Gin considered his words for only a moment. "You mean like a turtle?" She asked suddenly, emerald eyes brightening. She nearly started singing the "Tiny Turtle Tim" song as she thought of her pet turtle at home.

Yes, she realized, it had been a ridiculous assertion. But it was something normal she could relate it to, which made her feel better. “Okay… so it was kind of silly to say, but it’s the only thing I could think of that lives that long.” She winced. “And it kind of just spilled out.” It was rare that she made such comments, and admitting to one made her blush a little in embarrassment.

“Okay, so you’re roughly one hundred and fifty years old, and you’re a Cinsaid. Anything else I should know?” Practically thinking out loud, she didn’t hear his request immediately.

With a blink, she looked at him a bit taken aback. “A pillow? I don’t know if Sade would appreciate you living here. In fact…” She looked about her. “I’m not sure he’ll be entirely happy to see all this. Although, I must admit… I’m relieved that you were… so kind.”

“Get eaten?” Gin asked quickly. Before she could get an answer, his expression quickly shifted to alarm. “Seige?” She stepped forward as if she might catch him as he passed out. The faint scent of honey filled her nose. How strange. “What do you need?” She gently shook his shoulder. “Water? Seige? Is that it?” She drew her hand away quickly. His skin was icy cold.

“Dear God,” she mumbled. Water could wait until he was conscious. He needed to warm up. Wait… “Wa—warm? Oh!”

She went up the stairs two at a time. Sade was still fast asleep in his bed and probably wouldn’t wake up if Hell was set loose upon the world. She turned on a dim lamp so that she could see and was shocked to find the entire apartment, usually cluttered with clothes and junk, entirely clean. “Wow,” she breathed.

It was difficult not to take a moment to stare in wonder. Where would a Cinsaid put blankets? She wondered, stepping towards the trunk at the end of the bed. She lifted it as quietly as she could, but the hinges still creaked. Sade snorted; she rolled her eyes. Inside was nothing more than his childhood memories, it appear. A stuff animal (a bear?), a ratty looking blue blanket, and various books and toys. She shut it with a short giggle before moving onto the closet where she found several blankets folded at the bottom. She gathered them up quickly and rushed back down the stairs.

With the flick of her wrists, she spread the blankets over him before sitting in a chair nearby, watching him intently. Without meaning to, she fell asleep with one arm on the table, and her head resting against it.

“Mm?” Gin rolled her face into her arm as if to shield herself from the living world. Waking up always bothered her, but the smell of food lured her after a few seconds. Turning her head, she opened her eyes just enough to see the eggs and muffin. At that moment, her stomach decided to let out a lion-like growl. “Oh… I guess…” She yawned before finishing her sentence. “I should eat.” She looked up at siege and muttered a thank you.

After a while, she sat up and picked at the eggs with her fork. Once her eyes could focus enough to see all the sharp edges life had to offer, she began to eat. “I didn’t know you could cook,” she said, which reminded her of a pressing question. She set the muffin she had begun to peel the paper from aside.

“You said something about… leaving me to be eaten?” Her voice came out smaller than she had meant for it to.

“So you aren’t partial to human flesh, then?” She asked before taking a bite of the muffin. She wondered how she could stomach food after listening to how Seige’s race ate her kind. Then again, she had hardly eaten anything in 24 hours. She finished the muffin off quickly, swallowing it in hungry gulps. It felt amazing to have food in her stomach. The stinging in her head even began to fade. Now all she needed was a few hours of sleep.

With a raised brow she replied, “Well, as long as you don’t ever feel the need to take a nibble of me.” She laughed at that before finishing off the muffin. “Thanks again for the food. It’s exactly what I needed.” The corner of her lips twitched into a half smile. “You’re not half bad Seige.”

She stood more gracefully than she thought she could manage and walked towards the door to the stairs. As she twisted the knob and swung the door open, she looked back over her shoulder with a curious squint to ask, “What’s with the honey smell?”

Gin shook her head before plodding up the stairs. She wasted no time in pulling the blanket off the back of Sade's sofa and stretching out to sleep, knowing he wouldn't mind. It wouldn't be the first time she crashed in his apartment. Besides, he owed her enough.



Sade woke up at one in the afternoon with a massive headache. At first, he remained face flat against the pillow, ignoring the spit that had seeped from between his lips while he slept. Then slowly, very slowly, he rolled over and sat up, swinging his legs carefully over the side of the bed. As the waking haze cleared from his eyes, he nearly laid back down.

"I'm in the wrong apartment!" He exclaimed, leaping to his feet. The sudden movement sent stabbing pain through his forehead. He swayed a little and looked around him again. No, he was in the right place. Everything there belonged to him. It was just clean. His jaw dropped slightly.

He spotted Gin asleep on the sofa as he turned and stomped over to her. Grabbing her shoulder, he shook her awake angrily. "Did you do this?" He asked without waiting for her to wake.

"No," she mumbled without a clue of what he was talking about. She rolled onto her other side and pulled the sofa pillow over her ear. "Go away."

His eyes bulged. Well, it certainly wasn't cleaning fairies. He glanced back down at her and realized it was highly unlikely that she had touched anything but the sofa and him in his apartment the night before. She respected his strange habits well enough. With a grumbling growl, he moved slowly to the bathroom and twisted shower knob all the way up, craving a scalding shower.

“We weren’t made to liiive this waaay,” Sade sang in a mumbling voice as hot water pounded against his skin. “So please don’t beeeg to staaay…” And so his horrendous, cracked, tired tune went as he scrubbed away club grime. He tilted his head back periodically to drink some of the steamy water, which scalded his tongue. It was his system for when he woke up with a hangover.

Half an hour later, he stumbled out of the bathroom followed by humid, white cloud. With nothing but a towel wrapped around his waist, he staggered to the kitchen and dug out a bottle of aspirin. Without drinking a thing, he swallowed two and moved onto his dresser. He ended up with his navy blue t-shirt on inside out and his fly open.

Humming the same tune, he walked slowly down the stairs, each step heavy and wary. With the flick of his wrist, he stepped into his shop and started a pot of coffee before turning around, suddenly aware of the changes. “What the Hell!?” He shouted, sending pain shooting through his head. Bad idea. “What happened to my place?”

His eyes finally fell on Seige, who he had not noticed in his stupor. He cried out and grabbed the nearest blunt object, a napkin holder. “Get out!” He bellowed. “What the Hell? What the Hell?” He threw the napkin holder as hard as he could at the thing. “F—ing get out!” He grabbed the toaster, raising it threateningly.

Seige was sitting on the floor staring at the wall across the shop, thinking about his family, when a napkin holder bounced off his face.

“Sorry what.” He had been thinking so hard he missed the reason why Sade was so mad, then, seeing that Sade was going to throw the toaster, said “Don’t throw that it’s mine.”

"It's yours?" Sade simmered, gripping the toaster so hard his knuckles turned white. Then, he slammed it down onto the counter. The lever zinged as it bounced up, and the plug popped out of the outlet. "This place is mine! So this..." He slammed a fist down onto the toaster. "Is. Mine."

He couldn't believe he was trying to reason with this monster. Maybe it was because he wasn't being attacked or... the cleanliness had confused him.

He rubbed his forehead. "Look, no offense or anything, but you just won't be good for business. Besides, we're closed." He pointed to the darkened sign. "So once again... Get. Out." He hoped he could get the thing to leave peacefully and never see it again.

Upstairs, Gin rolled over. The sound of Sade's shouts had woken her up. She smirked. He must have seen Seige.

A sigh hissed through Sade’s teeth at the thing’s response, and his hand slipped away from the toaster. Why did the guy have to be so damn agreeable? It reminded him of…

Just as the thought was about to blossom in his mind, the scorpion man said the very name on the tip of his tongue. “Seige?” His eyebrows rose so high that they creased his forehead. He ran a hand through his hair. “You look… different.”

“I’m surprised you didn’t notice last night,” Gin said, suddenly at the base of the stairs with the door wide open. She had one hand on her hip and the other still on the doorknob.

Sade shifted uneasily. “Damn… I…” Speechless for once. Amen.

"Savor the moment, Seige," she advised, turning to him with a friendly smile. "You threw our good friend Sade-wadey off." She stuck her tongue out at the coffee shop owner as she butchered his name with baby talk. The childish moment passed quickly, and she recomposed her expression to that of calm passiveness.

“Gin?” Sade’s voice rose a little with something close to panic. “What is he?” He felt more comfortable asking her.

Her brows arched as she thought of how to answer. “Well… he’s a Cinsaid…”

“A what?” He rubbed at the bags under his eyes. “What the hell is a Cinsaid?”

With a slight wave at Seige, she said, “He is.”

“Oh…” A deep breath. “Well, he won’t be good for business…”

“He’s not bothering anyone,” she protested. “Although… you might want to stick to your more human form when this place is open. You might scare some of the customers,” she insisted.

Seige had already thought of how he would have to look more human during business hours and was tired of hearing people tell him this kind of thing like he hadn’t thought of it already, but they didn’t know he’d thought of it already so he didn’t tell them off, instead he looked at them both and said ”I will, I’m only like this because being in my other form feels like, what I imagine, wearing clothes several sizes too small, sort of tight and constricting, and those marks sting.”

“Also I need to know where Malia lives so I can get new clothes if I’m going to be human. Nori stole mine when she left.” He told Gin with a shrug and a sheepish grin.

Suddenly the sore on his back throbbed ,viciously, as if someone were beating at the large lesion on his back and he winced letting out a soft sound oof sound.

As it got worse and stated stinging, he held his breath and slightly curled in on himself to keep from yelling out, trying to figure out what was happening.

‘My father must have found the cursed whip again.’ He thought realizing the that was the only reason it could be hurting this badly, and it would soon fade.

“Oh, of course. I was actually about to head back, so you can come with…” Gin’s words trailed off as he seemed to experience pain or something. Indigestion or… what about the wound on his back? She winced as her eyes fell on it. “Are you alright?” She stepped towards him, concerned. “Do you need an aspirin or something?”

Sade shook his head and stopped himself short. “Damn headache,” he muttered. “Already took one.”

“Not you,” she snapped.

"Alright," she said slowly. A curse? She had never believed in curses. I swear I will shove an aspirin down his throat if it gets worse.

"Coffee?" Sade asked suddenly, holding a cup towards her.

A nod followed by a few quick strides towards him was her only answer. Carefully, she took the cup and thanked him. "How could I refuse?"

"Yeah. No problem." He sounded strange. Like he wasn't sure where he was anymore. He kept looking around the room, at Seige, and then at Gin.

"Okay," she muttered. "Let me know when you're ready, Seige." Leaning against the counter, she sipped at the coffee and kept an eye on poor Mr. Mensten.