancelled last minute, making a significant dint in my paycheck, but to cancel on Mosa Asbe is unthinkable.

I use some of my slowly regenerating mana to divine her arrival to the very second, but nevertheless the dryad stares back at me in uncomprehending unfamiliarity when I open the door for her.