Closed RP On The Trail

This RP is currently closed.
Crow

Crow

Active member

There was still uncertainty in Sam’s mind as she parked the Beetle outside of Adelyn’s grandparent’s house. Adelyn had given her a call, insisting that she was better and was ready to help her. The gunshot in her foot had been bad. Sam was worried it wasn’t healed enough for her to be running around, especially at the places she planned to bring Adelyn. After all, they needed to go to the place where he had disappeared from.

Underneath her long sleeved turtleneck and her loose jeans, she was wearing the new suit that she’d been given. Purple and black and with a much more comfortable fit than her ten-year-old suit had been. It didn’t match her phoenix mask anymore, but Sam had plans for a new mask. This one would have feathers and would be even more beautiful than the last mask. For now, she had one of her two old black upper face masks on. The other was in her bag, alongside a short cape, both painted in the reflective paint that distorted cameras. Those were for Adelyn.

After all, she couldn’t run around as Phoe– as Crow– as whoever she was now, with a very easily recognizable teenage girl. The mask cut off on the bridge of the nose, so hopefully Adelyn’s senses wouldn’t be muddled by it. But for her own safety, Sam was going to insist on at least the mask.

She tugged on the ribbed collar of the new suit, then covered it as best she could with her shirt. Sam left the backpack in the car, on the passenger seat. Inside was the rest of her gear and the gear for Adelyn. She stepped out of the car and locked it, then headed up to the door. She patted her pocket to make sure the other gift for Adelyn was still there, and the slight bump told her it was. Sighing, she walked up to the door.

There was no reason for her to be so nervous. Except that the last time she was here, she had been sewing their granddaughter’s foot shut. So maybe nervous was okay. But her grandparents knew Sam only wanted what was best for Adelyn, that she believed in the girl. So maybe that was on her side.

Either way, she raised a hand and knocked on the front door.​
 


The door swings open the moment Sam’s knuckles brush against it, and Adelyn comes rushing out, ducking under her still-outstretched arm and hopping down the front steps, her paws soft against the stone despite her hurry.

“Going now! Love you! Bye!” She calls over her shoulder, already racing for the car. There are grumbles from within the house, but she ignores them in favor of sliding over the hood of the car and ducking down on the other side. She pops back up a moment later, peeking over the expanse of metal to wave Sam over. Her smile is tinged with an eager sort of nervousness, and neither the hand nor the paw that come up to hold the edge of the hood are covered by her usual gloves.

Then Gramps appears in the doorway like an angry specter, puffed up with worry and indignation, and Adelyn ducks back down with a squeak. The old man sighs, heavy and put-upon, and assesses Sam with a measured look before crossing his arms over his chest.

“Ah-hem. Right.” Another sigh, and a glance at the car, Adelyn’s paw disappearing from sight as soon as he lays eyes on it. He somehow manages to convey rolling his eyes, though they remain as blank as ever. “You take care of her, ya hear? We owe ya for bringin’ her back, but don’t think we’ll forgive her getting hurt on your watch.”

“Grampaaaa…” Adelyn whines, and he shoots her a look so sharp it sends her ducking down again in a swirl of hair. Ooh, they are not happy with her.

“I do hope you find what yer lookin’ for,” he finishes, curt but not completely unkind. He puts a hand on the door and sends one last withering look in Adelyn’s general direction, then spares Sam a faint smile. “Good huntin’.”

The door starts to close, much more softly than it had opened, Gramps already turned to go back inside.

 

There was a moment of movement and Adelyn was past her and out the door, rushing for the car. But not before Sam saw what Adelyn had done. She breathed in sharp as she saw the panther nose in the middle of her friend’s face. It looked good on her, all things considered. But it meant that Adelyn had sacrificed more of her human self for this, to help her find Todd.

Todd was going to be so sad about that, but Sam found herself trying not to cry. It was a beautiful gesture, a beautiful change, a beautiful sacrifice. It hit her deep in the gut to know that Adelyn cared enough to help them like this. That was why she was watching Adelyn when her grandfather turned up at the door. She quickly whipped back around, turning her full attention to the older man.

“I’ll keep her safe. I promise. I won’t let her get hurt, sir.” She gave a nervous look, understanding what Adelyn has given up. From what Sam knew, Adelyn would always be this now. She wouldn’t ever be as human as she once was again. That was such a huge sacrifice. “Thank you. I mean, for the good hunting.”

She took a step back as the door started to close, heading back to the car to join Adelyn. She looked over her shoulder at the girl, her friend, and gave her a small smile. She waved to suggest the car was unlocked and she could get in.​
 


Adelyn, hearing the door shut, cautiously peeks up over the hood of the car again. Her shoulders drop when she sees that it’s just Sam making her way back to the car, and she stands fully, a sheepish smile on her face. The wheels smell like rubber and road, and while she doesn’t mind getting so closely acquainted with them, exactly, she can’t say they’re her favorite smells ever. She’s glad to be out in the open air again, where the smells are more diffused.

Maybe she should’ve taken a little more time to figure out how her new nose works, before jumping into the search for Todd. But that would’ve meant talking to her grandparents, which would’ve meant talking to her parents (again), and she’s just not ready for that yet!

But she will be! … Eventually.

For now, she pulls lightly on the car door’s handle, tugging it open and propping it against her hip as she scoops up the backpack currently occupying her seat. She’s quick to bundle herself into the car, setting the backpack on her lap and letting the door fall mostly shut, kept open only by the light press of her hind paw.

She doesn’t open the backpack, although she’s itching to know what’s inside, but she does give it a very curious look as she waits for Sam to join her.

 

Sam took a few extra seconds than she needed, moved a little slower than she normally would have, to get to the car. And even then, she paused at the door. She had a deep apprehension about taking Adelyn where she was going to, but it was… necessary. She had a bag of his clothes in the trunk, but she knew that the crime scene where they had found his mask hadn’t been cleaned up by the city yet.

His blood was still there.

She knew it had been tainted chemically with bleach, but underneath that, the scent should have been the same. If she were right, that was. She also might be considering taking Adelyn to the crime scene for nothing. Maybe the scent on the clothes was enough. They were two weeks old, almost three at this point, and the scent had probably faded off them, but… it was worth a test shot.

She opened the door and slipped into the driver’s seat of the old Beetle. She stayed facing forward for a moment, then turned a tired smile onto Adelyn. As she had seen, the nose in the middle of the girl’s face was no longer human, but feline. It suited her, in a way, with her completely milky eyes. She took a breath and let it out slowly. She wasn’t sure what to say. Should she compliment the nose? Or not? Maybe she just didn’t address it. Adelyn knew she could see it. And she wasn’t about to scold her for it.

“Okay. I suppose we should get started immediately. The faster we do this, the faster we potentially find him. I have clothes that he wore the night before he disappeared. I don’t know if the scent is strong enough, but if it isn’t… I have somewhere I can take you. But if we go there, I’m going to ask that you wear one of my old masks. It will distort any camera footage, and keep them from being able to locate you.”

She reached back into the back seat, for the duffel with Todd’s clothes, then paused. She straightened back out. “If that sounds good to you. We’re doing this together, and I trust your judgment and want your input.”​
 


Sam’s eyes keep drifting to Adelyn’s nose, and even though it’s clear that she’s trying not to stare, Adelyn shifts a little in her seat, uncomfortable with the attention.

She wonders, briefly, if it wouldn’t be better for her to wait and scrounge up some new boots and gloves after all, but almost as soon as she thinks about it, she felt a wave of stubborn pride wash over her, lending iron to her spine. She sat a little straighter, meeting Sam’s gaze squarely. There was something almost challenging in the motion, but she softens again when her friend starts to lay out the plan.

“Oh?” She hums when she mentions a place, her head tilting to the side in open curiosity. Then her nose wrinkles, the gesture turned foreign by the dark fur and shifted muscles beneath it, and she shakes her head in light negation. “Well, thank you, but no, I don’t want to wear a mask. I, um, I don’t think it would do much good anyway.”

Her front paw lifts from where it was resting on top of the backpack, and she curls and uncurls it by way of explanation. Then she lets it fall again, the curiosity back in her feline stare. “Who’s ‘them’, anyway?”

She knows all about the dangers of cameras. From what her parents told her, cameras are why Uncle Barclay couldn’t live near them for more than a couple months at a time, and a big part of why she couldn’t visit the town or talk to the locals. But she’s been living in the city for months now, walking around and talking to people and playing at normal, and cameras haven’t given her any more grief than anything else has, so she’s starting to think that maybe their stories were a little bit exaggerated. Besides, if she’s going to walk around with her panther parts uncovered then people are going to recognize her regardless of what else she hides, so what does it matter?

 

“Right. We haven’t talked about this much. I know you know I’m a vigilante. But that kind of puts me at odds with the police when I have to interact with them directly. The place I was going to possibly take you is… well, it’s the location I tracked him down to having disappeared from.” Sam sighed softly, grabbing the bag from the backseat. She pulled it forward and left it in her lap for a moment. “The mask would be to disguise you from any police cameras there. Since it’s technically a crime scene… there might be cameras.”

Sam shifted, her expression tight. She was uncomfortable with the idea of having to take Adelyn to where Todd had disappeared. It wasn’t something she wanted to do, but something that– if the clothes didn’t pan out– might be necessary. She hugged the bag to her chest, trying to find some sense of comfort in its weight. There was a terrible, gnawing hole inside of her chest, and it was forcing her to make difficult choices. Ones that could put others, like Adelyn, in danger. If she took Adelyn to the crime scene where Cryptid supposedly died, then she could be caught on camera. Even if it didn’t make the news that a small feline meta girl was running around with Phoenix– the police would still have her photo.

And that was dangerous.

“Masks are important for people like me. If I didn’t wear one, everyone would know it was me, and I’d get in a lot of trouble. It would also leave everyone I care about open to attacks. I don’t want that. It’s the reason I'm so careful. All my masks, even just the eye masks, are painted with a reflective paint that was developed to break facial recognition software. I understand if you don’t want to wear one; I just worry that if I take you to that spot, you might get caught up in all of this more than I’m dragging you in to begin with.”

Sam caught herself, cutting off her rambling explanation. She wasn’t sure how much Adelyn had figured out versus how much was obvious about what it was Sam did most nights. Either way, that was already more than she’d told anyone other than Todd in a long time about her vigilante habits.​
 


Adelyn listens patiently, her expression sympathetic but unafraid. She knows that she should be afraid, at least a little bit, of where they might go and who might see them, but she can’t seem to muster up anything more than a twinge of unease, quickly smoothed over by an invisible paw. If she doesn’t want to hide anymore, she’s going to have to deal with being seen. That’s just the way it works. To shy away now would mean being untrue to herself, and that would be worse than anything else she could do.

When Sam is done, she tilts her head to the other side and shrugs her shoulders up in a tiny motion, eyes bright and clear and quietly confident as she says, “Then don’t take me there.”

It’s the simple answer, and even if it makes things a little harder she thinks she would feel better not having to go near too many cameras. Police or otherwise. She doesn’t want Sam to feel like she’s giving up, though, so she hurries to add, “We can go to his house or something first, somewhere he spent a lot of time. Somewhere that would smell like him. And then maybe we could walk around and see if anywhere smells like him that shouldn’t. We don’t have to go near the police camera place, unless that really is where he is. But it probably isn’t. You checked, right?”

Adelyn looks to her for confirmation, then nods, decisive. Her smile is small and sure, trying to radiate confidence for her worried friend. “We’ll find him, Sam. He can’t have fallen off the face of the Earth; he’s gotta be somewhere.”

 

“I checked. You’re right, we don’t have to go there unless we absolutely have to. It’s just the last place I know he was. I have some… ideas of where we can start. But we’ll swing by our— the apartments first.” Sam looked up at Adelyn and took in her confident smile. It was reassuring. It was reassuring that someone was confident they would find him. Once she had gotten over the fear that he had left her, Sam had acquired the fear that she would never be able to find him. She knew his vibrations, but that only helped if he was close.

She put the car into drive and took a deep breath. Her hands wrapped around the familiar steering wheel cover, with it’s multicolored threads. It was one of the few touches Alice had left on the car when she had died. Sam had more of Todd, more of his presence and things, but she’d be damned before she lost another soulmate. She and Adelyn would find him. Adelyn was taught how to track by Todd. He had told her he’d been working with their young friend. And if anyone was going to be able to hunt him down, it was her.

“Apartments. Let’s go.” The engine revved once, softly, as she pulled out onto the street and turned out of the idyllic suburb that Adelyn and her grandparents lived in. The drive to the apartments wasn’t very long, but it was made a bit longer by the traffic. Traffic that had Sam bouncing her right leg as she drove. Cars weren’t necessarily designed for left-handed people like herself. But she’d been taught by her mother, and her mother had learned to drive left handed specifically to teach her. As such, not only was Sam a good driver, she was a good driver who knew how to drive with her left foot.

It seemed such a strange thing to think about then. Thinking of when she had learned to drive, her mother laughing as she tried not to run stop signs and tried to break smoothly. Their little town had been the perfect place to learn to drive, and people had been so patient with her. None more than Amelia, her mother. She could see in her head, the woman who looked so much like her, so much so that Sam could have been mistaken for her now. She could see her laughing and smiling, her freckled face lighting up, her cloud of curls pulled back tight into a ponytail in a way Sam never quite learned to do.

Why? Why think of her mother now? Was it because she was afraid to lose anyone else? The way she had lost her family? The way she’d lost Alice?

Or was it that she wanted nothing more than to call her mom and cry?

She wanted her mother to reassure her that they would find Todd. She wanted her mother’s calm voice and gentle lilt to tell her she would be fine, that he was fine, that she would find him in time. That Adelyn was right. He hadn’t disappeared off the face of the Earth and they would find him.

She took a deep breath as they pulled up to the apartments. She couldn’t call her mom. She couldn’t do that now. Maybe when this was over, and Todd was back in her arms… but not now. For now, she would trust her friend. She would trust Adelyn to handle this. She believed in the girl, and she believed in her gifts. She parked the car in it’s usual spot and sighed, pushing her mass of curls back from her face. Then, she turned to her friend and gave her an attempt at a smile, one that came across as genuine, even though it was clearly tired and sad.

“Okay. Tell me what you need. I’ll support you on this. I have ideas of where to start when we leave, but I’m following you.”​
 


Nodding once more, Adelyn finally takes her foot off the door and pulls it fully shut, pushing the backpack in her lap down into the footwell and quickly buckling herself in before taking the larger bag off of Sam’s lap. It isn’t too heavy, so she puts it in her own lap instead, smiling a little to herself as the addition tips her from ‘slightly squished’ to ‘well and truly hemmed in’. It isn’t not comfortable, so she just wiggles around a little until she’s more settled rather than trying to relocate anything, her forearms resting loosely over the duffel and the backpack safely nestled in the otherwise unoccupied space between her shins.

“To the apartments!” she cheers, significantly more enthusiastically than Sam had, glancing back only once as the car pulls away from her grandparents’ house. Even though she really isn’t looking for any particular reason, not really, she stays turned that way for a long moment, just watching as the house grows steadily smaller.

(And no, she doesn’t notice, not really, how the curtains are open around the window in the spare room (her room, for now and however long she’s going to keep staying with them), and how they’re both standing there, watching her go. She doesn’t notice her grandmother leaning her head on her grandfather’s shoulder, or the way his unwavering, sternly disapproving stare breaks for just a moment as he puts an arm around her in turn. She doesn’t notice that at all.)

They turn the corner, and after another second Adelyn wordlessly turns to look out the front windshield, watching the world pass by, trying not to think about how the streets twist and change and get gobbled up by the wheels all the same. Her eyes dart across the dash and settle on the bag in her lap, which she carefully inspects, and, after another long minute, even dares to open, studying the old, unwashed clothes inside with all the detective-y prowess she can rustle up.

The scents clinging to the cloth are old and muddled, almost lost under the recycled, oil-tinted air of the car and the spicy perfume that Sam wears, but Adelyn gives it the ol’ college try anyway, holding an old shirt up to her face and trying to pick out anything distinct enough to help with the tracking.

After more than a few minutes of this, she lets the latest article - a pair of jeans with black blotches of motor oil spreading like mold from the thighs and knees - fall back into the bag and sits back, only to start forward in a sudden rush as a powerful sneeze catches her completely by surprise. “Ah-chooo! Oh, ‘scuse me.”

She rubs at her nose with the back of her paw, snuffling a little as she looks around properly for the first time since she’d begun her inspection. They’ve stopped somewhere, looks like, parked neatly outside what appears to be the back entrance to some kind of… store? (It doesn’t look like a store, but she doesn’t know what else it could be.) Trying not to sound doubtful, she asks, “Is this, um, the place…? Where’s the… uh. Does it not have a front door?”

 

Sam blinked and looked out the windshield, looking at the oh so familiar metal staircase that led up to the back entrance to the apartments. If you didn’t know what you were looking at, especially given the downstairs was, in fact, the gym, you wouldn’t realize the upstairs was a pair of apartments. She smiled, the motion a bit tired, a bit strained. “Yeah, this is it. The bottom floor of the apartments is my gym. It's my business. The upstairs is a pair of apartments that Todd and I live in. Sorry, I realize it doesn’t look normal, but once we get inside the hall, it-- you’ll see.”

She unbuckled as she spoke, gesturing for the feline girl to follow her toward the building. The trip inside was quick, and somewhat of a blur to Sam. She knew that Adelyn had wandered through both apartments with her, garnering a proper scent profile for Todd. Sam could still smell it in the air, hazy and thick in her bedroom. Their bedroom? Did it matter, that boundary? They had crossed so many of them. His mint and forest scent clung to her sheets on the extra pillow she had brought in for him. She wasn't sure if that was where Adelyn had found the scent or not. Next thing she really remembered, they were in the car again, driving around the city.

She drove Adelyn through Todd's frequent spaces, spaces she knew he would go to if he were still there– work, his favorite coffee shop, the bar he hung around sometimes– anywhere she knew he could turn up. And nothing. He hadn't been at any of them in weeks. The further they drove, the more the sense of dread grew in Sam about where he might be. Because there was one place, one place that kept her from fully falling into the fog that threatened to claim her mind. One place that she dreaded. One place she knew he was likely to turn up at.

And the longer they drove, the closer she found herself circling to Downtown. Until, eventually, they drove along outside the Clark Building. It was just a building, Tall, lined with windows (one window open, on maybe the third floor), with entrances that were unassuming. The outside was painted off-white, a smooth cream color, and looked like it had recently been cleaned. Near the entrance to the apartments, “CLARK” was written down the side in big letters. Aside from that, and its height, there was nothing to distinguish it from the rest of the buildings downtown.

And yet.

And yet, Sam could feel something rolling off of it. Maybe it was the knowledge of the man who resided within, the man she was hoping she wouldn’t have to encounter. Maybe that knowledge was what was making her stomach turn and her skin crawl. It wasn’t as if the building itself was covered in shadows and had piercing eyes whose color she couldn’t remember.

The building wasn’t Obsidian. It just housed him.

She turned a shaky smile upon Adelyn, her eyes still partially covered in fog. She hoped, even as much as she hoped that they found him, that Todd was not here. Please, God, let Todd not be here. If anything existed out there beyond them, Sam was begging it to not let Todd be in the Diamond with Obsidian.

"Addy? Anything?"​
 


“Okay,” Adelyn agrees, consciously softening her voice so as not to spook her friend. Sam’s smile has taken on a stiff, wooden quality, trembling at the edges even though it’s obvious that she’s putting a lot of energy into keeping it carved into her face, and Adelyn doesn’t want to push too hard for fear of breaking her even further.

She keeps her thoughts to herself as Sam leads her up the stairs and into a short hallway, and then further in (past another locked door, she notes), to what is clearly her apartment. It certainly smells like her, tinged all over with that warm, spiced scent that both her car and the woman herself seem to carry.

(There are other scents, too. Stopping in the living room, she takes a deep breath, turning in a slow circle as she tries to catalogue them all. There are just so many - past meals and cleaning products and all the little byproducts of life, each new scent slipping by her nose like tiny fish in a silver stream. Adelyn thinks that if she sat in the kitchen for long enough she could probably pick out all the ingredients from whatever Sam had last cooked - but that isn’t what she’s supposed to be looking for. She sets the thought aside, and focuses back on her self-appointed task.)

It isn’t easy. There are a lot of smells to sort through, not all of them relevant. And not all of them ir-relevant - there are a bunch of clingy scents that seem to crop up all over, ones that remind her of him - oil, cigarette-smoke, coffee, gum, soap, meat; the threads of where he usually went and what he usually did are all wrapped around each other, weaving a shifting tapestry that she follows from one side of the apartment to the other and back again over and over and over without learning anything. Separately, they’re too mundane, but they don’t always show up together - so which one should she focus on? Which one can she use to find him?

Frustrated by her inability to do something as simple as pick up a darn scent, she excuses herself, retreating into the relative sterility of Todd’s bathroom. With the door securely locked behind her, she digs her fingers and the soft pads of her paw into her temples, massaging away the headache that pounds behind her eyes. Taking a few deep breaths through her mouth, she glares at her reflection.

“It can’t be this hard for you,” she murmurs, fixing her gaze on the streak of dark fur in the center of her face.

Her ears flick, a flash of - amusement, maybe? - resonating in the back of her mind, but she gets no other answer. Sighing, she turns her attention towards the reflected room, idly scanning the scant few products sitting in the shower behind her. Shampoo, conditioner, soap, bodywash - all strongly imbued with that clean scent that Todd seems to favor, no doubt.

Not quite ready to face Sam yet, she turns away from the mirror, picking up one of the bottles and inspecting it. Her poppa has always been partial to pine, but maybe Gramps would like something minty as a father’s day present? He does like spearmint gum. Maybe spearmint shampoo would be up his alley.

Huh. The shampoo doesn’t advertise itself as being minty. Neither does the conditioner, or the bodywash. In fact, none of the bottles have any kind… of… mint.

Oh.


Cars are stinky. Not, like, the insides of them - Sam’s car smells pretty good, actually - but the greasy, tangy clouds they cough up. It’s a heavy, smothering kind of smell, and Adelyn has been putting as much effort into blocking it out as she has searching for traces of Todd’s scent.

She hasn’t had very much luck in either department, unfortunately. It kind of feels like the back of her mouth has taken on some kind of oily residue from how often she’s stuck her head out the window and gotten a blast of car-smell, actually, which is kind of really unpleasant? But she nods seriously to Sam and leans halfway out the window anyways, because she’s determined to see this through. No matter the cost.

So. She takes a big, deep breath, sorting past the usual city-smells and car-smells and Sam-smells, and narrows in on the building they’re idling in front of.

Ooh, fried food. Aaaand… ick. Alcohol. She wrinkles her nose, but sniffs again, leaning further out the window as she searches for -

Spearmint.

“Yes!” She cheers, reaching back to jab at the release button for her seatbelt. It zips back into the car wall, and she quickly disintangles herself, not wanting to lose the scent. All her focus is on the building, now, and she doesn’t waste her time with the door - she just crawls right out the window, flipping once in the air before landing on her paws.

Remembering herself, she casts a quick glance back over her shoulder at Sam, eyes bright with excitement. “I think he’s here!”

Excitement bubbles in her veins, all her limbs feeling warm and tingly and ready to run after being cooped up in a car for so long, and she just can’t wait. Digging her claws into the concrete, she takes off, racing for the source of the scent.

The building approaches quickly. Too quickly. It jumps right out at her, and she throws her hands up in surprise when the concrete wall is suddenly right in front of her.

“Eep!” Thinking quick, she leans back and lets her momentum carry her, claws digging into grooves in the wall as she runs a short distance up the vertical surface. Swinging forward before she can fall back down, she catches the sill of a window and hauls herself up onto the tiny ledge.

Looking down is a mistake. She’s on the second floor, now, and the sidewalk does not look forgiving. It looks, in fact, like something she would go crunch against were she to fall. Somewhat shakier, she turns back to the window she’s now standing in front of, pressing her forehead against the tinted glass in an attempt to see inside.

No sign of Todd. She sniffs the air again, and is delighted to find that the spearmint scent is much stronger now. It smells fresh, too, not faded like all the other trails she’s been tracking. He must be close!

Very carefully, she leans back, scanning the windows above her and finally noticing the open one a few rows over and one floor up. She grins, and starts carefully edging in that direction.

“Okay, Adelyn. Just like climbing a tree.” If she ignores the lack of branches, dirt, and… well, tree.

 


There was no time to slow the car as Adelyn exited through the window, but thankfully, the car was practically in park. Still, Sam hit the brakes hard, the car slamming to a stop as Adelyn looked back at her and exclaimed that she thought Todd was close. The fog cleared from her eyes in an instant, and she breathed in sharply. Her eyes immediately began to scan the street for a place to park, and she found one about half a block up, seamlessly parallel parking the Bug.

Upon exiting the car herself, she could see the slowing of foot traffic as people stopped and stared at Adelyn as she climbed across the outer walls of the apartment building. Sam bit her lower lip, chapped and well-marked from nights of tearing at it, and she breathed out in a huff. It didn't matter right then. Nothing mattered but Todd, and Adelyn thought he was here. With little more thought than that, Sam kicked off, taking to the air and flying up to where Adelyn had almost finished her triumphant scale of the building to an open window.

The windows were tinted, and there were thick curtains, curtains Sam couldn't quite see past. She didn't have Adelyn's nose. As the girl got closer, Sam reached a hand out and touched it to the windowsill of the open window. She could see her fingers tremble as they touched the smooth edge.

A beat of time skipped before she felt it. It flooded through her like a wave, calming every nerve and reassuring her before she ever even saw him, the way it always did. It felt even, gentle, but faint. Todd's vibrations were there. He was nearby. Sam could swallow around the sense of impending doom, and she could brace for whatever else laid beyond–

Something else pinged her vibration sense. Something… something she knew. Something that made her recoil in shock and horror. Her eyes moved to Adelyn, who had reached the window. The girl was there before the words were out of her mouth. "Adelyn, wait!"​
 

The Diamond wasn't meant to open for another few hours yet. Lapis, Rhodonite, and Hematite were downstairs taking care of opening procedures, getting set up taken care of. Sulphur was off somewhere handling Jackals business, or maybe handling their deals with the police force. He always had something that he was working on, and rarely, if ever, did Obsidian actually need to interfere in his day to day. Obsidian himself had finished all the tasks that he needed to handle for the morning with Stonewall business. Come the evening, he would need to do Slate matters, but for now, he could just rest.

His eyes traced over Todd's face, as still as it had been when they had brought him in more than two weeks before. He was hooked up to IVs, his body slowly repairing the damage from whatever he had fought before. He had scarred over well, the injuries healing remarkably fast. His thumb hadn't grown back, but that was a small cost for what might be his life.

Golden eyes flickered back to the pages of the book in Obsidian's hands. It was a thick Sci-Fi novel, something that he couldn't keep his mind on quite then. Not that he wasn't interested in it, but he was too stressed about his friend's life to really read it. Between that, and the fact he still hadn't figured out how to get a message to Samantha without making her freak out and possibly storm his bar…

He sighed, closed the book while noting his page, and set it aside. He looked Todd's gaunt face over again. "You know, if you're going to cause me this many problems, I'd prefer you do it while awake. At least then I can tell you off for it. It's a lot less entertaining this way."

He chuckled a bit, looking down at his gloved hands. He looked back at Todd, this time looking through him, and at his energy. It was as low as it had been the day before, just barely enough to stay in this hibernation. If he thought it would wake him up, and not just hurt him, Obsidian would try pumping him full of energy. But the last time he did that, it had caused him to go into shock after pulling him out of the Huntsong. Who knew what it could do to him nearly dead like this? Obsidian sighed and looked back down at his gloves.

What to do, what to do…

"Adelyn, wait!"

His head whipped up, picking up the voice right outside the window. There was movement alongside it, and Obsidian got to his feet. He didn't move fast, however– the voice was all too familiar. He took a deep breath in while he waited for who-knew-what to come through the window.​
 


Once she’s braved the first leap, the rest come easier. After only one or two false starts, Adelyn is hopping between windowsills with wild abandon, her skirt flaring around her legs and occasionally catching on the rough concrete wall when she brushes too close to it. Her leggings keep her legs from being scratched up when that happens, thankfully, but she still kind of wishes she’d worn jeans or something.

(Fur would serve even better, the Panther felt the need to remind her, but she didn’t seem to hear it, only shaking her head and shrugging off the energy it had gathered even before it could properly suggest a Shift.)

Soon, she’s standing right beneath the window that Todd’s scent drifts from. Clutching tightly to the sides of the windowframe in front of her, she leans back to study her ascent. Sam is already hovering above her, one hand on the sill, but she seems frozen, distracted.

… Adelyn probably shouldn’t use her as a climbing post, then. Darn.

Chewing her lip, she stretches up as far as she can, reaching for the thin line of grout above her. If she can just reach that, she can try to haul herself up onto the-

One of her paws slips, the warm air currents currently buoying Sam brushing against her at just the wrong angle, and for a heart-stopping moment Adelyn can feel herself starting to fall.

A surge of energy shoots through her, and she scrambles for a handhold. She’s got this, it’s fine. She just has to find her balance. Panthers have good balance, right?

An odd sort of rumbling fills her mind, and, as though all it needed was that desperate invitation, she can feel the Shift roar to life. It shoots through her veins, the fizzy soda-pop energy running all through her body before collecting at the base of her spine and forming into something… new. Something that lashed in the open air behind her, compensating for the wind and bringing her back onto the sill. No, higher than the sill - she was on the window itself, somehow, and had launched herself upwards even with her head still spinning from the near-fall.

Dizzy, but still with easy grace, she caught the sill of Todd’s window and darted inside, wild eyes landing on an unfamiliar man. A stranger who was standing between herself and her friend.

With a half-yowled battle cry, she pushed off the wall in a full-body lunge, claws bared and tail still lashing behind her as she sought to meet the perceived threat.

 

What came through the window was unexpected, to be sure. A teenaged girl– with a tail, clawed hands, and a dark muzzle for a nose– lunged at him, moving quickly. Still, she wasn't as fast as Obsidian was. He channeled the speed into his legs and arms, and moved in a flash. He side stepped the girl, reached out, placed his hand between her shoulder blades flat across her back, and pushed her down into the bed. Only then did he sigh, letting out the deep breath that he had held in his lungs during his burst of speed.

He held her pinned down against the thick blankets that covered Todd, eyes flicking to make sure Todd hadn't woken up yet. His eyes were still closed, thick lashes unmoved. There was the sound of movement at the window, and Obsidian pulled from the shadows in the room, drawing them toward him to cover his face. The last thing he needed right now was for her to see him. That conversation… he wasn't ready for it.

Todd was right. He needed to talk to Sam, explain who he was, and talk through what had happened. But maybe while holding her friend pinned to a bed and having her boyfriend's comatose body in said bed in his apartments wasn't the best time for such a bittersweet reunion. He lifted his head slowly, deliberately, to look at the woman crouched on the windowsill. He ignored the flickers of untamed greens and deep florals in the shapes of vines that seemed to branch into eternity throughout the teenage girl he held down. Their wild movement wanted to draw his eye. But at that moment, she wasn't the real threat.

Because Sam's energy was fluctuating wildly, shifting in aggressive patterns that made Obsidian deeply uncomfortable.​
 

The pounding of her heart was all Sam could hear. It drowned out the harsh breaths she took as she clung to the edge of the window, an arm extended to hold the curtains back. Her blood was cold, all the heat beneath her skin receded to her core. Bent over the bed, holding Adelyn in place, was a figure, dressed in a long coat, a suit, and cloaked in shadows where his face should have been. The darkness swirled like a flame in its own right, offering the vaguest of outlines, but no identifying features.

He tilted his head toward her with an eerie grace that made her shiver. His movements were so off-puttingly smooth that they made her skin crawl. Sam's heart was running overtime in her chest, and she could feel it flutter like butterfly wings in the center of the panic and pain. A flash of ice ran through her veins. She remembered what it felt like to have him touch her. She remembered that cold, that fear, that pain.

“You need to leave.”

“... No. Get off of Adelyn. Let her up.” She fisted a hand in her hoodie's front, to hide the tremble. She was honestly surprised at how little the break in her voice was. She didn't falter. She didn't stutter. She could fight back the fear.

Todd was more important than the fear, after all.

To Sam's surprise, the man– for she had to remind herself, he was only a man– seemed to appraise her for a moment. Then, Obsidian straightened out, carefully and slowly removing his hand from Adelyn's back, speaking as he did. "Try to go for my throat again, little one, and I'll knock you out. You both need to leave. It's not safe for you to be in this room if he wakes up."​
 


The man moved impossibly fast. In a blur of half-seen motion, he was suddenly to the left of her rather than in the path of her lunge, and before she could readjust she felt herself being swatted out of the air, landing heavily on something solid and… soft?

“Oof.” The impact is more unexpected than anything. Except for two solid bars that dig into her stomach in a not-very-comfortable way, she thinks she’s mostly fine. Confused, Adelyn opens her mouth. And promptly inhales a whole lot of fabric and not much else. It’s soft, but not very breathable. Spluttering a little, she turns her face to the side, blinking up at the man that has her pinned.

He isn’t looking at her. Or, at least, she thinks he isn’t. It’s kind of hard to tell, what with how his head has gone all twisty-smoky. An experimental flail proves that he still has enough mind to keep her where she is, but the longer she squints at him the more she gets the feeling that he doesn’t actually want to hurt her.

Well. Darn. She might’ve overreacted a little bit.

Turning her head the other way, she studies what she can see of Todd, instead. He looks to be sleeping, all tucked up nicely in bed with his eyes closed and his chest slowly rising and falling. When she wiggles again, he wiggles with her, but she’s pretty sure that’s just her moving the bed. She must be laying on his legs. His… shins, maybe? Gosh, but he’s tall. Like a tree. A fallen tree. …It’s weird seeing him all laid out like this.

Her ears swivel to follow the conversation happening above her, but Adelyn isn’t paying it all that much mind. (She probably should. It’s about her, after all. But she can’t stop looking at Todd. He looks… weird. Wrong. Dead. She doesn’t like it.)

“What happened to him?” she asks, sitting up slowly once the weight leaves her back. She doesn’t go far, just scoots further onto the bed, crawling up a little higher to poke at Todd’s cheek.

 
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