She was a terrible tour guide.

"You don't actually know anything about this city," Kai observed when they'd started to walk around, and she was looking quite confused. "Do you, Vivi?"

"I was four when I last lived here," Vivianna reminded him. "My memory of this place from eighteen years ago isn't as intact in my head as I'd like it to be."

"Then why did you agree to give me a tour?"

"You're the one who wanted this."

"Oh, this is giving me flashbacks to Portland," said Kai, rubbing his eyes. "Let's go to that supermarket there. Find something. Literally anything."

He ended up finding an entire aisle of pork rinds.

"This is gross," said Vivianna, looking at all the bags and wincing. "Easily my least favorite aisle in this entire store."

"Why do you hate pork rinds so much?" asked Kai, plucking up several bags. "They're awesome."

"I don't like pork too much in general. This is... bleh."

"I'm sure there's another aisle with different kinds of chips. Go get them and we'll walk to the nearest park, if we can find it."

She ended up settling for a box of Fruit by the Foot, which Kai ended up eating half of.

"Don't blame me," he said. "These are all the rage back in 1994. You should've gotten another box."

"I didn't think you were going to manage to eat that many at once."

"It's better I eat some. I can die and be healed of everything. You, Vivi, can get cavities."

"I can just use magic to heal myself. You act like Travelers don't have healing spells or something."

"Well, maybe you do, but you guys sure as hell aren't dentists, so how do you know it would even work?"

"I don't, but I could easily find out. Go to a dentist first, get diagnosed with cavities. Try the spell, go back the next day, see what they tell me."

"Lame." He tossed a pork rind at her, but this time, she was quick to grab her necklace, creating an invisible barrier that it collided with, instead of her body. "Ooh, you're getting better. Good practice for when you have spirit magic. Except you won't need to rely on a necklace full of ashes. How did you get that by the way?"

"My parents gave it to me on my fifteenth birthday. They got just a regular locket with no markings so I could eventually engrave something on it. I've never known what to put on it."

"Put a dick on it."

"Classic. My parents are basically in there."

"So? They should know anatomy if they have two kids."

"I'm not engraving a dick on my pendant."

"Fine. Put like a little 'T' for Traveler. Can also double as a 'T' for Troll."

"Didn't peg you as a Harry Potter fan."

"What are you talking about?"

Vivianna sighed. "Aw, shit. You missed the release of Harry Potter. It was this really famous book series turned into movies."

"We had some good movies in my time. One of my favorites was D2: The Mighty Ducks with Emilio Estevez. It was released two days before my birthday in 1994, just before I turned twenty-two, so obviously I treated myself to watching it in theaters."

"They made a D3: The Mighty Ducks in '96. Julian got so mad that my parents let me watch it even though I hadn't seen D1 and D2 before that."

"Uh, duh, I'd be mad too. Uncultured swine."

"Uncultured? You've missed eighteen years' worth of iconic movies. It's not like you, with your twenty-two years of life, had seen every movie ever made in every country on Earth, you know."

"If we're talking about Disney movies only, I saw Iron Will in fucking theaters. The Nightmare Before Christmas. Cool Runnings— this one was fucking amazing. The whole theater just singing 'Jamaica, we have a bobsled team.'"

"You were clearly one of those kids who just had to get into the first screening of every movie ever offered in your city, huh?"

"Fuck, yeah. As soon as I turned twenty-one and wouldn't get in trouble for drinking, I'd show up first in fucking line with some Zima and I'd get a seat all the way in the back, alone, 'cause everyone wanted to be in the front even though everyone knows that it's so much better from the back. In so many situations, honestly."

"Don't tell me that's a sexual innuendo."

"Well, I didn't plan for it to be, I mean for like, any type of movie situation. Horror. Action. Comedy. I never watched sappy romances, bleh. You seem like the type to enjoy that."

"Excuse you, are you implying that just 'cause I'm a woman—"

"No, it's because you're just so... emotional. Trying to see good in me as if this thing we have is gonna become some relationship worthy of being called a cosmic miracle."

"Maybe I just see something in yourself that you don't." She could tell he'd become uncomfortable, so she changed the subject. "What was the first Disney movie you watched in theaters?"

"The Rescuers when I was five. Fucking infuriated me that my dad took me to watch that. The kid in the movie is literally being used and he didn't see any correlation with the way he'd started treating me."

She frowned, and he quickly said, "But I used to like the music in that. Back when my mom was still kinda tolerable, before she died, she would sing those songs to me. It got annoying, honestly, each time Jo and I were getting shots at the doctor's office, she'd sing that song that's like, 'Be brave, little one' and I'd just grit my teeth and deal with it, 'cause it honestly didn't hurt as much for me as it did for Jo. I'm surprised she became a doctor. She used to be so scared of needles. Probably had to toughen up after I removed her spleen."

"I imagine so," said Vivianna quietly. "Did you uh... watch the sequel to The Rescuers? The one where they're trying to save the kid who for some reason was being harassed by this dude with a Komodo dragon as a pet?"

"Uh, yeah, it came out in 1990. And Joanna wasn't a Komodo dragon, Vivi. She was called a 'goanna' 'cause they were in Australia, and I think that almost equates to an Argus monitor lizard."

"Let me guess, you had a phase where you were obsessed with reptiles."

"I wanted, more than anything, a pet snake. My dad said no. Said only people who did Sacrificial Magic kept any sort of pet."

"You weren't allowed pets for a reason as stupid as that?"

"Yeah. I always wanted a pet. I don't think I ever would have hurt it. I'm not that type of sociopath. All my anger was kinda directed to my human family. They were the ones with an actual fucking conscience and they were using it to be assholes. I wanted a dog. A Black Labrador Retriever that I was gonna name 'Demon.'"

"Demon?" she asked, trying not to laugh.

"That, or 'Shadow.'"

"Maybe 'Onyx' would have been a good name. Like the Pokémon."

He stared at her blankly, and she whined. "Oh my god, you missed Pokémon? You have a lot to learn."

"I'll be fine with learning. But only if you're teaching. 'Cause your teaching skills need improvement."

"I'll only teach you if you don't eat pork rinds throughout your lessons."

"But I can eat them as a reward if I do well, right?"

"Right." She pursed her lips. "What are you actually planning on doing when we get out, Malachai? Are you gonna... go after your siblings right away?"

"Probably best if I do, don't you think? As soon as we get out, the Geminis are gonna be on the lookout. Knowing Bonnie, she'll rat me out immediately. They'll find us easily, and they'll kill us both. The sooner I get it done, the better. Olivia and Lukas won't want to Merge til they absolutely have to. Their birthday isn't til after Christmas. Jo can't really deny me if I approach her. She'll want to save the twinsies."

"She gave up her magic, though. What if she hasn't taken it back yet? What if it was moved? She won't tell you where it is."

"She'll have to tell me. We can fly to Portland as soon as we get out, see if the knife is there."

"I'm sorry— you want us, the Geminis Coven's 'Most Wanted' to waltz up to their home base looking for a knife?"

"Well, you can passenger yourself into someone. Pretend to be a saleswoman. You'd be safe. We could kidnap a Gemini and go in through them. Use magic to summon the knife, if it's there."

"I don't think I can be a passenger in a witch. A human, yes, but a witch... it's way too risky. It won't work."

"Well, what's your plan, then?"

"Lay low. Hide. I can try to see if I can transfer your spirit into someone else. We could hide our bodies in another country, cloaked by all the dark objects. Their magic won't run out unless I take it in. If we use it, it'll be like a dark pit of energy that the Gemini wouldn't be able to tackle. In the meantime, you'd have to learn everything you could about the world. Maybe find something that makes you happy."

He wagged a finger at her, before placing a circular pork rind on it and spinning it around. "Sneaky Vivi, that involves me not enacting my revenge on the Geminis."

She turned red. "I already told you it doesn't feel good to enact your revenge. I don't want you to go through with it, Kai. Ultimately, it's your choice, but I don't think it makes you better than them if you prove that they were right about you being a danger. I think it's more empowering to succeed despite them and prove that you're not a problem, but a blessing. The Travelers worshipped siphoners in the past."

"You speak, and it makes sense, but I just don't care about proving them wrong. I don't care about what they'll feel. Other than the pain. I want them to feel pain. They won't feel pain if I'm just a good boy and go and live somewhere that I never bother them, ever again."

Vivianna sighed. "Well, I tried. I just... I don't know."

"Tell me what's on your mind."

"It's nothing."

"Tell me."

"It doesn't matter."

"I don't want to leave you. I want to be there. But the sooner you go through with revenge, the sooner you'll want to turn into a heretic. And then, I'll eventually age and die unless I turn. But me, I'll lose my magic. And my ability to have kids."

"You want kids?"

"I haven't pictured myself as a mother very often, but I think it might be nice to have a family once I'm not having to move around all the time. It got me thinking of what you said about Gemini-Traveler unification. You'd lose your ability to have a family, too. If you ever wanted to... you couldn't, not biologically. Adoption is great and all, but..."

"Vivi, I'm gonna ask you a question and I need you to answer me honestly."

"Okay..."

"What did you really think? When I suggested that? Us having a kid. You got mad."

"I got mad because it's a ridiculous reason to have a kid. Just for the sake of breaking a curse? Just so we can resent that kid if its birth does nothing for us? If you can't love me even as a friend, how could you hope to love a kid? No child deserves that. That sort of instability. You don't want anything more with me, Kai. A kid is at least eighteen years of commitment. You've already suffered for eighteen years in here. That length of time. Can you manage it? To give it a good life? A life that was better than what we both had?"

He frowned. "I didn't really think about it that way."

"Just like I don't want to have sex with just anyone, I don't want to have a kid with just anyone. It's another reason why I've waited. No unplanned pregnancies. It's better that way. If I'm gonna have a baby, I want it to be with someone I love and trust and someone who will have my back and won't leave. I want... I want what my parents had. They were tired all the time, and they hated that they couldn't provide as much for us. But damn, did they work well together. They talked every night about how they could be better. They didn't yell at us, they didn't hit us. They treated us like adults and made us learn from our mistakes in the best possible way."

"I don't want to be a bad dad," Kai muttered. "I hated my dad. And my mom. I don't want that for other people."

"Exactly. So it doesn't matter if it would work or not. I would never consent to you knocking me up just to break our curses. Because I know..." her voice cracked, "I know you won't stick around. And I can't do it alone. I can't be a single mom. I don't know how to be a parent, even if I had an amazing example. I don't have anyone left to give me advice. I'd rather lose my magic forever and have to move all the time than have a kid that will be miserable because its mother can't give it what it needs to be happy and healthy. I was so, so blessed to have both my parents in my life. I would want that for any kid of mine, too."

"I don't know what to say, Vivi," he said quietly, noticing how distraught this made her. "I didn't mean to make you sad. I just thought... it could work. That it might be funny. I didn't take it seriously. I don't know how to be a parent, either. I know less than you, clearly, 'cause I didn't consider any of this."

He asked her, later in the evening, when they were laying on her parents' bed, trying to sleep, what she thought it took to be a good parent.

"You have to be patient," she whispered, tucking her hand under her head. "You have to be attentive. Understanding. You have to know how to approach each situation. Be able to consider what your child is or isn't capable of at certain ages. You have to be able to trust yourself to do the best you can. You have to be protective, but not too protective."

"I don't know how I'd do with most of those," he admitted.

She shrugged. "Most people start out not knowing. I think one of the most important things goes along with the saying... 'The axe forgets, but the tree remembers.' A parent might say a few cruel words after losing their temper, and they'll forget soon afterward. But a kid will never forget that. It could lead to them having problems with their self image. I think parents should try to make good memories as much as they can. Have their kids associate certain things with happiness. This bed, for example."

She smoothed her hand over it. "My parents never made fun of me for being afraid of storms and the dark when I was younger. Everytime I felt even slightly scared, I was always allowed to come and crawl between them to fall asleep. It made me feel safe with them. Safe when I was sleeping. Safe in storms. Eventually, those fears mostly went away. I still get startled, but I remember how they'd both give me a kiss on the cheek and just tell me to try and relax."

Kai frowned a bit. "My parents hated when any of us did that. Not even just me. They'd complain that they were trying to sleep and that we needed to grow up and not be fraidy cats."

She winced. "That's fucked up."

"Tell me about it. But whatever. It's in the past. Now, we have a whole box full of dark objects to add to what we already had. It'll be fine."

"But you should have been able to feel like you could come into your parents bed and just get a hug when you were afraid."

"Well, I didn't get that, Vivi, so it doesn't matter."

She lifted the blankets, bringing it over both their heads as a sort of tent. "Close your eyes."

He did, despite his hesitation. She scooted forward, and wrapped her arms around him, her hand running over his head, fingers tangling in his hair, her mouth right next to his ear.

"This is exactly what my parents used to tell me," she whispered. "'Go to sleep, little one. The storm will pass. The darkness will turn to light. Everything you're afraid of will go away, because nothing can touch you when you're in our arms. You're safe and so, so loved, and one day, when you grow up, you're going to conquer these fears. And then, you'll be the protector of those who will be in your shoes one day."

Kai had drifted off, his head falling so that it rested on her chest. She continued to stroke his hair, humming quietly until he started to snore. She then relaxed her arm, and allowed herself to rest.

_

Kai woke up with her still pressed up beside him.

She'd somehow ended up moving him right to the edge of the bed, and he nearly fell off when he tried to sit up. She looked so peaceful, he didn't want to wake her up.

He'd laid beside her for a bit longer, her back pressed to his chest. He could hear her gentle breathing, and he could see her neck pulsating as blood pumped through her body.

He suddenly felt a bit of fear. She was right, about him being more dangerous as a Heretic. What if he turned and did become a Ripper? What if he couldn't stop himself, and he ripped her throat out?

Right now, he felt an urge to kiss her. Over the faded bruise that lingered from when he'd choked her the other day, to prove she enjoyed it. It was surprising, to find himself wanting to do that, instead of stabbing her.

But what if in the future, all he felt was the need to bite? The need to feed? Surely, he'd kill her. He wouldn't be able to stop himself, even if he'd now conquered the urge to murder her.

She stirred a bit, and he remained still as she turned to face him, grabbing onto his shirt and moving so that her head was on his shoulder. He put his hand carefully on her back, pulling her close enough that he could feel every part of her body against his.

It had a very specific reaction. One he expected.

And so he'd started to get up. Except, he'd faltered a bit, when he looked down at her chest. She'd fallen asleep wearing a V-neck, and it had moved so parts of her breasts were exposed, including a very painful looking mark directly in the center.

"I'm efficient enough that I don't usually get more than small scratches," she'd told him before, when he asked if she had any scars from being a mercenary. "But there's one on my chest from getting burned with a hot poker by a victim I was trying to get rid of."

He frowned, and couldn't help but pull down her shirt to see the rest of it. Her bra concealed an even worse mark— a part sunken in.

She hadn't just gotten burned. She'd been impaled with it.

He couldn't help but turn her on her side, so that he could lift her shirt and look on her back. Again, her bra covered it, but there was a clear exit wound.

"Vivi," he said sharply. "Wake up."

"Mm..." she didn't stir immediately. "Sleepy."

"Get up right now and tell me where you really got this scar."

She opened her eyes, and he turned her onto her back, leaning over her, and pointing at the mark between her breasts. "You said you got burned. I assumed they whacked you with it. But this? This looks like you got stabbed with it."

She turned red. "I don't think you want to know the truth."

"Tell me right now. How did you get that?"

"Why does it matter?"

"Because I want to know how you got every single mark on your body. I already feel like killing whoever mugged you. But this? Whoever did this to you nearly took your life. And they're gonna pay for it."

"They're already dead, Kai, I survived and I killed them."

"Tell me, Vivi," he said more harshly.

"It was a Gemini witch," she said sharply. "I was sent to kill her. She got me good before I managed to slit her throat. Guess someone told her I was coming after her."

"And you really don't want me to enact my revenge? What the hell? The Gemini Coven has made both of our lives a living hell. I'm not letting a single one of those bastards live. Look at this fucking scar, Vivi!"

"I constantly have to see it," she said, shaking her head. "Makes it awful to wear bikinis, but I'm used to it. Why do you care? You left scars on me, too. They're only gone because Damon gave me his blood. These have been healed for years. They won't go away, even if I want them gone."

"You know why I care?" he snapped. "I don't like when people touch something that belongs to me. I'll kill anyone who ever leaves a mark on you. If anyone ever, and I mean ever does something like that to you again, I will rip them apart."

As flattering as that was meant to sound in his mind, he could tell the delivery had not had the intended effect.

"First of all," said Vivianna, "I don't belong to anyone. Especially not to you. I appreciate you wanting to protect me, but don't take it that far. I don't want you to hurt people Kai."

"I'll hurt anyone I want to hurt," said Kai. "Especially if they have the audacity to lay a hand on you."

"That's touching. Really it is. But it's wrong, Kai."

"Holy fuck, I don't care about right or wrong, Vivi. The only thing I care about is you. I don't know why or how but I care about you and just knowing that a Gemini left that scar on you, it makes me want to give them a slow death. They deserve it."