The Future in My Veins

Chapter Twenty-Two

Unedited

Chapter Twenty-Two

In the Otherworld, we had two rules for funeral attire. 1) Slayers wore their gear to Slayer funerals but not to others. 2) If we attend any other Otherworld funeral, black was to be worn for public and white for private. There were no rules for human funerals.

I stood in a robe in front of my spare room closet, staring at my options. There weren't many. I had a small variety of black dresses for this occasion plus one unworn white one. I hadn't worn the white yet as I'd never been to a funeral that wasn't Slayer or public centric and for some reason the dress suddenly gave me bad vibes. For now, I had to pick one of the others. I'd worry about bad dress vibes later.

I wished someone else would pick for me.

An idea popped into my head.

I did a mental poke and Michael actually poked me back. Not his usual mental caress which meant teasing.

Interesting.

He told me about ten minutes ago we could talk about what my father wanted after the viewing, face-to-face, at his apartment. Which was fine by me. I wanted to talk about my mother in person as well because she'd sent me on a bit of a head trip, one I didn't return from until Luke came knocking at my office door. Somehow I'd managed to finish up the last few tasks that needed to get done while being scatterbrained over my parents.

Pick for me, I told him.

Puzzlement came through the bond before I sent him the image of my closet, what I was doing. He didn't respond straight away but then, Third from the left.

I pulled it out and looked at it. I bought it about six months ago, wore it once to see a Broadway play with Hank. Should I be worried you know which dresses I have in my closet?

The insignificant details will fade soon, he commented, referring to the small slice of my consciousness he had downloaded into his head after Aidan shot me. Problem was, I knew him. He considered every detail about me significant. None of it would fade and I briefly wondered if he knew everything.

"You're funny," I whispered out loud and went to change.

Putting the rest of the outfit together was simple, gathering up the courage to actually go was the hard part. Luke sat waiting for me on the couch and when I came out of the spare, he smiled. He'd gotten dressed while I was in the shower and fixing my hair. His outfit was simple: black slacks, black long-sleeve button up, black shoes.

"Look at you." He stood up and slid his hands into his pockets. "Mark would be proud."

"You think so?"

He held out a hand and I took it, letting him spin me around gently. "I think he would say you look like a million bucks and if you didn't show up looking like a million bucks, he'd be mad and tell you you suck."

I sputtered out a laugh. "Yeah, he would say that."

I thought back to the image of him in the coffee shop, the way his eyes smiled before the rest of him. "I miss him," I admitted.

Luke pulled me into a hug and planted a kiss on my forehead. "Me too. But for now, let's do him proud, yeah?"

"Is that your way of telling me to play nice?"

He just hummed before drawing back and eyeing the clutch in my head. "You have everything?"

Weapon, phone, pager, lip gloss. "Yup."

"Then let's head over before we're too late."

"Is it bad that I kinda wanna be late? That way I can be last."