Shake it off!

[Lieve Averesch]

Yeah, yeah. He knew what Mik meant. As much as Lieve was being a sassy bitch, Mik couldn't have known. But he could have certainly asked questions! But he thought it was an analogy... Lieve shook his head slowly. Mik knew about fairies, though! Just because he didn't know about golems didn't mean he couldn't have tried to piece things together--or asked Rip what he meant.

And this guy was trying to give him romantic advice? Pffft!

"Well, that part might be true. He told you he was a golem and Jack was a fairy? So yeah, he's probably a copy of that Jack person, which means he's a golem of a fairy. Interesting."

And then Mik drank... cat milk. Lieve made a slight face. Okay, that was gross. But... Lieve looked at the pair. Mik did have a point; Rip saved Cori. Which brought them back to the real reason Lieve was here.

"I don't know what he's going to do, I'm just saying be careful. But, listen... We came over here because well, I thought Rip was a lot older and that he might be Cori's father. Cori told me that Rip taught him how to use his magic. How to break a ward, how to cloak himself. He knows how to use Cori's magic, so I thought maybe they were related. And he just said... he's a golem of Cori's brother..."

[Mikko Ashby]

He needed something grounding; kitten milk was grounding. Mik knew kitten milk. He didn't know golemology. So he drank it and he felt better about it because this was at least something within his control! Everything else? Nah. No control over any of this right now. Before he pounded back any more kitten milk, though, he reached over to close the cabinet. Mik didn't actually want to fill up on that stuff; one was good enough.

"Oh! So Rip helped Cori use his powers! Well—that means he's—ohhhh hold up. Back the truck up! That Jack guy is Cori's brother?! The resemblance is freaky, isn't it? Rip does look like a way handsome, older, sexier version of Cori, sort of. I mean—" He held up a hand to forestall the inevitable indignation, any time someone said something against Cori. "Cori is Cori, and Rip is Rip. I'm just saying they do have a lot of physical traits in common!"

But to hear Cori's mother talk, Cori was her only child. Her one and only baby angel. (Baby angel? Damnit now he was reading too much into everything! Every word to do with the supernatural, he was going to think was real!) Did that mean Cori's real dad cheated on her? Or had other children?

"I think maybe we both need to have a little talk with our respective... boyfriends." Mik cast a Look over at Lieve, one brow raised, daring him to refute the hard facts: he was way over-protective of Cori, for someone supposedly 'relaxed' and 'chill' about all the things. Pffft. If Cori didn't mean so much to him, why did he hurry on over to see Rip, and why did he keep giving Rip the stink-eye like Rip was going to turn on Cori and tear his head off?

[Lieve Averesch]

Whomever Rip was modeled after was older than Cori, that was for sure. And there was a pretty large age gap from the looks of it, if that was what this Jack brother person looked like right now. That being the case, then, it would make sense that Cori's vanished or dead father might have other children before he even met Cori's mother.

"They aren't our boyfriends," Lieve said, not falling for it. Mik couldn't date a golem. And Cori was... Cori.

But he did agree that they all had to talk so he turned away from Mik and went over to the pair, who were having a gay old time with the kittens. Rip looked up when Lieve approached and he seemed to try to smile but Lieve's resting bitch face must have called it off because he quickly looked back down at the kitten that was batting at his hand instead.

"You," Lieve said, pointing to Rip. "Rip or whatever you call yourself. What do you know about Jack?"

Rip looked up and boy, did a little black cloud seem to appear over him at the mention of Jack.

"I'm not Jack," he said in a stubborn tone.

[Mikko Ashby]

"Not if you keep acting like that," Mik muttered as he followed Lieve back to the others, arms still on his hips. Indignation flared when Lieve very rudely pointed to his man and spoke to him like he was... less than human. Which, yes, technically was true but golem Rip had a soul in him, Lieve said, and souls made people human! Or—you know. Something to that extent.

"Excuse me!" Mik intervened since Rip looked visibly intimidated by Lieve's bold march over. He knelt by Rip and physically shielded him from Lieve's glare by hugging him, while Cori got to his feet and glued himself to Lieve's side, holding on to a fluffy gray kitten. "Just because he's a golem doesn't mean he doesn't deserve respect!"

Poor baby Rip. Mik kissed his temple softly. "We know you're not Jack, baby. You're my Rip. And you're a golem but... remember what I told you? Some people like golems over fairies?" He smiled at Rip encouragingly. "But if you could tell us about Jack, we can maybe reconnect Cori with his brother? Cori's all alone now and needs family around him, you know? His mom's gone, he doesn't have a boyfriend..." Mik looked up again pointedly at Lieve. Just for being mean to Rip, that was what he got!

[Ripper Nightshade]

He wasn't Jack. And the way that Lieve looked at him made Rip feel... creepy-crawly inside. Like he looked down on him. Nothing new, but... He remembered what Pax said, about how they weren't inferior. How he wasn't inferior. It lit a little spark in his heart and that was what drew the stubborn out of him, even in the face of a fairy that looked down on him, like most every other fairy that met him.

Instead of looking at Lieve, Rip looked at Mik and his smile and his reassurance that some people preferred golems over fairies. Maybe only Mik but... it still counted for something. Maybe Pax, too. Maybe Cori. Maybe not.

"Oh..." So that's why they wanted to know about Jack. Rip wasn't enough to be his brother. It made sense... he wasn't actually his brother, just a part of him felt like it was. (And that part was hurt but didn't want to show it.) But Rip looked up at Cori as Mik said that Cori was all alone. But... Lieve wasn't his boyfriend? And his mom...

"She's... she's not gone," Rip said with a slight furrow of the brow. "She's with the King."

[Cori Viera]

Some stuff was being said that Cori didn't get, like golems, but he understood that a man named Jack was his brother. That was kind of weird; he would have liked to know what Lieve and Mik were talking about so... passionately over by the corner earlier. There had been tons of hands on hips, lots of indignant looks and even a hair toss from Lieve! Neither of them looked exactly happy but they didn't fight... at least...

Well they fought in the way they always fought, with a lot of words and glaring and head tosses. But that was Lieve and Mik, that was the thing they did even though they were good friends (and nobody else believed it to look at them interact).

"I have a brother?" He asked faintly, since the conversation was progressing at incredible speeds for his slow brain to process. Cori hugged the kitten to his chest much in the same way Rip was hugging Star to his chest. "But... Rip... Rip's my brother, isn't he? Why can't Rip be my brother?"

Whoever this Jack person was, Cori was sure he was plenty nice but he thought Rip was his brother and he already took that fact to be true. Plus, Cori didn't know Jack. He knew Rip. Rip helped him get away from those creeps and Rip sacrificed his own chance at escape to do it. If that wasn't enough to make him part of Cori's little family—including Lieve and Mik and Aunt Shel—then what was?

Oh-oh but his mom! Cori leaned towards Rip with wide eyes. "What? What King? Where is she Rip? You know where she is! Is she okay? Why'd she leave without saying anything?"

[Ripper Nightshade]

Ah. His gaze softened as Cori asked why Rip couldn't be his brother. Ah, his heart. It swelled with affection and he smiled at Cori. Although when he glanced at Lieve, the smile vanished and he looked back down at Star. Lieve looked... protective, even in the way he put an arm around Cori and held him close, like he thought Cori might break if he wasn't held just so.

But he looked back up when Cori leaned forward, eagerly asking about his mother. Rip gently set Star down with her siblings and stood up, careful not to step on any little kittens.

"She didn't. She was stolen. Kidnapped. The King wanted her back... so when he found her, he took her back... but she hid you. And Keith found you... I'm sorry. I didn't know his plans. He doesn't tell me everything because he says I talk too much."

[Cori Viera]

"Well I, for one, don't see any reason why my Rip and this random Jack idiot can't both be your brother, Cori honey," Mik said in a distinctly flippant way, holding Rip the way Cori felt Lieve holding on to him. Protectively. He looked like he would fight anybody who tried to hurt Rip! Or give them a very strongly worded tongue-lashing...

Cori barely got over that idea—two brothers?!—when Rip dropped another bombshell and he just kind of stood there staring at Rip. "M-my mom... was kidnapped... by a King? Why does he want her?" Who was this King? Why did he want to kidnap Cori's mom? She never did anything to offend anybody—everyone on the block loved her! And she was so nice and kind and loving, and she never hung out with creepy Kings who would kidnap people!

"The dream!" Cori said suddenly, turning to Lieve. "My dream about mom getting put in a tower by a tall man! That means it was real, right? We have to find her and save her before that weird guy does something to her!"

[Lieve Averesch]

A golem couldn't be Cori's brother. Lieve didn't trust him. He didn't trust him when he was just some middle-aged gangster. Now he really didn't trust him. Golems... Lieve didn't care for them. They were... Not natural wasn't the term for it; there was still something natural about even the stiffest and most robotic of them. They were technically organic, made of magical living clay. That was natural in the magic realm.

But they were basically robots, even if they had a soul. They still had a directive. And what was Rip's directive, exactly? To infiltrate them? To kidnap Cori's mother? Why else did he know so much about it, unless he was involved in it? He was there when Cori was kidnapped. Maybe he did set him free but maybe he had set Cori up the whole time. The ward, maybe Cori didn't break it. Maybe he wasn't as powerful as Lieve was thinking, maybe it was Rip's creator pulling strings the whole time.

The golem looked like he was going to speak but Cori burst out again, turning to Lieve with wide eyes, talking about his strange dream. Lieve blinked. What? The tower and the tall man? There were problems if Cori was having dreams that were leading him to what happened to his mother. Dreams were a mystical thing to begin with but...

"It does sound like a message, at the very least..." Lieve admitted. "Maybe..."

"He loves her," the golem said suddenly. "The King. I think... he loves you, too. He was... not happy with how Keith treated you. He didn't want anybody to hunt you down. But he still..." The golem trailed off and Lieve narrowed his eyes.

"He still what? Spit it out, golem."

The way the golem looked at him when he called him that. Ooh. If looks could kill; which was strange, given how cowed he acted before. He really didn't like that, did he? Being called golem. Or was it something else? Lieve eyed him, still not liking him much.

"He still corrupted him."

Lieve's entire expression changed at that. And then he was moving forward, grasping the golem by the collar. The golem immediately looked downward, worried.

"Don't step on the kittens..."

"You... fucker."

[Cori Viera]

"He—" Not having the necessary piece of information that the King was his father, Cori assumed that the type of love Rip spoke of was romantic, and that made it seem extremely creepy for someone to be in love with his mom and to be in love with him, too! Cori's face contorted into a mask of disgust. He physically recoiled at the thought of somebody feeling that way for him, and also for his mom. Ew! Eww! EWW!

"Excuse me! His name is Rip, not Golem!" Mik interrupted heatedly and angrily, stepping forward. "Why are you acting like such a jerk?! Rip didn't—"

Everybody kind of stopped when Rip spoke up again. Cori didn't know what it fully meant to be corrupted—he didn't feel corrupted—but it sounded ominous and bad. Really, reeally bad. Bad enough to make Lieve resort to violence, which Cori didn't like. It scared him seeing Lieve acting like that and grabbing people by the collars, when Lieve was usually so laid back and peaceful and calm and beautifully stately.

"Lieve! Don't!" Cori ran up to grab his arm fretfully. "Lieve don't hurt my brother!"

Mik strode forward too, his own face grim. "Let go. Of him," he ground out, grabbing Lieve's wrist. "You're acting like an asshole, Lieve, and you're scaring Cori. Stop it."

[Lieve Averesch]

Rip, Golem, whatever.

How could he stand there and talk about how some bastard King came after Cori's mother and then after Cori himself--and corrupted him?! He said it all so fucking calmly and not many things riled up Lieve. This was definitely on the list.

And nobody else seemed to care! Cori was telling him not to hurt his brother and Mik was so far up this guy's ass that he didn't seem to care that this thing was involved in shady shit involving their very close friend! How could he choose this thing over Cori?!

Lieve only let go of the golem because he was indeed scaring Cori. But he didn't like it, he didn't like him. Maybe he was attacking the messenger, but he was still a golem and he was tethered to somebody that corrupted Cori and kidnapped his mother! A woman so close to Lieve that she might as well have been family to him, too.

"Are you two crazy? This thing is connected to everything happening to Cori! And you're defending him?"

And what did the golem care about?

"Please, don't step on the kittens, please." He was too busy grabbing kittens off the ground to even care that Lieve had been in his face a second ago. Lieve glared at him. Like he even cared about the kittens. That was probably all a show, too!

[Mikko Ashby]

Lieve was losing his goddamn mind and Mik was not going to stand by and let him assault an innocent man! So far Rip hadn't done anything to Cori except help him escape, teach him how to use his abilities and now, give them vital information behind Cori's mother's disappearance. And for all of his honesty and bravery, he was being called nasty names and getting roughed up. That was not right!

"Yes," Mik said angrily, "we're defending him because he's done nothing wrong! He's only trying to help and you're leaping down his throat! Also watch the goddamn kittens!" He stooped to help Rip pick them up and deposit them back into their pen while Cori held on to Lieve's arm like he was afraid Lieve was about to lunge again. Shit, he might, too. Apparently Lieve wasn't as cool, calm and collected as he would have people believe!

"Are you okay Rip?" Mik smoothed down his collar, which had been crinkled when Lieve grabbed him. He touched Rip's jaw tenderly. "He didn't hurt you, did he? I'm so sorry, you didn't deserve that." He shot a nasty look at Lieve. Everyone was worried about Cori, of course! But that didn't mean they needed to act like... like... hotheads! What if his outburst stopped Rip from wanting to help them? What then?!

"I think you need to go cool off, Lieve. Take Cori with you to the back room. Rip and I will join you later, after we finish with these kittens. We're going to talk like civilized adults, damnit."

[Ripper Nightshade]

"I'm okay," Rip assured Mik.

Nothing happened except that the other man grabbed onto his collar. Despite how willowy the man appeared, he was just as tall as Rip and when he had been face to face with him, he definitely saw the anger in his eyes, standing eye to eye with him. But no, he hadn't harmed him in any way. He smiled at Mik to reassure him and he could hear Lieve making a sound of disgust and throwing his hands up.

Rip didn't care much for this Lieve. While he understood that he was worried, the way he kept looking at him like he was nothing but dog shit under his heel was really rankling at him. It wasn't just about Cori; he was pretty sure Lieve didn't like him because of what he was.

Holding several kittens against his chest, he looked over at Lieve, who still seemed greatly unhappy with Rip.

"I didn't corrupt him," he told Lieve. "I wouldn't, even if I could. But I think he's--"

Lieve didn't bother listening to the rest of what he had to say, which bummed Rip out because he thought Lieve would like the rest of it. But no, he was taking hold of Cori's hand--not roughly--despite his temper lashing out, he was still gentle with Cori, as if handling delicate glass. He didn't say anything as he left, either.

"I'm sorry," Rip said lowly when Lieve left. "I didn't mean to make him so angry."

[Mikko Ashby]

Really and seriously, Rip did not deserve this. Mik watched Lieve taking Cori's hand and leaving with mixed feelings on the matter. On the one hand, he realized that Rip was involved with the guys who took Cori's mom and kidnapped him. He knew that. But the fact that Rip was here now—and so was Cori, most importantly—and that he was giving them important information said a lot. Lieve would see that if he wasn't so... so... racist? Prejudiced? Towards golems?

Mik hugged Rip gently along with the kittens he had clutched to his chest. Big group hug. "You don't apologize for a thing, do you hear me Rip? You never have to apologize for being what you are or for trying to help us. I'm sure you did your best. You're doing your best, and that's all any of us could ask from you."

He pulled back, gazing at Rip with a soft smile. "Lieve's just being a big old drama queen about this. He'll cool off after a while, Cori's good at getting him to settle down. Ooh he makes me so mad sometimes! I could've punched him when he grabbed you!" Mik wheeled off with a burst of anger, throwing up his own hands. He loved Lieve, he did! He really actually did! But this was very uncharacteristic of him!

"What were you going to say earlier?" Lieve walked out on them—correction: flounced out—without hearing what Rip had to say but Mik caught it.

[Ripper Nightshade]

Was he, though? Doing his best? Rip couldn't help but feel like he was lacking somehow. As if he had done something utterly wrong, even though he did help Cori escape. He could have been killed for doing that but he hadn't been. If anything, Pax seemed unperturbed by it. But... Rip did still have a mission put forth. To find Brayden Smith.

"He doesn't like me," Rip said, of Lieve. Which was just as well because Rip was finding that he didn't much like Lieve, either. The way he kept talking to him and looking down on him... He didn't seem to even want to believe that Rip really didn't want anything bad to happen to Cori. That was why he didn't like Rip, right? He thought he was going to harm him?

The thought of Mik punching his friend over him, though. Rip shook his head. No, no. He didn't want it to escalate to that point. Carefully, he placed the kittens he held into their pen so they would be safe from angry feet. There. They were safe now. Out of harm's way.

"Oh!" Right, he tried to explain it to Lieve but he didn't care to hear him. "I think Cori's managed to... remove it. The corruption. Or he pushed it really far back... Keith did say he thought it was stupid of the King to mate with a celestial... Lots of magic doesn't work right on them, especially dark magic like the King's. But the only way to tell is to find a fixer."