RP Apple Pie


It had never occurred to her that he might be a meta-human. Honestly, it should have. She had met two already, so a third one was absolutely feasible. She just hadn’t expected that kind of strength, and so she collided hard with the wall, the blades on his hands digging deep into her stomach. Those were going to bruise, and bad. So he wasn’t pulling his punches either.

She hit the wall, and she dropped to her feet. She saw just in time the second punch coming from below, and she turned her face away. One of the blades caught and dragged across her chin. She quickly pushed off and away from the wall, bringing herself to the other side of the wide alley. There, she crouched and… panicked.

The last meta-human she had fought had tried to eat her, in a way. His cold grasp around her throat, his fingers digging into the sides of her neck, was burned into her body’s memory, and she reached a hand up as though to pry them off her. When she found her neck bare, she swallowed, and the cold chill that had settled into her bones receded. Her wide eyes narrowed, and her heart started pounding, the racing slowing to a furious drumming. Her whole body quaked and she rose to her feet.

Wildcat had always struggled with her anger. Ever since she was a child, she had been more violent, more aggressive, more forward than other children. Enough that she’d been through lifelong therapy for anger management. But still, she had times when she struggled with the inexplicable and always present rage that lived inside her.

And right now she was furious.

She channeled that anger, and passed her hammer from her right hand to her left. She gripped the handle tightly, the hefty weapon now clasped in her dominant hand. She moved again, this time going low, sliding across the ground, and aiming to take out his knee.​
 
He hit, but her armor protected her soft abdomen from the sharp curve of the bagh nakh. She was just barely faster than his second attack, a thin red line appearing along the curve of her jaw and bleeding only after his blade had been withdrawn.

Suddenly she felt very small, crouched though she was like her namesake, ready as she looked to pounce. But as she pulled away from him, as her blood reached his nose for the first time and reinforced the chorus of the huntsong, he knew something was wrong with her. Her uniquely sweet scent was full of fear, her eyes were wide and too distant, her hands reached up – not to her injury, but to her throat, untouched and armored though it was, and clawed as if looking to tear free from invisible hands. She’d frozen, as if her heat had died in that moment.

It was a prey response, as if he’d needed reassurance about that. But that fear – that was old fear, not fear of him, but of a memory. That fear didn’t belong to him, the way the prey did. A chord of territorial fury thrummed in his heart, but it didn’t last more than a few notes. She was strong, and she had survived. Her enemy was dead or worse, then. Even if the other hunter had left scars, they were long since faded. She was still Mine, the hunt assured him, as something else suddenly flooded the alley.

She was fucking furious.

Rather than approach a cornered deer that was all antler, the predator did the smart thing and took a step back as the hammer swung toward the inside of his knee. He took an extra step away, just in case, trying to lure her back to her feet, to follow. He surprised himself as he realized that he had no fear in return, surprised himself with the soft, elated laugh that passed his damp lips before he licked them clean again. Fight – she was all fight – fight or freeze, and she would never freeze for him. He didn’t want her to freeze. The fury offset by the old fear, the sudden flow of motion, reminded him of the truth, reminded him that his instincts were never wrong, that the hunt never lied.

She was the perfect prey. And she was going to be the greatest hunt of his life. He should savor this. He could play hunted, just to pull more of that incredible rage out of her, just to enjoy a few more seconds of this. He wondered if she’d see him backing toward the real object of tonight’s hunt – or if that object might think he was in the clear, now that the predator was otherwise occupied, apparently unaware he even existed anymore as he directed his purring voice to his splendid meal.

“Did I hit a nerve, sugar? That one seemed a little knee-jerk.”
 

“You’re pretty confident– let’s see if that’s earned, shall we?”

As she spoke, she pivoted, coiled tension through her thighs, and then pushed off back in his direction. One smooth movement that took her from her knees to back up and running in the blink of an eye. She released a burst of heat from her lower legs and feet and brought herself up to her top speed.

He was clearly playing with her, or thought he was. That laugh said as much. The monster was enjoying this, wanted her rage more than he wanted that brief moment of fear she had shown when she had frozen up. It was in the way he moved, in the way he spoke to her. Not only did he want her rage, but he enjoyed it more than anything else tonight.

She would have to be stupid to not see her apparent soulmate moving toward the man from earlier, the man who was now curled in a corner and repeatedly cursing and making vague promises to a god that she wasn’t sure she believed in. He certainly did, though, for however long this encounter would last. Who knew, maybe if Wildcat prayed to this same god, she wouldn’t have to continue to feel her heart racing at the words of this man.

She would have to be cautious. If her spinning mind was right, the cannibalism was likely some faucet of his powers. He was fast as well, that was obvious. And physically strong, though she was uncertain if he was stronger than her or not. Certainly, whatever else he had, he wasn’t heatproof if it came down to that.

She swung her hammer again– swung the hammerhead upward and smacked the handle near the head right into her other hand. She pushed forward, raising the handle to his throat, trying to back him as quickly as she could into the wall. The goal was to pin him by his throat while she tried to talk him down. Maybe, he could be convinced. He seemed like he had been just as interested in her as she was in him. Maybe she could use that to her advantage, however twisted this seemed to be becoming.

“Why don’t you tell me your name, so I can call you something other than serial killer?”​
 
She was even faster now, propelled, almost, by her fury. If he’d wanted to, he could’ve fought her off, or at least slipped away from her. Some part of him warned him against letting himself be trapped, letting her close in with that heavy hammer that could ruin even his thick skull. But he wasn’t worried about it at all, because the hunt still sang, because her anger rolled over him – and because Wildcat didn’t kill monsters.

He let her lead the dance. The play-hunt was almost wolf and cub, but not quite. More like letting a mouse believe she was a cat while the real feline watched with glittering eyes and a very real smile that was all teeth and no bite. Her proximity filled his nostrils with her blood, with the anger and the warmth that couldn’t quite flood him, consumed as it already was by his natural cold.

Nearby, he heard the whispered, pointless prayers of his intended dinner. Even if he got away, he’d be easy enough to find again through the blood and the terror and the sobbing. Hunger came second now to the first taste of her. He wouldn’t starve, if the dealer got away. There were always more dealers, and there was only one treat who’d be perfection.

She’d asked him a question. He realized he’d laughed again when she asked, and he couldn’t banish the smile, even as the handle of her hammer pressed up against his throat through the high collar of his coat. Never tight enough to choke him, since that wouldn’t let him answer her.

“Your papers are calling me ‘Slasher’ already, I think. But Cryptid works just as well.”

He’d had other names over the last year – Butcher was common, but didn’t land right, struck a nerve of his own. Slasher was common already, too, but nobody had made any connections. Too widespread for a typical serial killer’s territory. Cryptid, though – that was a name most of the living never heard unless they were going to get teeth in their throat by the end of the night.

He was still deciding if she’d be another number toward that record, or be the first to hear it more than once.
 

As soon as she pinned him, the dealer who she had been protecting got to his feet and started running, as he spotted a chance for escape. Wildcat let him go and focused on her serial killer. Cryptid. The name fit the mask, but not the beautiful and soft brown eyes beneath it. The face beneath the mask, it didn’t fit the man who wanted to eat her. Not what she could see of it, that was. The voice wasn’t right either. She hadn’t realized it before, but this man was definitely pinging off her Vibe Checker, just not for the words he said.

That was a different problem, for a different time. When her thighs brushed his, she realized with a start that her body had begun to lean toward his, almost like she was a magnet and he was a statue made of iron. She stopped her slow movement… but she didn’t pull back. Even that small brush of thigh against thigh was enough to send electricity coursing through her body. She pressed the handle of her hammer closer to his throat, leaving just enough slack that he could still speak.

“Cryptid. A fitting name for a monster who eats people. Once again, I’m going to ask you to come in quietly. And if you so much as twitch one of those clawed hands I will– I will crush your throat.”

There was a moment where something passed through her eyes. A brief moment of uncertainty. She wasn’t sure she could actually hurt him. Not because he seemed like he was indestructible– she wasn’t sure her brain would let her actually do it. Even if he was a monster in human skin, her brain and heart had already accepted him as their soulmate, had from the moment they saw each other.

She narrowed her eyes in anger. This was the cruelest joke yet. The world had given her a perfect soulmate before, and now it gifted her this. Now she had to know that this was her soulmate, now she would have to fight so hard to be present with Ozzy, now she had to live with this fucking knowledge.

And she knew she couldn’t hurt him like that. Even in all her anger, her brain thought he was precious.​
 
Dinner ran, its steps still limping and uneven. Cryptid listened to it go, the scent lingering in his memory for use in the near future. But he couldn’t stay focused on it, not with her so close, her body pressing against his, her eyes full of fury and other strong emotions, but fearless. Completely fearless. She knew what he was, she knew what he wanted, and her beautiful eyes behind her golden lenses were empty of fear. But with the intensity of her emotions, he felt it was best to take them one at a time, drink them in as deeply and completely as he could get them. That was, after all, the point of hunting her at all.

“I’m sorry, cupcake, it’s just so hard to take you seriously when your heart understands what your mind isn’t letting you.” His smile, visible between the mask’s teeth, had never once wavered. The uncertainty in her eyes was enough to encourage him to push his luck – to lift his hands, slowly. Not to touch her with them, just lift them as though in surrender. “For a lot of reasons, I don’t think I can come with you, but if you really want enlightenment, I’m sure I could offer you a couple of answers. It’s only fair to let dinner get a head start, anyway.”
 

Wildcat pressed on his throat, just enough to cut off his air for a long moment, then eased up. “Hands. Down.”

He knew. At least, he knew enough to know her heart wanted him. But his wires were crossed, and he might have thought it meant something else, given he wanted to eat her. God, that hurt her heart. A soulmate who wanted to eat her. And not in the sexy way either. She sighed, shakily, and closed her eyes for a moment before they flashed up to his. This close, she could see the smile beneath the mask. She could see both of his clear, doe brown eyes.

It was enough to make her furious all over.

It couldn’t have been Ozzy, the gentle and thoughtful man she had started to fall in love with. Of course, it couldn’t. That would have been too easy for someone like her, to have a love that was everything she had ever wanted in a partner. God, she was just so angry about this. The heat began to radiate off her in a small wave, but she was quick to clamp down on it. She didn’t need it right now. It served no purpose.

She took in a deep breath and made a choice. A bad choice.

“So what if my heart wants you? It doesn’t affect the fact that you’re a serial killer and I’m Wildcat. Those two things cannot exist at the same time. Now why can’t you turn yourself in? I know prison doesn’t sound fun, but hear me out, I’ll come visit you every day.”​
 
His instincts warned him he was pushing on too far as she cut off his air. His body went completely still, uncannily still. Then, Cryptid lowered his hands, bringing them down to his sides. His face never changed, although the light behind his eyes only grew brighter. And that was before he felt the sudden burst of warmth pulsed between the two of them, and his nostrils flared as he sucked in a breath that filled him with her. That was new.

He wanted that again.

The thought of using her own hammer to shove her back crossed his mind for just a second, but the proximity was much more appealing. For now. Until that fire flared back up, at least. A pastry like this was worth burning his tongue just for the experience.

“I could hardly enjoy a sweet thing like you properly with a pane of glass in the way,” he answered, his voice once again a purr. He had to lick his lips again – fuck, it was unfair how perfect she smelled – but in that moment, he tilted his head to the side again, toward the head of the hammer. “Besides, how’s what I’m doing any different from what you are? We’re both taking scum off the streets. My way’s just… more permanent. A little messier.”

The full grin returned, white teeth catching the nearby street light.

“If that’s the issue, I can find a few more private places. Maybe I could show you one of the ones I’ve already scouted. See if they meet your standards.”

His tone suggested entirely different reasons to get her someplace private, but it wouldn’t take a detective to figure that out. Despite the rumble under the soft tone, it wasn’t for the same things her scent told him she wanted, anyway. But at least if he couldn’t squirm, and he couldn’t bite, he could at least reserve the right to tease.
 

“You might think what we’re doing is the same. It’s not. I don’t hurt people. Not in any way that's permanent. Death is permanent. You’re right about that. I’m guessing I know what the difference between us is.”

She gasped softly as her body leaned further into his, and she felt her legs fully align with his, pressing into the sides of his legs. She closed her eyes and tipped her head forward, closing her eyes. With great effort, she looked back up at him. Her face was burning beneath the mask. She hated this. She hated the way her body was betraying her, the way she wanted him. She wanted to hate him, but for all the violence and anger that swirled inside her, she knew that would never happen.

She looked up into those brown eyes, so full of hunger, and shivered. It wasn’t the same hunger she had. She had to remember that. If he got her alone, in a setting where he had the time and privacy, he would eat her alive. In every sense of the word.

“You see, I think everyone deserves a second chance. Even monsters like you. Everyone can change. When I send people to jail, they have a chance to change, to do better, to be better.” Then, her rough voice rose and became something soft, and she finished with, “Why don’t you just stop this? I know you– I know you feel it too. I know there's some wire crossed inside you about it. Maybe if you stopped we could figure it out. Don’t you want me?”

The words slipped out before she could register them, their desperate tone, their pleading pitch. She bit her tongue and then let her anger redirect, right into herself. God, could she have said a stupider thing? She gave a bitter laugh and broke eye contact. “No. Of course, you don’t. You want to eat me. Because there’s something crossed in your fucking brain. I want to help you. Let me help you. You want to do good. If you could let me in, I could be good with you.”

Her eyes pleaded with his from behind the yellow lenses of her cat skull. She even let up enough on her hammer that the pressure was more of a reminder of her threat than an actual threat. She was giving him a hair’s breadth of space to make a better choice.​
 
Her body knew it was his. Perhaps it misunderstood their connection – but it wanted him, with the same depth as his body wanted her. Not the same flavor of desire, but equal in force, equal in pressure, in sureness. And she fought it, as hard as her soul would let her fight it, but in the end, she knew. Of course she knew. There was no way she wouldn’t know.

They were meant for each other. Only one of them could be right about how, but… but, but, but. But she had expectations.

One hand rose slowly, fingers spread around the claws to keep them visible. Not a warning. Not a threat. Showing her, letting her see them. No surprise there, no ambush. The palm pressed against the handle of the hammer, and with a firm and steady touch, pushed it down. Didn’t grab or tear at it. Careful. Careful as a big cat stalking in a thicket, so as not to startle the deer.

Only after did his other hand rise, at an angle, as his head tilted down. Even with the claws between his fingers, she wouldn’t be touched. She’d know that, know it in the way his look softened. Less hunger. More curiosity. Maybe she’d touched something with her desperation, her demand, something that wasn’t the hunt. Or maybe she’d touched the hunt, added an unfamiliar note to it – one that wasn’t violence, just adjacent to chase.

“You’re so… sweet.” And the way he said the word, it could have been the original intent; or the connotation of her work ethic – her innocence. “But I’m not people, apple spice. I’m not like you. I just am what I am.”

He sighed, breathing her in, her anger, her annoyance. Her attraction, her warmth. Her blood. He swallowed, less obviously this time, and his grin faded out to a soft smile. He made a choice that might seem stupid, pretty soon, but for right now settled into his instincts like a fox into its den.

He slid the mask up. Not much, only as much as he would to eat. But if she looked up the angle she’d see his features, be able to recognize the face if she looked for it again.

He hoped she only saw that softness, and not the jaws of the beartrap around it. He hovered, half bent and sincere, his mouth in reach of her and yet not brought near her soft lips or bleeding chin. A remarkable show of restraint, and, perhaps, a sign of hope, a light in the dark of her despair.

“There’s only one way in to me, cupcake.” Was that remorse in his eyes, or just longing? “And it wants nothing more than to tear you up.”
 

She watched his hand, watched it push the hammer down in a slow, soft movement. She closed her eyes for a moment and let him push it down. When she reopened her eyes, he was close. Closer than he had been before. He was leaning down toward her. With his other hand, he lifted his mask. It wasn’t much, but she could see his face underneath. Soft, with those big brown eyes, straight light brown hair that looked as soft as down, and soft features. He had a bit of scruff and soft-looking lips.

It wasn’t his face. She knew that instinctively. In the same way she had just a few moments prior. It wasn’t his real voice, his real face, but the words were him, and so was the movements he was now making. It made her shiver. In a dry voice, one rasping more heavily than it had been, she whispered, almost dreamily, “That’s not your face.”

But god, those lips that weren’t actually his, though were still very much his in that moment, they were so close. She dropped the hammer. She barely noticed that it wasn’t in her hands anymore as she leaned into him completely, as she felt her chest meet the bottom of his. She pushed herself up on the tips of her toes, her body dragging across his, and her lips crashed into his.

All of her nerves lit up. The fire inside her calmed for a moment before bursting into an inferno, pressing against her skin and making her feverishly warm. It pressed past her as her focus faded for a moment, letting another wave of heat out. It was a soft lapse, just like the previous one. There was a sudden grip in her chest that squeezed her heart and then exploded throughout her. It made her shake as her hands moved, one cupping his face and bringing it closer to hers, the other buried in his hair.

She shouldn’t be doing this. He was the worst monster she had ever met. He was her soulmate. He was a serial killer. He was her soulmate. He was a cannibal.

He was her soulmate.

She lost herself in the kiss, the only thing she gave any focus to outside of it being controlling her heat. If she lost control now, she would burn him. But even with that control, it was making her skin so hot that she was worried she might burn him anyway.

Incredibly warm tears ran down her face. Resignation, despair, and the knowledge that this was a trap she was falling right into made her overflow with tears even as something deep in her soul screamed with joy. Soulmate resonated through her. It filled her from her fingers to her toes, radiating like sunlight that burned through her body.

She could have died happily in that moment.​
 
She took the bait, hook, line, and sinker. She dropped her hammer, her only protection against his teeth, and she put herself right into the jaws of the beast. And she tasted like heaven. Not like apples at all – though the cinnamon was there. As she kissed him, his mouth watered, his tongue flicking across her lips whenever it could while he placed his hands on her sides and turned her around, putting her back to the wall. Each motion of his mouth took in more and more of her, of her sweetness, of the spice of the cinnamon that now filled his nose, of the softness of her skin, and finally, the tang of the salt in her tears.

Snickerdoodle, he realized. She tasted like snickerdoodles. Almond, sugar, cinnamon. Tang.

She was perfect in every way. And he knew, in the depths of his bottomless hunger, that if he bit into her right now, she would do nothing to resist. In fact, she would invite it, the way she was already inviting it, the way her hand tangled in the hair that wasn’t his and cupped his borrowed cheek. He wanted her. In that moment he wanted her almost completely, he wanted to take the opportunity she’d just handed him.

But that was the problem. He was still in the depths of the hunt. And while the hunger loved the idea of such easy prey, the hunt bucked at the idea that there would be no chase. What was the point, if she would just feed her wonderful fire to him? No. No, if she wouldn’t make it a hunt, then he’d have to figure out how to do it for her. And oh, did he have some ideas as he finally unpeeled his lips from her wonderful skin.

“You’re going to make the perfect dessert, someday,” he whispered, breathless, unable to control the tremble at the back of his throat. He smiled at her, a smile full of longing, of hunger, a smile that was all white teeth.

Right before he picked up his right foot, and kicked hard into her left knee, intending to blow it out at an angle. He should have let go of her first, but he wanted the intimacy to last long enough to get the pain from her experience, the surely inevitable anger. The crack of bone as the wound traveled up her body. He wanted to enjoy the last few seconds before he had to turn back to the much more mundane meat, thinking it had won its life in its rapid retreat. He was going to enjoy killing its hope almost as much as he was planning to enjoy her outburst, however it manifested.
 

The moment she’d felt his tongue against her lips, she had returned the favor, pulling him closer even as she felt her back hit the wall, even as a red flag waved in her head. Coffee, mint, and blood– he tasted like a peppermint mocha someone had bled into. It wasn’t unpleasant, and she found herself trying to catch his taste again just as his lips retreated. She tried to follow them, her throat making a whine of protest that had her blushing even more furiously. Had she really just made that noise? God, she was pathetic.

She barely had time to process his words– to process the shiver that ran through her body at them– before her knee began to scream in pain. Her hands, which had moved to the front of his coat, gripped him tightly there as her eyes went wide. She gasped in a breath of pain and felt the crack vibrate through her whole body, sending tremors out along her veins and bones. She wondered for a moment if he would feel it as much when she swung her hammer into his should– her hammer was on the ground.

All she could do was cough in pain as he pulled away from her, leaving her sliding down the wall as her knee gave out and she tumbled to the ground. At that moment between, as she was sliding and in her surprise and betrayal, she let loose a wave of heat that was far hotter than either of her two small bursts. It spun out from her in a ring, exploding in a fiery burst, as hot as any fire could be. She hit the ground hard and looked up with angry eyes to see his figure retreating into the street. “Coward! You absolute coward!”

Her voice rang out, rasping and full of fury. She pushed herself into a sitting position and waited. While she waited, while she felt the shattered pieces of her kneecap begin to knit back together, she had time to think. She had time to be mortified and to be filled with self-loathing. She couldn’t believe herself. Cryptid? Now that he was gone, the rage that filled her was about as holy and just as it could possibly be, It pulsed through her fire with a drumming that left her trembling.

Thoughts of Ozzy finally returned to her as her knee snapped back into shape with an audible click, now just a dull pain that would be gone by the time she made it home. She stood, scooped up her hammer, and made a beeline for the street. It was far too late, however, and both Cryptid and the dealer were gone. She sighed and wiped away the still-wet blood from her chin, the wound already stitched shut and clean. Tomorrow was going to be a fucking nightmare.


Indeed, the next day was a fucking nightmare. Not only had there been another murder, but the murder was in Lockbourne, in her home. Just like before, the clothes and shoes and personal items were scattered around the scene. Now that she knew what she was looking for with his claws, it wasn’t hard to find the marks around them. She was so furious with herself that she hadn’t spoken for the entire time that she and Ozzy had been on the scene, instead fuming away in a way that made her skin feverish.

Finally, she looked up to Oscar, where he stood on the other side of the scene, and she asked in a soft voice, “Anything new popping out for you? Any little detail is important.”

She looked around the scene again, at the small fragments of bone and viscera and the blood. So much blood, splashed everywhere, pooling on the ground in puddles. She shivered as she thought of her serial killer doing this, committing so much violence. There would be no redeeming him, she knew. He couldn’t stop what he was doing, she had reasoned out, because he would die if he did. If cannibalism was attached to his powers, then it was likely something he didn’t have a choice over.​
 
Oscar scratched the back of his neck as he examined the damaged wood of a tree on the scene. The bark had four perfectly aligned puncture wounds, like someone had punched it with knives strapped to their knuckles, or a big cat had extended its retractable claws right into the bark and pulled them right back out.

The trail, this time, was long. Longer than either of the other two he and Wildcat had both investigated. He’d either had fun, or had trouble with his victim. He was sure Sam had already noticed that. Sam had been doing nothing but look at different aspects of the scene since they’d gotten here. There was a silent fury to her that told him it was best to keep his distance until she cooled off or addressed him first. So he’d made a point of looking at the damage to the trees while she looked at the pieces of the victim on the ground. He had gotten one picture of her from behind – just a courtesy to Ann, who had practically jumped up at the idea that Wildcat was looking into her “Slasher” and wanted every detail she could get her hands on.

Details, like what Sam was asking him for. He looked at her, as if to make sure she was talking to him, before answering in a calm voice.

“He took his time with this one,” he said, in reply to her question. He stopped rubbing his neck, where a rash was hidden by his turtleneck. He’d kept up the appearances he’d established since he met her, most of his wardrobe adapted to combine both of their senses of fashion. Even when she was Wildcat, he kept up appearances. He touched the bark next to the claw marks. “This trail’s a lot longer. I’ve never seen marks like this except from Slasher. More importantly, here’s no blood on this tree. He missed — on purpose, if I had to guess. Gave the victim the illusion of a chance.”

He frowned at the bloody mud she was standing next to, instead of frowning at her. He continued to avoid her furious gaze. The last thing she needed was to know that he thought she was really, really hot when she was angry, or that even if she seemed to be holding something back, the smell of cinnamon pretty much radiated off of her in this state, along with all of the hormones associated with anger or fear. Anger, in this case. Definitely anger.

He tilted his head, but he kept his voice calm. “What do you think he does with the bodies? You’d think one of them would turn up, and it’s definitely not the coyotes. He’s gotta be moving them, right?”
 

Wildcat– no, Sam stayed quiet for a long moment. That moment stretched into a minute. And then she sighed. His observations seemed right. It seemed more like he had taken the time to play with his food, if the way he had left the night before had been any indication. Her nose twitched in frustration before she finally answered. “He’s eating them. I–”

She stopped, her cheeks lighting up. God, she was so embarrassed. How could she explain last night’s encounter without having to admit how she had been all over him? About how she had clung to him and felt him click into place deep in her soul? She would have to lie to him. She would have to lie to Ozzy. There was no other option, not really. She turned to look at him.

And she stopped. She looked at his face, her heartbeat calming down. He brought her a peace that she couldn’t explain, especially not with how that slight unease still crept in every now and again. She swallowed hard as she looked at him.

How did she let herself do that last night? How could she let herself– let herself cheat on Ozzy? That’s what it was. She knew that. And with a fucking serial killer. For a moment she was more than embarrassed. She was mortified, and angry, and so terribly heartbroken. She was pretty sure she loved Ozzy. She loved him, and she had still, she had still let herself fall into Cryptid.

She had given her serial killer her first kiss.

A piece of her heart broke as she realized that what she had wanted to give to Ozzy had been so easily stolen from her by her monster. Her breathing quickened. She needed to correct this. She could only think of one way to do that. She let her eyes dart around, and then she pushed her mask up. She quickly moved to his side, reached out, and caught his face, turning him toward her. “Ozzy, I’m sorry, but I need– I need to.”

She brought her lips to his, searching for– for anything. Any kind of feeling, anything that could match or beat or even come close to the raging fire she had felt when Cryptid’s lips had met hers. Anything, anything that told her that she and Ozzy had a chance, that she wasn’t doomed to be fated to a serial killing cannibal.

And as if the universe was answering her, after a brief moment of nothing, everything inside her burst into sensation. The feeling of his lips, the thrumming of his heart resonating through her gloved hand, and the sudden spark of fire inside her pushed her to kiss him harder. And he kissed her back, and she felt every bit of what she had felt when she had kissed Cryptid. Part of her wept with relief, and cried with joy, at the fact that this had to mean Ozzy was her soulmate too.

God he tasted– he tasted like Cryptid, but without that coppery bloody taste. A peppermint mocha, with a hint of his cigarettes. She wanted more of that, more of his taste, and she couldn’t help the way her fingers found his hair and pulled him in, the way her other hand buried into the fabric of his turtle neck at the back of his neck.​
 
Oscar felt the pressure of the way Sam was looking at him, and froze for a second before slowly looking up to actually look at her. What was up with her today? Was it her patrol last night? She hadn’t told him anything about it. Just fumed all day. She’d found the Slasher, he was already sure of that. But she didn’t seem to want to talk to him about it the way she did her other patrols. He couldn’t imagine why.

Something in his chest almost stopped when she half-answered and started walking toward him with that look. It stopped – and then started again, in double-time, when she pushed the mask up. When she looked him in the eyes. When her hand stroked his cheek.

When she kissed him.

He was so taken aback that he just tensed for a minute – his mouth full of her, full of cinnamon and fervor and sugar and irritation, with almond – almond, almost like the only hint of cyanide, the last warning before the body was dead, dead before he realized it; but poison mixed with a cookie, the most wonderful kind of cookie, the perfect last meal.

Thank God he’d brushed his teeth this morning.

With that thought, he relaxed under her grip, and let her have him. When she didn’t do anything more than kiss him, he closed his eyes, and let her in, gave her everything she wanted to take. He relaxed into her grip, and he let her kiss him until she was satisfied, and then kissed her a little more, almost teasingly, if there hadn’t been so much feeling behind it, so much energy borrowed and given back. By the time they were done he was holding her in both his arms, heart racing now for completely different reasons than before. He felt her heart, too, through her suit; or maybe it was just his own in his hands as he held her tight, but not so tight he could hurt her.

Softly panting, he offered her a little smile, though there was something strange again in his eyes. “So… he eats them. And you kiss me?”
 
Sam’s whole body was still buzzing after they’d finally separated, and she found herself resting her face against his shoulder, her forehead just barely reaching it. For a moment she was acutely aware of how much taller than her he was. She wasn’t sure why that stood out to her. Something about his height was… She didn’t know. It made her feel something, though.

Her immediate, conscious thought was that these were most definitely. Oscar’s lips, and not a false set. She felt a deep sense of these being the lips she was always meant to be kissing. These were the lips that should have had her first kiss. Not the other ones, the ones that weren’t actually Cryptid’s. No, these lips were right, they were Oscar’s and Oscar was also her soulmate.

Any lingering sense of unease that she’d had from him had vanished completely with that kiss that she could still feel seared into her heart. She pulled back to look up at him and paused. There was something in those ice blue eyes that was real, that was more him than the polite and controlled veneer he typically wore. She shivered a little at whatever it was, immediately captivated by it. She knew it was reflecting in her eyes, in her flushed cheeks, in the way her hands on his chest fisted his shirt.

But then, his question finally caught up to her and she smiled a little sheepishly. “Right. Sorry. I’ve just… something had been bothering me all morning, and I just needed to double check something. I didn’t mean to surprise you like that.”

She tilted her head back into his chest and held him close, enjoying the feel of him and the warmth he brought her for a moment longer before she pulled back, again. She stayed close enough that if he wanted to, he could keep his arms around her. But she looked up at him and her smile faded into something more grim. “Yes. He’s eating them. I had a run-in with him last night. He basically admitted that they were food to him… he said he wanted to eat me, too. Seemed very interested in eating me, actually. That’s why there are no bodies. He eats them. The bone fragments, the ripped skin, that’s what's left after he’s eaten.”

She paused then and sighed. She gave him an apologetic smile. “And I have to ask you, darling, not to tell Ann about this. If the public knows that the meta doing this is a cannibal, well. It will be absolute panic.”​
 
While he knew she wasn’t telling him everything, Oscar decided it wasn’t worth pressing her for information. He didn’t let her go while she looked at him with a hungry sparkle in his eyes, and realized she was reflecting the feral energy that was keeping his heartbeat up. He breathed, slowly, and felt it start to go down, breathed in her and her sweetness and her apple and her want.

“Ann. Right.” He blinked a few times, and the last of the wildness left him. Ann would want all the details, but – yeah. No. Definitely not the cannibalism. Public panic was always a bad thing. And probably not the fact that Wildcat had met the serial killer, and failed to catch him. That was better saved for later, if it became relevant.

Maybe he should’ve seemed more shaken about the revelation that Cryptid ate people, but he was already having a weird morning. Maybe he would just process it later. His breath was slow, and steady, and he nodded a little bit, but his smile faded to a frown as he stroked her cheek with one hand.

“What’s been bothering you, sweetheart? Did I do something?”
 


Sam paused as whatever it was that had been his eyes faded. Like he had reigned it in, pulling it away from her. Like he was hiding it. She didn’t like that. She wanted it back, wanted that feeling in her chest that felt like everything was being pulled tight toward him. But the moment his eyes faded back into his usual politeness, the cords fell slack. That hurt. It hurt so much that he was hiding who he was from her. But she didn’t say that. If he wasn’t comfortable showing it to her, then she would wait. It wasn’t forever, of that she was sure. And now she knew one thing for sure, one thing that made her cheeks light up and made a small but pleased smile pull the corners of her mouth up.

She caught his hand and held it to her cheek, enjoying its coolness. She bit her lip and looked down. She suddenly felt very embarrassed about what she was about to say, but still, she opened her mouth and spoke. “Well, you didn’t do anything. I just. God, I had this theory, and– well, I believe in this thing– god, this is going to sound so childish.”

She cleared her throat and ran her free hand across his shoulder and down over his chest, until it rested over his heart. His was calmed now, and was beating evenly while hers was still beating like a drum. She let the vibrations of him float through her, let her heartbeat fall to match his, to match his calm.

“So, when I was a kid, I uhm. I developed a theory. There are people that are meant to be in our lives. Soulmates, of a kind, but you can have multiple for different reasons. Alice was– Alice was one of mine, meant to be my equal counterpart. My partner. She was everything I wasn’t, and I was everything she wasn’t. We balanced each other.”

This was the first time she had spoken about Alice to Oscar. This was the first time she had spoken to anyone other than the therapist that Ms. Shaw and her parents sent her to after Alice’s death. It made her heart twinge at the reminder of her loss. But she kept the smile, even if for a moment her eyes turned sad. Then she looked up into his eyes and that wonderful peace settled over her, and she let it relax her.

“I thought that maybe, uhm. Maybe you– I thought that maybe you. Fuck. I didn’t think this would be so hard to say.” She laughed a little and let go of his hand to push some stray curls back under her hood. Then she took a deep breath, and in a soft voice choked with emotion, she said, “I thought, I hoped, that you were one of my soulmates. I was hoping you were the soulmate. I’ve been confused about you since the beginning. And I know that’s shown. But I lo-love you.”

Her voice cracked on the last three words, breaking the word “love” into sections. Saying it brought her expression into one of almost fear. There was more to it than fear. There was hope, there was anxiety, there was adoration. But mostly there was a guarded fear. “Y-you don’t have to say it back if you don’t feel that way. I’m sorry.”​
 
He listened patiently while she explained her theory, not showing if he felt it was even a little bit silly. He took her as seriously for the first half as he did for the last words, and he decided against telling her how much he disagreed with her. For now, anyway.

Oscar was a firm believer in free will. He had a strict sense of independence from forces that could control him – a side effect of the foster system, maybe, or maybe his devotion to Green Day was getting to his head; he was wearing the American Idiot t-shirt, after all. But to Oscar, everyone’s choices were just that – choices. There was nothing omniscient in the universe that caused those choices or determined their outcome. God, soulmates, fate, destiny, none of that was real. Even his theory of balance, like in an ecosystem, was really just a system of cause and effect. Choices resulted in choices, and sometimes that was predictable. And what could be predicted could be prepared for.

What he hadn’t been able to predict was her mentioning this now, and choosing this as the chance to kiss him and sort things out with her emotions. Emotions regarding–

“Did–” He paused, reconsidering, given the last part of what she’d said; then just pushed through. “did something happen, last night, with…With the Slasher?”

He wasn’t ignoring the fact that she said it, but the serious look on his face, the strange light in his eyes, would express that this felt more important. Maybe for obvious reasons, or maybe he was extrapolating. Seeing connections where there weren’t any, causes and effects.

Maybe she’d deny it. He hoped she’d deny it. He decided to give her maybe a little push in that direction, an escape from what he realized was an awkward question.

“Did he try to eat you?”
 
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