Hunters and the Hunted

"You're free to go where you want," Death repeated. "By yourself. If anyone has been telling you otherwise, they're wrong. Know that if I were to give you a bodyguard detail it would be a genuine reason, such a threat that I have difficulty interpreting. Let me know who was told you otherwise, and I will rectify the situation."

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Alarick laughed at Sirius' explanation, even as he kept himself leaned on Tuesday's shoulders, ignoring her jabbing, poking and snide remarks.

Jokingly, Tuesday said, "Perhaps he gets his habit of annoying me and taking over my personal space from you, too." With her words, she gave a particularly nasty jab to Alarick's side, and he did little more than wince and decide to lean even more of his weight over her.

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Cain finished writing a sentence in a strange, flowing language. "Something that, if I didn't sort it out now, would pull the rug out from under my feet in the future."

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Kai leaned forward to press his forehead to hers, closing his eyes.

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Aria went still for a moment, assessing her situation quietly. After a few seconds, she shook her head with a smile and replied, "No. For now, my levels are nice and high."

Lucy giggled quietly and swat at Scareth's hand gently.

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"I'll do my best. The time in the parlour is just hard to forget, that's all."

"I can give you a list right now if you prefer."'she told him though she was smiling in a playful way. "Actually there was something that I needed to talk to you about."
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Sirius smiled. "Maybe."
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"And it's a what?" She asked.
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She smiled slightly pressing her forehead to his.
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"I know." His kissed her forehead. "But I have something that could help you take your mind off things.
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Scareth playfully tickled under Lucy's chin before he nodded to Aria. "Just let me know when you need some and you can have as much as you like."

Death folded his hands on the table and tilted his head as if inviting her to continue talking.

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"I'd apologise but it's really fun to annoy you, ma," Alarick said it sadly, as if he was sorry, but there was a grin on his face and he refused to move. The grin was wiped from his face when Tuesday grabbed hold of his right arm and promptly threw him up and over her shoulder onto the ground.

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"Way, way before Ian was even a twinkle in his great-grandmother's eyes, I had a different body. That different body came with a different family." Cain looked up from his work, to look at Scarlet. "I hope you can see why this is important."

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"Everything will be okay," Kai repeated quietly in a whisper.

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"Yeah?" Faye asked, head tilted in question.

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Lucy shrieked quietly but happily, trying to squirm away from his hands.

"I will." Aria smiled softly and fondly as she watched them before walking to the kitchen, taking a few moments to figure out where everything was since the kitchen wasn't theirs.

"Some of your angels were talking about it, but they were wondering when they should expect a tiny version of you to be running around the mansion." She looked at him, she was obviously finding this awkward. "So my question is could that ever happen?"
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Sirius smirked. "It's funny watching the pair of you."
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"Sort of."
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"Of course it will." Rachel promised.
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"The fact that you have to marry this piece of human looking creature." He gestured to himself. "In just under three months and your sister in law hopefully soon to be will be having her baby any day now so you get a new little person to dress up, like I heard you both saying the other day."
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Scareth followed her as he continued to tickle Lucy.

Death went very still for a very long moment, and then just looked down to his hands. "I am physically incapable of fathering a child. What you see is a shell, and I am little more than a hijacker. It has it's functions, however. It's far easier to woo someone with a body, rather than the embodiment of a thought." He smiled, but it was weak and fell from his face only after a few seconds. "I forget that it is a hard concept for some of my own to understand, that no matter how I stand that I'm not actually...here."

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"She's a bully," Alarick whined, but got to his feet easily enough and when he tried to sprawl over Tuesday again she ducked away.

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"I can't cut them out because that would be cruel but...it's been so long that there's only tatters left anyway." Cain tapped his pen on the table in a quick, three beat rhythm, as if nervous. "So I'm giving them all the help I can because they're still...family."

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Kai carefully moved to hug her, hiding his face in her shoulder.

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"Time has passed quickly," Faye mused, and then went still. "I haven't gotten a dress yet." She sounded horrified.

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"What do you feel in the mood for Lucy?" Aria asked, but it was mostly a rhetorical question as Lucy couldn't quite properly catch her breath to speak over her giggles.

Jess nodded. "Now I know, I'm fine with it."
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Scareth stopped tickling her so that she could answer.
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Scarlet nodded. "Right..."
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She held him close.
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Sirius laughed.
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"I know."

"If you wanted children, adoption is an issue, as if having a different father," Death pointed out quietly.

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"Soup!" Lucy declared cheerfully, and sat up so suddenly in Scareth's arms she headbutted him in the chin.

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"There is a fourteen year old boy had the circumstances been different, would have been my very great-grandson. His father was executed for the unlawful murder of his mother, and he has no family other than the weakest of ties that connects me to him from thousands of years ago. If I were to leave him, he'd be mercy killed. I'm simply funding his survival because, if I hadn't encountered Ian, he would be mine." Cain said the final word fiercely, as protective of family as he was.

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"It'll be okay," Kai let out a slow breath and seemed from that moment to have fully calmed.

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Alarick huffed and instead moved to lean into Sirius' side instead.

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"It completely slipped my mind." Faye moved to stand up and began to pace nervously.

"I know." She told him reaching her hand across the table for his.
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"Owe?"
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"So what's wrong with that? He could still be part of the family."
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"It will." She smiled. "Oh and remember your mum is coming over for supper and to do her usual checks on me tomorrow."
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Sirius watched him.
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"It's alright we still have time." He told her.

((Hey Fruit, how's everything going? Is it worth us looking over what's gone on and trying to figure out something to post lol?))

((If it helps Phoenix your character indigo and Fruits character Jason were about to pay a visit to mine and fruits characters Ian and Scarlet but didn't et round to it but hi how've your been?))

((It's going well! Happy New Years, Merry Christmas and whatnot to you too! We can either carry on what we were doing, like Vamp said, or we can start anew, it's up to you. As far as I know, Indigo was pregnant???))

"Of course, it's your choice. I'm amicable either way." Death gently took her hand in his own.

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Lucy audibly gasped, as if horrified, and wriggled about until she could kiss him on the chin and declare, "All better!"

Aria, pulling out a pan to cook the soup in, couldn't help but quietly laugh.

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"He's my family. He's not Ian's family. And Ian could get very, very territorial. I could wean him into it, but that would mean no Ian for a few weeks, maybe a few months."

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"Ugh. I'm not going to be here. If I see her face again any time soon I might punch her." Kai grumbled quietly.

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"If you two are going to be all buddy-buddy and gang up on me, I've better things to do," Tuesday said pointedly. "So you can father-son bond, and I'm going to do what I need to do."

"Which is?" Alarick asked, suspiciously.

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"Three months is barely enough time!" Faye ran her hands through her hair. "And what if - what if I get called out to do something and Death isn't lenient enough, I..."

"Talk to Jess like I suggested."
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Sirius raised an eyebrow.
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"You'll say for me though?" She asked.
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Scareth smiled.
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"Talk it out between yourselves I've heard you do that a lot recently."
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She smiled.

"I can't do that. It makes it seem like I'm using her for her connections."

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Tuesday smiled and whispered, as if telling a horror story, "It's girly stuff."

Alarick visibly cringed, making a face. "No thanks."

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Kai clenched and relaxed his hands for a few seconds and then said, "If it's for you."

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"What sort of soup do we want, darling?" Aria asked absently, poking around the cupboards again.

Lucy tilted her head as if in thought and then suddenly went still and didn't continue.

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"Ian is all for family. It's like 'hell yeah, more things to look after and coddle, more things mine' but the instinctive part of him would throw a hissy fit. The kids a fae. It's hard to tell who'd come out more damaged, him, or Ian."

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Death lifted her hand and pressed a kiss to her knuckles. "Let me know once you've made a decision. I'll stand by you regardless."

Sirius laughed.
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"it's Jess." He laughed.
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"I'm sorry I know it makes you uncomfortable."
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Scareth watched her.
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"Good point."
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She smiled."Thank you."

((I'd be fine with carrying on once I read back and get my bearings a bit, but since the three of us never seem to be on at the same point it might have our characters hanging in limbo a bit lol...))

((Then perhaps a new start and try to figure it out from there lol?))

Tuesday laughed too and added, "It also involves shopping. For your sister."

Alrick cringed and wrinkled his nose.

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"I know but...I don't want to make anything difficult for her."

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"It's okay. I just...get angry too easy so I suppose I have to learn at some point."

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"Lucy?" Aria asked, and when she turned she pursed her lips and started waving her handa at something almost aggressively, though she'did gone slightly pale.

Lucy curled tighter into Scareth, looking as if she was trying not to cry.

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"If I could guarantee everyone's safety I would. But I can't, so I have to help in this way instead."

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"Is there anything else you wanted to talk about?"

Sirius smiled. "Does Faye know?"
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"It's only asking." He pointed out. "The worst she could say is no."
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Scareth watched them.
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"If you want to be around our baby without your mum putting you in a straight jacket then yes you really do."
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Scarlet nodded.
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"Nope that's my most pressing issue, what about you?"

"She doesn't," Tuesday said, almost smugly. "It's a surprise. She's getting married soon, don't forget that Alarick. Married." She whispered the last part and Alarick flapped his hands.

"I get it, I get it!"

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"But asking her means going...going there. And I don't want to go."

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"There's been a really persistent ghost around Lucy lately," Aria murmured. "I can't get rid of it and it's starting to bother her."

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Kai sneered. "She can try. I'd break her fingers first."

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"You can go ahead. I'll be finished with this soon enough." Cain flipped another page.

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"There's nothing I need to raise as a concern," Death replied quietly.

Sirius smiled. "Aye soon it will be your turn Alarick."
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"No you call her." Rosco held up his phone.
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"You could ask my dad he's pretty....able to see things like that."
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"See tone it down."
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"Alright well I've got to bath Cole and get him ready for bed." She told him. "Don't forget you're reading the story today."
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"We'll do you have anything that isn't a concern?"

Alarick made a face between disbelief and pain. "No. I can't see myself waiting at the end of an aisle any time soon."

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Faye twisted her fingers nervously. "I don't want to bother her in case he gets angry."

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"I don't want to anger it in case...in case it gets physical." Aria situated herself between Scareth and whatever else was in the kitchen, folding her arms stiffly.

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Kai made a face but didn't argue.

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"Let me know when you're drying him off," Cain asked quietly. "I'll come up then."

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"Nothing that would be of much use to you. Don't worry."

"You never know, I hear Rosco has a lot of foreign ladies coming down for the wedding and foreign women are gorgeous...as I've been told."
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"Faye it will be fine."
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"Then definitely talk to my dad."
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Rachel looked at him. "Well if your going to go silent on me, I'm going up to run a bath for myself, I wan to feel fresh before I meet your mother."
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Scarlet nodded before she picked up Cile and he started to giggle.
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"Tell me anyway?"

((If you want to, dunno what we could do really though haha))

((I don't know either lmao))

Alarick shrugged a shoulder lazily. "I've had no luck with ladies. I'll be a lonely old spinster man with a dozen cats of something."

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"...could you ask for me?" Fayes voice was neaely a whisper.

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"Are you sure he could help? I don't want...want it to hurt her." Aria waved her hand at something nervously and went suddenly and very pale, taking a hurried step back as a bruise in the shape of a hand appeared on her wrist.

Lucy gave a quiet, scared noise.

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"Did you want me to run it for you?"

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Cain turned back to his work with a frown, tapping the pen to the desk.

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"It's just little things. I'm wondering how many people must die tomorrow in order to account for the number of lives coming into the world."

"Oh....how do you decide?" Jess asked him.
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Sirius shrugged, "just see what happens, don't just resign yourself to one fate." Sirius suggested.
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"I could try."
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Scareth nodded and he healed Arias bruise. "I would do it myself but I'd rather not use the necessary spells with you and our daughter in such close proximity to me all of the time."
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"If you wanted to and it wouldn't be an inconvenience." Rachel told him as she walked to the stairs and she headed up them taking her time since this was something that had gotten harder with the pregnancy.
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Scarlet brought him upstairs to were Hayden had made a bubble bath for his little brother and she undressed him before she started to bath him, making him giggle and playing in the bubbles with him.

It had been months and Jess was still living at Deaths place, she still occasionally called him his human name but only when she was annoyed with him. She had taken to getting to know.most of the angels abd reapers that death had and she had even become slightly friends with some. But right now she was simply having a lazy morning in bed.
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Rosco was sitting in his and Faye's room, they had been married about a month now and he was enjoying it, bit Faye had been away a lot so be was getting a bit bored.
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Scareth was watching Lucy play outside on the early morning air, he had been awake for hours and he hadn't wanted to wake Aria.
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Rachel was still in bed, she and Kai had a young daughter by now and eventhough she was only a month old, she slept through the night so Rachel was making theost of it.
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Scarlet was playing with Hayden and Cole back at hers and Ian's place, Hayden had grown a lot and was now carrying a small hunting knife and was playfighting with his younger brother.
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Sirius was alone I. His piano room, he seemed to completing things like his normally did as he played.