I See Faeries

~chapter seven~

Two Men, One Me

~

I felt very vulnerable, even with Dean beside me. I still had my knife strapped around my thigh, but who was I kidding. I wasn't exactly the stabbing, blade-wielding type. We'd warily returned to our room at the lodge and quickly collected all of our things. Dean agreed that we didn't want to hang around with demons in the woods, and didn't question why I felt especially threatened. We'd donned our cloaks, and he'd followed me into the streets without a word. Then I'd suddenly remembered that I'd hardly gotten to eat at the tavern, so we started searching for food.

"I smell something cooking," Dean said after walking for a short while. After a moment, I smelled it too. We followed our noses to a stall at the edge of the market, where a vaguely familiar man was roasting meat on sticks over a small fire. Then I remembered - he was the heavyset fellow selling meat this morning. The one that smelled like pig fat and grease, that I'd noticed as we rode into town.

"Excuse me," I said, walking up to the stall. "Can I have two of those?" I pointed to the shish kabobs, a coin glinting between my fingers.

He looked me over once - in what I found to be a very uncomfortable and unnecessary manner - then grunted and pulled two kabobs from the fire. "That'll be-"

I handed him the coin, which he accepted without complaint. I walked a short distance away before sitting down on a rock and tearing into the juicy, smoke-flavored pork. Dean followed me.

"I didn't like the way that man looked at you," he muttered as he watched me eat. A frown darkened his face, and he seemed preoccupied with the meat man.

"Well, I don't like the way you look at her, young Blackburn," said a wonderfully familiar voice from behind me.

My heart nearly stopped. I leapt to my feet, spun around, and threw myself at him without a second thought. Roman narrowly avoided impaling me on the shish kabob he held in his hand - my second shish kabob, which he'd obviously stolen when I wasn't looking - and didn't return my embrace. He let me hug him though, which was a start. I tried not to think about the last time we'd seen each other - when he'd kissed me, and then pushed me out a window.

He smelled like oranges and the outdoors, just like always. When he finally grew impatient and pushed me away, I stepped back and just looked at him. My first thought was, Why doesn't he stink? His clothes were bloodstained, dusty, and rife with tears. I was relieved to see that he wore the knapsack with A Færye Gÿde inside, but the bag was definitely worse for wear - bloodstained and torn, just like the rest of his garments. His shirt was merely ribbons of fabric clinging to damp, pale skin, and his pants were only slightly better. He looked like he should smell of sweat and blood, but instead he smelled like citrus. It must be a faerie thing. 

His face was haggard, his eyes nearly black in the moonlight and his damp, limp hair plastered to his forehead by the rain and sweat. He had a new scar, curving around his right eye in a near-perfect C shape. It was puckered and inflamed looking, and clearly fresh.

My fingers itched for some ointment and gauze to smear over the ugly-looking wound, and I had to make myself look away.

Roman, meanwhile, had been looking me over. "I like the leather," he said, his mouth curving in a familiar smirk. In the mess of everything I'd forgotten completely that I was wearing the leather leggings, and felt my cheeks go red. He'd noticed. "And that's a nice cloak," he added. "Where'd you get it?"

I thought about lying, but there wasn't much reason to.

"Dean gave it to me," I said, glancing back. My friend stood in the same spot, clearly very confused and not especially happy. I winced. I'd forgotten about him in the excitement of seeing Roman again. He undoubtedly wanted some explanation for Roman and his appearance, among other things. It seemed that he could see the faerie, which at first I was surprised by. Then I remembered that Dean was fae, and not a mortal.