3. Chapter 3

Chapter three

" L ike, at all ," Cass went on with a shake of his head. "In the history of things going well, that was dead last."

"Wow, you're so fucking observant," LA drawled. He picked up the bottle of rum and glared at Cass. "I swear to fuck, if this is chocolate milk, I am going to—"

"Eesh! It's rum! Promise!" Cass waved his paw. "You are so grumpy."

"Yeah! Because the man I love thinks I'm a little fucking bitch!" LA snapped. "He said I was pathetic and accused me of cheating on him and… and…" His eyes burned and he tipped the bottle up, hoping the burn would somehow drown the pain clawing against his ribs.

Trying to process Gavin's insults hurt like hell.

Was that really what Gavin thought about him?

And God, what he'd said to Gavin…

Fuck it.

Cass carefully sat beside LA, holding out his arm to invite LA in for a hug. He didn't say anything else, just smiled and purred.

Purred.

Like a fucking cat.

LA eyed Cass suspiciously. "What?"

"You look like you need a hug again." Cass shrugged. "Gavin wasn't exactly nice to you. I know what he said made you angry—"

"Yeah, no shit."

"—but you still didn't need to lash out at him like you did."

"Excuse me?" LA stared.

"Does that happen a lot? You wanting to hurt people when they hurt you?"

"Are you serious right now?" LA narrowed his eyes. "You're giving me crap for talking shit to him?"

"Don't you think you went a teeny tiny bit too far?"

LA glared, but his stomach dropped. He knew he'd been cruel, but that was the point. Gavin had been an asshole and he'd wanted to be a bigger one. He shook his head, muttering, "Okay, yeah, I did. But hey! I tried to apologize!"

"Did you really mean it though?" Cass hummed loudly. "Or did you just want him to stay?"

"What? Yes. I mean, maybe both?" LA rubbed his forehead and stared out at the wall. He noticed there was an empty space on the wall, realizing that one of his paintings had fallen.

Maybe from Gavin slamming the door so hard.

With a grunt, LA tried to stand. The pain in his back zipped down into his ass and thigh like a bolt of lightning and immediately sent him right back to the couch. "Mother fucker ."

"Do you need something?" Cass glanced at the bottle. "You have your alcohol."

"No. That picture fell." LA tried and failed again to stand, and he huffed in annoyance. "I need to go fix it."

"Oh! I can go get it!" Cass bounced up with a happy grin.

"Hey, hey! I'm getting up!" LA protested. "You don't have to do that."

Cass shrugged as he skipped over to retrieve the painting from the floor. "You're right! I don't. But hey, I'm here to help, remember? You don't have to be afraid to ask for help."

"I can get it!" LA scowled angrily. "Just not… right this second."

"Oh, uh-huh, I can see that." Cass chuckled, lumbering over to the fallen painting with his tail swinging behind him.

LA gritted his teeth but managed to mumble, "Thanks."

"Aw, you're so very welcome!" Cass picked up the painting. "See! Now did that hurt? Did it cause you any undue stress or discomfort?"

"What?"

"Being nice!"

LA rolled his eyes.

"Is this yours?" Cass peered at the haunted figure in the painting.

"Yeah." LA shrugged. "All of these are."

Cass looked around at the other paintings. "Oh! You're an artist!"

LA frowned. "Yeah, I guess. I used to be anyway."

"Used to be?" Cass smiled warmly. "You're still an artist even if you haven't picked up a brush in a while. These are quite stunning. It reminds me of a lovely human artist named Tanya Gomelskaya. She crafts the most incredible three dimensional paintings."

"Oh! Hey, I know her." LA actually grinned. "I mean, I know of her anyway. I've seen her stuff. With the creepy arms that are actually sculpted arms coming out of the frame? She's awesome." He snorted. "You guys have Instagram over there in monster world?"

"Duh." Cass plopped down beside LA. "I have over eight hundred followers! My username is Fluffy Cass Bubbles."

"Bubbles?"

"Yeah!" Cass giggled. "I make bubbles when I'm happy! Or sometimes when I'm not happy. Or just, you know, whenever." He held out his paw and a flurry of iridescent bubbles appeared, floating lazily around them.

"That's kinda cool, I guess." LA fidgeted. "Can you summon up anything?"

"Within reason. I can't make you a dinosaur , but I can create small items using the matter in the air around us. Oh! And transmute, of course. That is to say I can change things that already exist into something else!"

"Like changing rum into chocolate milk?"

"Yes, exactly! But I can't create a glass of chocolate milk out of nothing."

"What about that pen? The notepad?" LA arched a brow. "How did you do that?"

"Those I just summoned through the interdimensional fabric that separates your world and mine. Think of it like standing outside your house and reaching through a window to grab something off your desk."

"Uh-huh."

"Not the slightest bit impressed, are you?"

"What? No! It's cool. Whatever." LA sighed. "Sorry. This day has been a fucking day."

"It's all right," Cass soothed with another big smile. "We're not going to solve all your problems overnight, you know. We have time."

"Guess you can't heal a busted spine, huh?"

"No." Cass's smile dipped. "I'm sorry. Does that have something to do with why you lost your job?"

"Everything." LA thought back to the meeting. "And maybe… It was just an excuse to get rid of me. I was apparently a difficult employee." He sighed. "I was good at my job. No, I was great at it. I just wasn't good with… people."

"Do you wanna talk about it?"

"No," LA said flatly. "I just wanna figure out how to get it back. There has to be something I can do. They're saying they can fire me because I can't perform one of my duties, which is lifting or whatever, but they've let me work when I was injured before."

"Oh?"

"Yeah, I'd broken my wrist trying to catch a cot." LA snorted. "It had a person on it and the wheels weren't locked. Instinct kicked in and I tried to grab it. Cracked the head of my radius and had to wear a cast and then a splint. But during all of that, they still let me work! I had to get people to help me move the bodies or whatever, but I could still embalm."

"A broken wrist is a bit different than a busted spine," Cass said carefully. "After all, one has a certain time for healing and the other… Not so much."

LA flinched. "I'm going to get better."

"Do you know that for sure?"

"I…" LA's head swam and he sagged into the couch, cradling the bottle against his chest. "I don't know. I was doing really well. I was doing all the physical therapy, taking all the stupid drugs, and they made me take this stupid test to see how much I could safely lift. I gave it everything I had. The proctor had to keep stopping me from pushing too hard and I thought it was enough. I thought I was good."

"And it wasn't?" Cass ventured.

"No. I didn't make it into the heavy lifting category." LA took a sip of rum and winced. "I might never embalm again, so all that effort feels fucking pointless now. Who the fuck is gonna hire an embalmer who can't even move a body?"

"I'm sure there's still a lot you can do with that kind of experience!" Cass smiled, ever cheerful. "Why not see if you can supervise embalming somewhere? Or perhaps teach? Oh, I bet you'd be a great teacher—"

"No," LA said immediately. "I'm not teaching. That's what my mother always wanted for me and I don't want it."

"Even if it was something you wanted to teach?"

"No teaching."

"Okay, grumpy pants."

LA sighed and let himself lean over to bump against Cass's arm. "I did like teaching some of the apprentices that came through, but I never had one of my own. I did do some exam proctoring for the state, for people trying to get their license for embalming. It was fun, but…"

"But?" Cass gently lifted his arm to wrap it around LA's shoulders.

"But it's not what I want. It's not for me. One person? Sure. But a whole class?" LA tensed for a moment, but he slowly melted into the embrace. It did feel good to be held and maybe he did need a hug after everything that had happened today. "I don't know what I want now."

"And that's okay," Cass said gently. "That's a huge question to figure out. Careers should be fulfilling, yes, but you also have bills to pay."

"Isn't that the truth." LA closed his eyes. "What about you?"

"Me?" Cass sounded surprised.

"Is helping people recover their strength really what you wanted to do with your life?"

"It's what my people do. There are imps of fortitude and strength like me, those of wisdom and intelligence…" Cass hesitated. "We live to help inspire mortals."

"What if you didn't want to do that?"

"I suppose I could do something else." Cass rubbed LA's arm and laughed. "Though I have no idea what. I do enjoy this, you know. Helping people."

"That's why I liked my job," LA said quietly. "I helped people. During what's usually the worst fucking time in their lives, I got to be there and help them through it."

Cass purred. "My job is much the same. I don't exactly get to meet people when they're at their best."

"Yeah. Same." LA peeked up at Cass, getting lost in his bright eyes for a moment. "Has there…"

"What?"

"Has there ever been anyone you couldn't help?"

"A few," Cass said quietly.

"What happened? You told me you stick around until the job is done, right?"

"Unless it's truly hopeless." Cass sighed. "It takes a lot to be absolutely lost, but there have been those that I couldn't save. They were so set on their path of self-destruction that there was nothing I could do. Even my power isn't always enough."

"Yeah." LA nodded. "I kinda get what you mean."

"Oh?"

"I've had embalming cases that… I couldn't fix. And I can fix a lot of things. Death by shotgun, car wreck, even a chainsaw one time. Whatever." LA chugged another mouthful of rum and then set the bottle on the table. He settled back in Cass's arms and closed his eyes. "I'd do everything I could, I'd work on them for hours and hours, days if I had to, but sometimes… It was hopeless."

"And what did you do then?"

"I'd have to tell the family that there wasn't anything I could do. They'd have to close the casket for the services." LA shrugged, his heart heavy. "I'd have to just… let it go."

"Sometimes that's all you can do," Cass said carefully.

"I hate it."

"Of course you do. That's normal. You obviously invested a lot of time and energy into your job and I can only imagine how devastating it was when you didn't get the result you wanted. Not just for you, but for the family you wanted to help."

"Uh-huh."

"Relationships can be like that..."

LA peeked open his eyes. " Uh-huh ."

"You invest time, energy, and affection, and sometimes the person you're with isn't giving you what you deserve in return. It reminds me of someone, hmm." Cass tapped his chin thoughtfully. "Gee, but I wonder who?"

"I know you're talking about Gavin."

"What? Huh?" Cass blinked. "Gavin who? Who's that?"

LA glared. "Come on. Quit bullshitting me. What do you want me to say? That I was putting more into the relationship than he was and getting jack shit in return other than being able to say that I wasn't single? And then the second I wasn't giving him a gazillion percent and making it all about him, he dumped me?"

"Yes. That. Exactly that!" Cass threw up a paw and more confetti rained down on them. "Hurray! A breakthrough!"

LA scowled, swatting at the confetti. "I still want to be with him."

"What?" Cass gasped, the confetti immediately vanishing. "Why?"

"We were together for a long time. I'm not ready to throw that away yet." LA stared at the spare keys on the table. "Even if…"

"If what?"

"Even if it feels like it's been over for a while," LA said quietly. "I can't remember the last time we had a real date. Like, a date that was just the two of us and not him and a bunch of his friends along for the fuckin' ride. Hell, I can't even remember the last time we had sex." He groaned, scrubbing a hand over his face. "I think things might have been worse than I realized. Maybe I did, but I just didn't want to see it."

"You didn't want to be alone," Cass said softly.

"What?"

"You said something about not wanting to be single before."

"Yeah, I guess." LA's stomach twisted. "Something like that."

"You know that's not a good reason to stay with someone, right? Especially when the relationship isn't healthy."

"Shut up," LA muttered. "I… I really don't want to talk about this anymore. Talking isn't fixing anything."

Cass looked as if he wanted to say something but thought better of it. He forced a smile and then said, "Well, how about we focus on something more positive?"

"Like fucking what?"

"Uh, like the fact that you are an incredible artist? Your work is quite stunning."

LA wasn't sure why, but he could feel his face heating up. "Oh, well, uh, thanks. A friend of mine used to say he wanted to show some of my stuff at his gallery—"

"You have a friend who owns an art gallery?"

"Yeah, Brandon. We went to high school together. Used to be pretty close." LA took another swig of rum. "You know, until Gavin and everything."

"You mean Gavin manipulating you into sabotaging your friendships?"

"Yes, that."

"Well, why not reach out to your friend? See if he's still interested in showing any of your work?"

"What? Why?"

"It wouldn't hurt to reconnect with a friend, right? And it might be an opportunity to get your art out there."

"I'm not going to be an artist." LA scoffed. "I need a real job."

"Being an artist is a real job."

"Do you have any idea how hard it is to make it as an artist?"

"No, but I have a feeling you're about to tell me." Cass batted his eyes.

LA glared.

"It won't hurt to try," Cass said gently. "If nothing else, you get to see Brannon!"

"Brandon."

"Whatever."

"Okay, maybe. But look, it's more like he owns a coffee shop and lets people hang shit on the walls." LA snorted out a little laugh. "It's not exactly a big fancy art gallery."

"So?" Cass nudged LA. "Why not go see him and ask if you can hang some of your shit on his walls?"

"You're serious?"

"Why not?" Cass shrugged. "You don't have anything to lose."

"I guess." LA pulled out his phone to scroll through the menu. He ignored the text messages from his mother and what were no doubt very colorful ones from Gavin, thumbing his way over to text Brandon.

Fuck.

Their last text exchange was almost six months ago.

"What do I even say?" LA stared at the screen.

"Usually hello is a good start." Cass rubbed LA's shoulder.

LA locked his phone. "Maybe tomorrow."

"What about—"

"I said tomorrow." LA shoved Cass's arm away as he struggled to his feet, his head swimming. "I just want to go to bed."

"Right now?" Cass frowned, standing up and offering his paws to steady LA. "Isn't it a little early for—"

"Yes, right now." LA grabbed Cass's paws, in more need of the assistance more than he wanted to admit. "Got dumped, lost job, blah blah blah, and oh yeah, there's a big monster in my living room who wants to talk about feelings and bullshit that I don't want to fucking talk about. I really just want to go to sleep and not deal with fucking any of this. Do you understand?"

"I understand that you're feeling overwhelmed," Cass soothed as he plucked the bottle of rum away, "but you've already made some incredible progress!"

"How the fuck do you figure that?" LA grunted.

Cass set the bottle down and then guided LA toward the stairs. "We've identified many of the areas you need to focus on to regain your strength, of course!"

"Oh yeah? And those are?"

"Your self-esteem for one."

"My self-esteem is fucking fine." LA stumbled on the first step. " Shit ."

"Here." Cass scooped LA up into his arms.

"Ow! Hey!" LA squirmed, but his back protested at once. "What are you doing?"

"Helping!" Cass tucked his wings in and lowered his head to carry LA up the stairs the rest of the way. "You really need to be able to accept help, you know. Oh, that's another area we can address! Being able to accept help!"

"I didn't ask for any!" LA growled as he clung to Cass.

"Ah, asking is the first step! Don't worry! You'll get there!" Cass said cheerfully, using his tail to check doors until he found the bedroom. "Here we go! Time for beddy bye. Nice and easy, all right?"

"Just put me down!" LA missed Cass's strong arms as soon as he was in bed, and he winced as he rolled over onto his back. His head was woozy, his stomach sloshed, and he closed his eyes, trying to will away the nausea.

The bed dipped with added weight.

LA opened his eyes, glaring at Cass sitting on the edge of the mattress. "What?"

"I wanted to make sure you're all right." Cass patted LA's foot. "You did drink a lot of alcohol. Like, really fast."

"Uh-huh. So what now? Gonna read me a bedtime story?"

"Do you want one?" Cass perked up. "I know a bunch!"

"Fuck no," LA grumbled. "I was joking."

"Oh." Cass pouted. "See, I was gonna tell you this one about a cute guy who was having a super bad day and was afraid his life was over…"

"Fucking God ."

"And then he met a really nice imp who promised to help him through it." Cass purred. "Because see, the imp could tell the guy had a really good heart. Granted, it was under a really, really crusty exterior—"

"Ha, got it."

"—and he was kind of a jerk—"

"Message received, furball."

"—and he loved calling people names, but seriously! Under all that was a nice guy with a great smile who really cared a lot about helping other people. Sure, the guy was afraid because he didn't want to deal with rearranging his entire life, but hey, the imp promised him that he was gonna be there every step of the way no matter what."

LA frowned, his heart skipping over itself as he stared up at Cass.

Cass smiled and offered his big paw. "So, there was nothing to worry about. Because he didn't have to do any of it alone."

LA hesitated but he took Cass's paw. His hand felt so small, and Cass's paw was warm and soft. It was pleasant, but he didn't hold it for long. He gave it a squeeze and then let go so he could roll over, wincing as he wedged a pillow between his legs to ease the strain on his back.

"Are you in pain?" Cass asked worriedly. "What's wrong?"

"I'm always in pain," LA grumbled.

"Does your medicine not help you? I couldn't help but notice you had quite a lot in your kitchen."

"It helps me function , but that's it."

"Maybe it would help more if you weren't mixing it with alcohol," Cass whispered. "But I'm not a doctor or anything."

"Have you ever dealt with chronic pain?"

"Uh. No."

"Then shut up." LA closed his eyes. "I have good days where I can work through it and the medicine helps me, but it still hurts. Getting up, sitting down, walking, bending over to grab something, whatever. It always fucking hurts . The pain is always fucking there and it never goes away.

"And then there's the bad days, the ones where I can barely get out of bed or even take a shit because just trying to push down fucking hurts. So yeah, I drink, and yeah, you're right, I shouldn't be mixing it with my meds, but I'm hurting right now and it's the only goddamn thing that's making me numb enough so I don't want to fucking scream."

Cass was quiet for a few moments. "Is there really nothing else that helps?"

"Never leaving my bed?" LA scoffed bitterly.

"Stretches? Yoga?"

"I am not doing fucking yoga."

"But what about—"

"Cass. I am going to sleep now." LA sighed. "We can work on solving all my damn problems tomorrow after I've had a good night's sleep and when I'm sober, okay? I just wanna lie here and pretend today didn't happen."

Cass lightly patted LA's foot. "Yes, of course. Rest is good. I know it may not feel like it right now, but you really have made a lot of progress and that is worth celebrating! We have a plan! Isn't that neat?"

"Yup. So fucking neat."

"You will reach out to Brannon—"

"Brandon."

"—and reconnect, discuss opportunities to share your art, and—"

" Cass ."

"Oh! That's me." Cass grinned. "Yes?"

LA fidgeted before asking quietly, "Can you stay?"

"Stay?" Cass echoed.

LA closed his eyes, swallowing back the bile rising in his throat. "I don't want to be alone right now. And yeah, I still think you might be a figment of my fucking imagination, you are way too fucking cheerful to be sane, but…"

"But?"

"But I'm hoping figments don't mind being the big spoon? At least until I fall asleep."

"Of course." Cass stretched out behind LA, gently wrapping his arm around him and snuggling in close. The bed creaked from his added weight, and there was a quick puff of air as he draped his wing over LA like a blanket.

LA inhaled sharply, surprised by how his heart ached to be held. Cass was warm, firm, and his fur was incredibly soft. LA hadn't realized how starved for affection he was until now, and his eyes burned with the threat of tears.

God, maybe he was pathetic.

He was about to cry just because Cass was holding him.

"You can go whenever," LA said, trying to keep his voice from shaking.

"I will stay until you fall asleep," Cass replied gently. "And just in case you get sick and need to throw up, then I can help you to the bathroom."

LA managed a chuckle. "I'm not going to throw up."

"I've heard many drunk people make the same claim."

"Well, I'm not that drunk, so."

"Famous last words."

"Shut up." LA laughed, dropping his hand down to rest on Cass's forearm. "I'm going to pass out now and hope that when I wake up, this has all been some sort of fucked up fever dream, okay?"

"And when you wake up and you don't have a job or a boyfriend?"

LA squeezed Cass's arm. "Well, you'll still be here, right?"

"Of course." Cass purred softly.

"Good night, Cass."

"Night, Elly."