Do you believe in the monsters under your bed?

[Alva Ren]

Rubbing the sides of his arms briskly to chase off the cold, Alva waited at the bus stop for the downtown bus that would take him to the public library. He craned his neck forward to see if the bus was coming; it wasn't. Cars passed by in a rapid stream of lights and rumbling engines, but the bus had yet to turn the corner. Having taken this bus countless times, Alva wasn't worried about taking it, but he was anxious.

There was just something strange in the air that he didn't like. Alva couldn't name it or put his finger on it exactly, but he sensed it... and he didn't like it. He looked down at his arm and then pulled up the sleeve of his jacket. The mark on his forearm was darker than it was the night before and that was more cause for worry than the weird fog.

Seemingly overnight, the town became blanketed in fog so thick that sometimes it was hard to see two feet in front of him. The other day, he opened the door and could barely see past the doorstop.

The fog also came and went, leaving the air damp, clammy and cold. Alva shivered, pulling his jacket closer around his body, and blew on his hands to warm them. Today it wasn't so foggy but he could tell that everyone was on edge. Cars were driving slower than usual because of the reduced visibility; there weren't as many people out on the streets. Just the other day he watched the news and cocked an eyebrow at the warning that the mayor was sending everyone, to stay in their homes and to not approach the edge of town. Why? Alva couldn't leave anyway but... what was the big deal about leaving town all of a sudden?

But then he remembered the approaching full moon and thought that maybe it had something to do with that. Also, there were more hunters in town. Like a whole group of them, gathered near Eagle Ridge. Alva was surprised that they would aggregate so close to town but then again, some of the maulings and killings were getting out of hand. It seemed impossible to turn on the news and not be inundated by this tourist disappearing or that tourist being found in the woods. Everything was "under investigation" but Alva knew what that meant--it meant that supernatural beings were responsible.

Experimentally, he puffed out a breath of air and watched it drifting before him in a cotton cloud. The weather had become unseasonably cold. Alva found himself wishing that he had brought a warmer jacket but it was too late now. If he went home, got the jacket and came outside again, the bus would have come and gone. He shivered as he looked up at the gray skies; the sun was a tiny pinprick of light, high up. He could barely make out the aureole of light around it and it was definitely looking more like sunset than the middle of the day.

Was the bus here yet? It was taking an awfully long time to get to his house, and usually it was barely half-full. Alva glanced fretfully down the street again, seeing nothing but cars. He pulled out his phone to check for messages, biting down on his lower lip as he passed Rae's name. Alva had given him a bit of a brush-off when he tried to talk about what happened. In fact, he didn't give Rae a chance to talk about it at all--he sort of used 'not feeling well' as an excuse to get Rae out of the house. Rae just didn't need to know about the curse, or the mark, or the whole death potion thing. Why worry him?

A part of Alva knew, though, that his reluctance to broach the subject went beyond the simple desire to keep Rae from worrying. It was guilt and a little bit of selfishness. Or... a lot of selfishness. He didn't want Rae to know too much about Susumu. He sort of wanted that excuse to talk to him, especially after finding out about Susumu's job. Alva really admired him for that; he wasn't being facetious when he said that Susumu was a hero. Alva really meant it, and he thought very warmly of the man who was looking out for all of them, who hunted the hunters and protected those who couldn't fend for themselves.

Rae wouldn't understand any of that, though. All he would see was Alva talking to a handsome stranger and he would probably fly off the handle. He already did, after somebody ratted Alva out and told him about the hand-holding thing. (Aldon was really the biggest blabbermouth in the history of snitches!) Alva worried his lower lip slightly as he put the phone away, just as the bus hovered into view.

He could get this taken care of on his own. No need to drag anyone else into it.

Furthermore, he was no longer trusting Ryland Ren with any of his new secrets because--look who Ryland told!

[Reagan Ryang]

If Rae didn't have the information that he had, he probably still would have thought Alva was acting strangely. As it was, he had that information: some creep ass witch cursed his boyfriend and there was something weird going on. Alva was still not telling him anything and Rae gave him opportunities. Instead, he was brushed off and told that it was just a flu, a cold. He knew better than that.

And he saw that... that thing on Alva's arm. He saw it getting darker. At first, he thought it was a tattoo when he caught a glimpse of it. With the information he had and the guilty way Alva hid it, he was no longer so sure. Alva wouldn't be that worried about showing off a tattoo. If anything, it would give him cool points with Rae. So what the fuck? What the fuck, Alva?!

He trailed Alva. Sure, it felt like a skunky thing to do but here he was, anyway. After Rae left, so did Alva. He headed to the bus stop. If he really felt unwell, why was he leaving the house? To go see that creep. The one who cursed him? Why? Was that asshole using Alva? Did he have some kind of special thing over him? Maybe he was more than a witch. Yeah, Rae knew all about those sex demons. Maybe that guy was one of them. Or even a vampire! He had a hold over Alva, though, that much was certain!

Rae watched for a while, from behind the wheel of his old beat up truck. He watched for a while but the bus was running late. At first, he thought he'd just follow the bus wherever it happened to go, follow Alva there, and corner him with that information. The more he waited, the antsier and more restless he became. Finally, he got out of his truck, paced toward the bus stop, paused, headed back to his truck, ran his hands through his hair, turned around, and... And he finally headed toward him, feeling it--the anxiety and pressure building up inside.

"Alva!"

[Alva Ren]

He panicked.

He seriously panicked because he heard Rae's voice calling him, and the bus was opening its doors and letting down the ramp to allow Alva to wheel himself onto it.

He panicked and tried to make a run for it--or a... roll for it? Alva tried to hustle onto the bus before Rae caught up with him, pretending that he hadn't heard his name being called out, loud and clear. Why did he do that? He didn't know. He didn't know! He knew he was doing something bad, maybe, and he didn't want to be caught in the lie. He didn't want Rae to know that he was going to meet Susumu, definitely.

And... Alva needed to know how to combat the curse. Rae would just flub it all up, probably go up to Susumu and punch him in the face and then who would Alva get the counter-potion from?!

The mark was getting clearer; he was feeling weaker and more ill, less energetic than usual. His parents commented upon it and he passed it off as the 'changing seasons' and 'maybe a little cold.' But he knew it was the curse. It was draining him of all of his strength, and soon he would fall prey to it, if he didn't get some help from Susumu. It hadn't even been that long, either, since he was first cursed, but it was working its way through him very quickly.

So. So yeah. He ignored Rae and just put himself onto the bus, hoping against hope that Rae wouldn't do something dumb like follow it. Or leap onto it before the doors closed, like a maniac.

[Reagan Ryang]

"ALVA!"

Did he really not hear him? Rae was fast and he made it to the bus before it went anywhere, especially since the bus driver had to stop and help Alva into the disabled corner. Now Alva was stuck with him on the bus... which annoyed Rae. It wasn't like he wanted to trap him like a little rabbit in the woods. On top of that, he had to take the damned bus when he had a vehicle of his own.

"Where the hell are you going?" Rae asked, not even trying to play subtle. He was a wolf, not a fox. He didn't need to skulk and sneak around. Apparently, Alva did. It had something to do with that curse, he knew it. Why Alva felt like he couldn't say anything... he didn't know but it was beyond vexing. Why take the bus when he knew that he could ask Rae to take him anywhere? Rae liked driving, even if he did drive like a maniac, so it wasn't like it was going to bother or annoy Rae to do it for him. It was that... that stupid fucker. The one Aldon saw him with. The one who cursed Alva.

[Alva Ren]

In retrospect, he should have wheeled himself out onto the street, because that death was better than the one that Alva was dying, of slow shame. He lowered his head as Rae hopped onto the bus, like the maniac that Alva hoped he wouldn't be.

Wasn't it just like Rae, to do that? Part of Alva was annoyed that he liked that about him. There were a lot of things about Rae that simultaneously irritated Alva, that he also found admirable in some way. Then again, Rae himself could be a ball of contradictions too, in the way his actions and personality did a complete 180 around 'other people' and around Alva.

"Thank you," he murmured meekly to the driver, who gave Rae a look in passing for making a scene. As the bus pulled away from the curb, Alva sighed and wrung his hands in his lap.

"I was going to the library," he said to Rae's navel, instead of up into his face. "There's a book I wanted to check out." He frowned at the pattern on Rae's jacket. "Did you follow me out here?" Was he being stalked? Was EVERYONE lurking around corners now, following him?!

[Reagan Ryang]

Rae could have just followed the bus to its destination. He could have just silently watched where Alva went next but he didn't want to. He couldn't. Alva wasn't looking good lately and Rae was tired of waiting for him to just say what was going on. Why didn't he just cough it up instead of claiming to feel unwell? Probably because he wanted to handle it on his own. Alva tried way too fricking hard to be his own man, to be independent. Sure, that was what set him apart from everybody else around him but... for fuck's sake! Rae was right there! Why not just ask for help?

He let out a soft growl before turning his gaze out of the window. Alva wasn't even looking him in the face. He kept looking at his shirt or his jacket (which did make Rae look down once or twice to check if there was something there). If he couldn't look him in the eye, something was definitely up. Plus...

"You said you weren't feeling well." He completely disregarded the question of whether he was following Alva. At this point, he thought the answer was obvious. Why would he just be chilling in this part of town by himself? Rae only came around these parts when he was with people. He had no reason to be here on his own. "I could've picked up the book for you."

[Alva Ren]

That growl sure sounded frustrated...

Well so was Alva! He wanted to go somewhere alone in peace, without being stalked! He looked over his shoulder quickly to make sure Ryland wasn't hiding behind a row of seats, or that Aldon wasn't dressed up as an overweight woman wearing a shawl. He wouldn't have put it past them to do that! Who else was going to pop up? His parents? Roe? Yoojin? Josh?!

It seemed that it was only him and Rae this time around, though. Alva sighed to himself and settled back in his chair. "I wanted to get it myself," he said quietly, resignedly. "And I didn't want to bother you about it. You have enough to worry about with your... family and everything."

Which was true, except that Rae was probably looking for distractions from that whole situation right now. Alva would--he'd want to keep busy, to busy himself with Rae (if their roles were reversed). Anything but sit home thinking, wondering, getting angrier and angrier about how a hunter rolled up and killed someone close to him without so much as a warning.

"Rae... don't be mad. You know I can look after myself." He tried to soften the brush-off (and it was just that) by placing a hand on Rae's arm. "Please don't stalk me everywhere I go..."

[Reagan Ryang]

"Aha!" Rae all but barked out. "I knew you were going to say that!"

So predictable sometimes, his sly little fox. But he couldn't be sly all the time--and what better time to be drop the sly act than when he wasn't feeling good? Rae didn't really lord over how right he was--although he would have on a normal basis (he liked to be right, all right?!) Rather, he watched Alva in his obvious discomfort. He didn't want Rae here. The feeling made him sick to the pit of his stomach. This was it, wasn't it? They were starting to drift. Rae thought about it back at the cabin with Josh, too. That they weren't as close as they once were.

It could have been boredom. Maybe they both needed something new and exciting in their lives. Maybe they just needed something different and new. Even knowing that he himself had nearly done something shitty to Alva, he couldn't let it happen in reverse. If they were going to fuck up, he didn't want it to be because they literally fucked another person. He didn't want it to be some stupid tawdry affair, something in a ladies' stupid romance novel. He wanted it to be on their own terms, spoken through their real mouths with the real reasons.

"I'm not mad." A lie. "I'm not mad about that. I'm mad because you're lying to me."

[Alva Ren]

"I'm not--" His rebuttal ended on a frustrated sigh. Alva didn't lie in the strictest sense of the word. He was just... omitting portions of the truth! There was a difference! He finally looked up at Rae, knowing that he was displeased--mad, upset, whatever. That was a lie too! Rae was lying too!

So they were both liars. It didn't necessarily make Alva feel any better about being caught sneaking off to meet with his new friend, though. But it also didn't necessarily mean that he wanted to do anything scummy, like cheat on Rae. Alva had more resistance than that! He wasn't led around by his libido the way some men were, even if he was missing all the feeling in the lower half of his body, and it wasn't a crime to be friends with a good-looking man!

"I'm not lying," he said stubbornly. "You're lying. And you're stalking me. You were trying to check up on me, weren't you?"

Aldon obviously told Rae about Susumu and it didn't take a genius to know that Rae maybe felt a little threatened. Alva didn't exactly dispel his fears entirely by skirting around the truth but come on. What did Rae think he was going to do? Secretly meet up with his secret lover in the public library and have mad passionate sex with him between the home improvement and historical non-fiction shelves?

[Reagan Ryang]

"No, you're lying," Rae said, actually standing up, despite the fact that the bus was currently lurching up a particularly hilly street. He hated that this was happening in public, where a handful of other people on the bus were most likely watching and listening. Why not?! There was no other entertainment in this one horse town! Rae still couldn't believe that Alva was lying to him. Every opportunity given and he was still keeping mum about the curse. Rae was tired of playing stupid.

"And yeah, I'm checking up on you."

He sank back down, hissing, "I know about the curse. You think I'm an idiot? I see it getting worse every day." He even reached out and tugged at Alva's sleeve in an attempt to reveal the deadly mark on Alva's skin. The thing was still there, and it was getting so dark that it looked a lot like it had been burned or branded into Alva's skin. The fact that the skin around the mark was reddened didn't make it look any better. Whatever it was, it was reaching its black, dead tendrils out, around Alva's arm. Surely it was going to keep going until it ate away at all of him.

"Why won't you let me help you? You think I'm too stupid to try? Not as smart as the fucker who did this to you?"

[Alva Ren]

"What?" Aghast, Alva physically recoiled. He shrank back in his seat, feeling the betrayal so keenly that it was like a stab in the back. Nobody knew about the curse except for Ryland. He told only one person and for Rae to know it, either Rae was a witch (doubtful) or Ryland had told--who else but--Aldon.

After Alva swore him to secrecy! How many times was Ryland going to blab his secrets out to big-mouth Aldon?!

He cried out--"Don't!"--before he could stop himself, or stop Rae from exposing the mark. Alva had been hiding it for a while now, even as it darkened and festered on his arm. It throbbed constantly, painfully now, refusing to be ignored. Swiftly he withdrew his arm and pulled his sleeve down before anyone else could see it.

"He--it was an accident! And it was mostly my fault, I touched the potion when it spilled." Alva added, quietly, "Don't talk about him like that." Susumu was doing his best to help them--help them all. Besides, Rae couldn't help him, unless he knew the counter-curse or could brew a potion to delay the effects of the curse. Nobody but Susumu could help him.

[Reagan Ryang]

That didn't make him feel good: seeing Alva recoil from him. Actually, it made him feel even more like a skunk and an asshole. A huge asshole. This wasn't how he meant it to get out but it had to get out somewhere, somehow. Why the fuck didn't he just say it at home? Now he could really feel the eyes on them, prickling him with their heat. It was especially bad as he reached for Alva and he cried out. Somebody a few seats back even stood up.

"Accident?" he hissed, just as the person who'd stood up formed a shadow over him.

"Is something wrong?" the man asked Alva. Rae turned toward him with irritation.

"This has nothing to do with you."

[Alva Ren]

"Yes, accid--" The shadow fell over Alva too and he looked up into the face of a giant. Or he seemed like a giant because he towered over them both, even Rae--and Rae was plenty tall already! Alva's eyes widened. Then they widened some more when Rae decided to be smart with the giant (who only wanted to make sure Alva was okay, really, he was sure).

"Rae!" Alva admonished him in tone even as he smiled up at the man. "No, no it's all right! We were just. Er. It's not what it looks like. He's not hurting me or anything." His tone and smile softened a little. "But thank you."

Okay, the bus wasn't the place for a lovers' spat. Everybody was staring at them now, making the back of Alva's neck prickle unpleasantly with heat. Slowly, trying to be unobtrusive about it, Alva reached up for the cord. He wasn't getting to that damn library now, might as well get off the bus, find an alley or something and get this argument over with. Stubborn Rae! He couldn't leave well enough alone!

[Reagan Ryang]

"...if you're sure," the giant said, looking as if he didn't believe Alva. He glanced at Rae and his eyes seemed to say that he was watching him. Rae sneered, disliking the way the guy just assumed that he was some bully. Alva wasn't some delicate--well, Rae had no room to talk but Alva wasn't being bullied, for fuck's sake! When he turned back to Alva, he saw him reaching for the cord and he immediately grasped Alva's hand to stop him.

"Why didn't you just tell me?"

He hated this. Arguing with Alva always made him feel like a pile of hot shit afterward. Hell, half the time he felt like dog shit in the midst of the fight. They didn't even argue nearly as much as Aldon did with his fox toy but it happened. Arguments were bound to happen after five years together with a person. This, though... this felt like something almost insurmountable. Never did he feel like he couldn't trust Alva. All their time together, he thought Alva could trust him but now he was sneaking around, keeping secrets, and trying to... what? Handle this on his own? They could've worked it out together.

Of course what happened to Rae's father was important but it didn't mean that Rae was ranking important things. Alva was just as important and Rae didn't want to lose another person to the fucking war between themselves and the hunters. Accident. How did a person accidentally curse somebody? Weren't curses tailor made for the person they were cursing? Rae didn't know a heck of a lot about that shit but he thought curses were awfully personal.

"He's using you, Alva."

[Alva Ren]

"Yes, positive. Thank you very much," Alva repeated firmly, trying to sound like he was fine, despite the fact that his own boyfriend was stalking him and trying to have a meaningful conversation on a bus full of strangers. Whichever way he spun that, it wasn't going to look good. Alva let out a noise of surprise--unpleasant surprise--as his hand was grabbed, preventing him from pulling the stop cord.

"There's nothing you can do, Rae. You're not a witch!" Now he was trying to go with reason... which didn't always work with Rae, especially in the heat of the moment. But he had to try! Rae didn't want him to go to the library, he didn't want him to get off the bus. Where did he want Alva? At home all the time, not meeting with the person who could save his life?

Some part of Alva knew that he was being irrational too, and that what Rae was doing stemmed from concern. He understood that. But it was very frustrating, also, to try and deal with him when he wasn't willing to listen to sense or let it drop. Alva could deal with it on his own. He could! He was determined not to rely on anybody--he couldn't do that for the rest of his life! Rae had to understand that, what it was like as a man to have to acknowledge that he couldn't do all the things he wanted because of a physical impairment. Worst of all, when people acted like Alva was helpless as an infant, when all he was missing was a pair of legs.

"And what is he using me for?" Alva's eyes narrowed. "What do you think is going to happen if I meet with him?"