This had to be the dumbest thing Christopher Ford had done in his sixteen - no, seventeen years of living.

"This is, hands down, the stupidest thing we've ever done, I hope you know that Topher," a voice called behind him, mirroring back his own thought. Christopher craned his head back, keeping his grip tight on the metal bar above him, barely making out his best friend – a speck among a sea of black.

"You don't have to tell me twice Scooter," he whispered back, listening to the wind around them settle. All was quiet if you ignored the pained grunts of Scooter attempting to regain his footing. For someone who played so many sports you'd think the guy could handle scaling the side of a building.

He couldn't.

Christopher heaved himself up further, scrambling for grip against rough tiling before hoisting himself over the edge. A few moments later Scooter joined him, panting and wiping bleeding palms against the dirt on his jeans. The view around them was nice enough, more streetlights than stars unfortunately, but if they squinted hard enough the two could be conflated.

"Corvus," Scooter pointed out, breath choked. Christopher nodded, though not sure what shape his friend saw among the blobs.

Suddenly a clap sounded beside him, startling both boys. Turning they caught the shape of a nerf ball rolling on its side. Tilting their gaze, Christopher blushed at the view that met them. Uncle Leonard stood on the lawns front yard, hands to his hips, and expression not impressed in the slightest.

"Afternoon Uncle Len," Scooter called down with an impish grin. Uncle Leonard rolled his eyes, a movement that took his entire body with it.

"Scooter. Of course," he muttered before directing his attention to his nephew. "Christopher, are you honestly hiding? During your own birthday party?"

Christopher shuffled closer to the roofs edge, griping the drain loosely. "I never asked for a party."

"And I never asked for an idiot in the family, but here we are," Uncle Leonard countered, earning a chuckle from Scooter, who promptly shut his mouth at the warning look from Christopher. "Get down before your aunt has a heart attack. And eat some of her fruit cake, she worked hard on it."

"I don't like fruit cake," Christopher murmured, trying to figure out the safest path back down.

"No one likes fruit cake." Uncle Leonard responded before disappearing under the awning.

Scooter was quick to chim in after the front door slide closed. "If you think I'm abseiling back down you are sorely mistaken," he said, mouth pulled low in a frown.

Christopher rolled his eyes at Scooter's antics, turning around and beginning his descent back down. Over his head he heard Scooter groan "seriously" before a pair of sneakers clipped him on the top of his head.

- - -

All jokes aside, Christopher had to admit Aunt Yvonne's fruit cake wasn't too bad if he avoided the raisins. What he wished he could avoid, however, were the influx of relatives his Aunt and Uncle managed to squeeze into their modest three bedroom. It seemed everywhere he glanced there was a cousin ready to annoying him to an end or distant uncle prep to chide him on his 'old age. Thankfully by midnight the house was down to it's usual residents, and Scooter.

"Don't you have a home to get to, boy," Uncle Leonard scolded, uncoiling the vacuum cleaner. Christopher would be slightly alarmed by the amount of food on the floor had he not witnessed the way Uncle Grant talked with his mouth full. Shuddering he turned to Scooters side by the front door.

"No sir, I'm a child of the night," Scooter stage whispered, accepting his coat from an amused Yvonne.

"Christopher will walk you out," she stated, before adding, "and I'll be watching right by the front window to ensure you two don't get up to any funny business!"

Blushing at his dirt stained pants Christopher murmured an apology before slipping out. The cold outside had picked up enough that the lining of his jacket did little to warm his hands. Scooter had no qualms, jacket tied around his waist, bare arms with goosebump free. If he thought about it, Christopher would've remarked his friend was in oddly high spirits, to the point that having a spring in his step would not have been far off.

"How does it feel to make it to seventeen?" Scooter asked a couple houses down the street later. The streetlamp flickered on the pavement, throwing shadows at a slant down the sidewalk. Trees morphed into the figures of men, darting across the road, ducking under bushes, rolling in and out of the light behind the pair of teenagers. "I feel pretty proud to have gotten you this far alive, didn't think I'd manage it."

Christopher scoffed, kicking up dirt as they pulled up to the end of the street. "Very funny. No need to make us sound more co-dependent than we already are."

Scooter feigned hurt. "Did I or did I not scale a building for you?"

"The house is barely twenty feet tall."

"You wound me and my athletic prowess, more than you will ever know,"

At Scooter's dramatics Christopher rolled his eyes, tugging up the collar of his jacket. How his friend weathered this cold he would never know.

"I'll see you at lunch tomorrow? Might even bring you an extra slice of cake? Don't act like you didn't eat half of it."

Scooter raised his hands, chuckling. "You caught me. I may be the only person to like fruit cake, don't rat me out to Uncle Len."

With that Christopher waved his friend goodbye, turning on his foot back towards the house and directly into a ridged figure.

"Oof," he exclaimed and promptly blushed at his barbarian reaction. "Sorry, man, didn't see you there."

The man, if one could call him that with such weak scruff on his chin, looked alarmed. Almost in a trance he ran his hands over his chest, clutching the material, before glancing at his feet.

"Yes," he said, eyeing Christopher and the distance behind himself warily, "you didn't see me... there."

Christopher arched a brow, ignoring the queasy sensation in his gut in favor of squinting at the bold yellow tag on the mans shirt. Printed below the name Damon was the logo for Haus of Hades, a local frozen dinner manufacture. Aunt Yvonne refused to buy them, claimed no one could know the kinds of additive added to the things.

"What's wrong with home cooked meals!" she'd say every time the family passed the freezers at the grocery store, "I could make a casserole twice as good-"

"- in fifty times as long." Uncle Leonard would always state back, cocky until his wife fixed him a dark look, silencing the conversation.

"You alright?" Christopher asked, cursing when the man, flustered, staggered backwards before regaining himself.

"Sorry," he stuttered before clearing his throat and offering an uneasy smile. "long day at work... stalking-stocking shelves and all that."

"Oh, yeah, I get that. Works hard."

Christopher didn't get that.

If you asked Uncle Leonard the kid had never worked a day in his life beyond mowing the lawn, and he wasn't wrong.

"Very hard, very... boring." the man added, glancing behind himself again before straightening and side-stepping his way around Christopher. "I must go."

Christopher nodded, moving further out of the mans way, brow finally lowering. "'Course, didn't mean to hold you up."

The man, Damon, Christopher's mind had supplied, was already on the move and turning swiftly around the corner.

Running a hand through his hair Christopher continued home, shivering when he was hit again by the effects of the night's cold. Inside Aunt Yvonne had the fireplace glowing, filled with more kindle than necessarily safe but judging by how close Uncle Leonard's socks sat to the edge neither found it a bother.

"You kid's throw a party on the corner or something? You were out close to an hour," Aunt Yvonne frowned over the rim of her mug. It was one Christopher recognised as his own, made in the first grade when he believe he held an ounce of artistic talent. The mug, clearly, stated otherwise, but Yvonne was one for sentiment and he couldn't hold that against her no matter how much the thing embarrassed him.

"Or something," Christopher muttered, pulling off his shoes and jacket. "Is it alright if I crash now? School tomorrow and all that."

that gets a laugh from Uncle Leonard. "And here we thought you'd be bugging us until you finally collapsed at dawn. Go sleep boy."

Christopher nodded his goodbye, taking the stairs two at a time before collapsing against the sheets, barely remembering to plug his phone to charge for the night.

- - -

At the corner of Boston Street and Curby Downs, Damon paced the sidewalk. The cement felt strange under his feet, shoes struggling to grip, flickering between shadowed state and human form. Forcing a deep breath he glanced behind himself before swiftly turning away, panicked.

"Oh gods," he murmured through a clenched jaw, rubbing his hands vigorously down his face. He cautioned another look, but it remained the same. Behind him a thin, flickering blue line slowly made it's away down the sky. Pressing his fists against his eyes, Damon crumbled to the ground, knees soundless against the cement though the bones easily fractured. "I've made a terrible mistake."