Page 31 of Hopelessly Teavoted
“It’s just five minutes,” warned Vickie. “They can see and hear you, but you won’t see or hear them, and then the object burns, and they disappear. We can probably find other objects, but still. Think about what I could tell you later, to make the most of it.”
Part of him wanted to tell her he had changed his mind. To avoid his emotions. It was the same tactic he had tried to use years ago for the sex talk, but Benedict had been clever. Speeding car, on a freeway, fast enough that Azrael couldn’t duck and roll out even with magic. This time, Az was behind the wheel. He could stop her from summoning them, and run away fromhis issues like a child, or he could accept and address the grief weighing on his mind.
“Do you want to do this?” Vickie’s voice was gentle.
Fuck. He didnot. He wanted to get in his car and drive away into the woods, or pull her down into its spacious back seat, and convince her to make him forget everything. But he couldn’t, because they had just started to be friends again, and because he couldn’t run from his grief forever.
And, also, hedidwant to talk to his parents. He missed them. His mom with her eccentric, dramatic flair, and ridiculous, loving heart. His father with his three-piece suit and his wordless grunt, as though Henry Cavill’s Geralt of Rivia had been crossed in personality with the style and comportment of Gomez Addams. He missed his father’s staunch, unfailing support of his children. Like the time that Viola Ravenscrow claimed it was unnatural for Priscilla to date women. Benedict had shadow-hexed the woman so quickly that the invisible stitches holding in her words lasted weeks. She had to go around writing out requests without her voice and magicking her food, premashed, into her esophagus. When her ability to open her mouth and speak finally returned, he had a stern talk with her, and she ended up writing a check directly to the town’s shelter for displaced LGBTQIA+ youth every year since.
Azrael knew he had his father’s reserve and shyness. He hoped he had his mother’s heart. But after leaving, he had struggled in his career as much as he had with witchcraft in his youth. Except this time, he didn’t have Benedict to patiently help him with shadow craft until his witchery was smooth and powerful. This time he didn’t have Persephone to take him aside for private lessons on herbs and plants and flowers. He needed his parents. This was the only way to reach them.
“You’re sure?” Vickie repeated it gently. She was not going to force him, and she would understand if he backed out.
Swallowing, he nodded again. He’d been preparing since he first asked her. Since before that, really. His throat felt like it was made of sandpaper, and he wasn’t sure he could talk, buthe’d have to find the words. It had been a long time since he’d watched her speak to the dead.
“Please. I need to talk to them.”
She nodded, and reached for the salt and pepper shakers, bird in one hand and skull in the other. Traces of flame licked around her fingers, though the objects were not yet consumed, and from memory he knew the flame would not hurt her. She just had to keep contact.
Vickie blinked. Her face relaxed, and her eyes filled with tears, listening to voices he couldn’t hear but wanted to so desperately.
He wished for a different world where his parents had survived.
Vickie could see them one last time, but he couldn’t.
Tugging a hand through his hair, Az focused on inhaling. Exhaling. The pain was still there, but he could breathe through it. He ran his hand down his face, and he could feel her concern.
Their concern, really.
“They want you to know that they love you so much, and they’re so proud of you and Priscilla.”
Hot tears ran down the face partially covered by his hand, and he couldn’t bear to see her, standing there in sweatpants, glitter from her hair escaping to her cheeks and hands as the flame worshiped her palms like his lips had, once. When she put on glitter for Sultry Sundays, it always lasted, and something about that reminded him of his childhood. Of being really, truly happy.
It was too much to have lost Vickie, to have never really had her at all, and then to be without half his family as well. The universe had bestowed a brutal pounding on his soul, and rivers of sorrow traced patterns on his face, leaking into the collar of his shirt. He cried with abandon for all the losing. For the heaviness of all the wanting.
It was both overwhelming and a relief to cry like that, finally.
Shutting his eyes tight, he spoke.
“Mom. Dad. I love you. I’m so sorry I wasn’t here. I tried—” His voice broke, and a small sob racked through him again.
“Az,” Vickie was saying softly. “Az.” He knew that with a shaker in each hand, she couldn’t touch him without breaking the connection, and he shook his head. The sensation that she was standing close was enough, and he needed to get this out while the shades of his parents were still around to hear it.
“I tried to make it in California. I really wanted to. It just wasn’t happening, and then by the time I tried to go home it was too late and flights and portaling were suspended, and I just want you to know that I love you both so much. I am sorry. For being so embarrassed and so standoffish and never realizing how wonderful you both were. For everything.”
He opened his eyes, and Vickie was crying too. She still clutched the shakers in her hands, and he walked toward her, thumbing the wet, dark tears away from her cheeks. Allowing himself the small moment of tracing her freckles and swiping away trails of her mascara as she sniffled, leaning her face into his hand for a moment.
“Az,” she began, voice heavy with emotion. “Your mother said you have nothing to apologize for. She said she’s so proud of you, no matter what. That they’ve always carried your love in their hearts and that they will no matter what, just like you will carry theirs, and their magic, even when all the objects are gone.”
“Mom,” he began. “I…” Vickie shook her head, staring behind him, and he turned to match her view and face the ghosts, which no amount of hopeful longing would let him see.
“Hold on, Az, your dad has something.” Vickie bit her lip, and he could feel, standing close as he was, that the objects were heating up.
They were running out of time. Her eyes widened, and her grip on each trinket tight enough that both edges of her palms went white with pressure.
“We need to warn the Council about the Brethren of One Love.”
She was worrying her bottom lip and nodding, clearly listening to his father.
