Straight Face

"Not seeing my family for a whole three months was very unpleasant," Maya told everyone. "Next time we leave, one of you is coming with me."

"No disagreement here," Nikolas said in between bites of his muffin. "I get stuck in my own head too much without one of you guys around."

"That's a dreary place to be stuck," Tom commented.

Nikolas squinted at Tom with his muffin paused in front of his mouth. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"It means you're a depressing person," Autumn chimed in. "You're all dark clothes and darker thoughts. If it weren't for your weird interest in romantic comedies and soap operas, we'd think you were dead inside."

"And what's wrong with soap operas? The twists they throw out left and right are the only things that can surprise me anymore."

"Surprise you?" Maya asked. "I can see those 'twists' coming from twenty episodes away."

"Whatever, just stop mocking my sources of joy."

"So, you DO feel joy. Good to know," Autumn said cheekily, receiving a half-eaten muffin to the face as recompense.

"Are you always like this?" Vennasina asked, legs tucked onto the couch and leaning into Tom.

"They are," Tom said. "Keeping yourself happy is important when you do what we do. We don't want to become like Nikolas." The group laughed as the same muffin that hit Autumn was launched by seemingly nothing straight into Tom's face.

"Screw you guys," Nikolas said grouchily, eliciting more laughter. When the laughter died down, he started speaking. "Anyway, I do have something I need some help with. I made a deal with this rebel group on this one planet to kill an Embodiment of Death, a dude named Skull. Real creepy guy who has necromancy powers.

"Anyway, he's a Personification, but he's capable of making zombies that retain their Divine Energy and sometimes their Manifest Powers. And since he's farther into the Personification Level than I am, my illusions don't work as well. I need someone to help me kill him."

"What's in it for us?" Fate asked.

"Half the pay, as usual. I just need someone to stick a knife in his back while I distract him. My Personification buff lets me make people think they're wounded by my illusions, so that can usually kill them, but the guy has like, super strong willpower or some shit.

"I made him think he got his arm chopped off, and the asshole just looked at the stump and punched me with his arm anyway."

"I'll do it," Autumn said. "Learning how corpses decay might give me a small boost in my comprehension of Destruction."

"It's settled then," Nikolas said. "I gotta kill this guy by the end of next week, so we gotta leave tomorrow to get there on time."

"No teleportation pads to get there?" Autumn asked.

"You'd be surprised how many worlds don't have them," Fate said. "I've been to two separate planets, each one only had pads that could bring you to somewhere on the same planet, and the other had a pad that brought me to the planet and out of it, but required focused effort from four Space Embodiments."

"Wow," Maya said. "Everywhere I've gone had them."

"Hidrogon doesn't have ones capable of off-world transportation either," Tom said. "Although that's mostly because the time dilation skews any attempts, from what I've been told."

"Any chance that this rebel group would have any work for me?" Maya asked Nikolas. "I've got nothing better to do, and fighting for the freedom of a world sounds nice."

"I'm sure they do," Nikolas replied. "The Moonlit Daggers – that's their name, by the way – they're trying to wipe out all influence of Edward Genton, the Avatar that ruled the world before I put him down. He had a lot of lackeys, many of whom have become Personifications since I offed him."

Autumn turned to Tom. "And I assume you and Vennasina are going off together?"

"Of course."

"Then that just leaves… Cait and Fate," she said, looking between the two like there was a massive secret that only she knew.

"…What?" Fate asked after ten seconds of Autumn's weird glances.

"Nothing," she said quickly, hiding a grin.

"You don't have to go with him if you don't want to," Nikolas told Cait. "Fate's a real handful."

"The fuck is that supposed to mean?" Fate said accusingly.

"See?" Nikolas continued, gesturing to Fate. "A handful."

"You're still mad I hid your favorite DVDs three years ago, aren't you?"

"I never found them before the house blew up!"

"I only did that because you put itching powder in my armor. I nearly got killed because of that."

"But you survived. My DVDs, on the other hand, did not."

"It's not my fault you didn't switch to streaming."

"The internet went down at our place at least once a month. Having DVDs on hand always saved me."

"Both of you shut up and eat a muffin," Autumn said, flinging a muffin at each of them with her Divine Reach. They each caught the muffin skillfully, sulking as they munched on their baked treats.

"I wouldn't mind, as long as he keeps his hands to himself." Cait covered her chest with her arms, turning her head away with an expression of feigned embarrassment. "I'd rather not be subjected to that just yet." The group burst into laughter, a barely-concealed smirk resting on the woman's face.

"Well, you don't have to worry about that," Fate told her between chuckles. "As far as I'm concerned, you're my sister."

"Aww," Autumn exclaimed. "And you said that with a straight face."

Another wave of laughter consumed them. They told jokes and watched movies together well into the night, calling it quits at around four-thirty in the morning. Everyone said their good nights and headed to their bedrooms.

Fate caught the sly look in Tom's eye as he lead Vennasina to his room, and Fate thanked Maya for convincing everyone to soundproof every room in the house.

When he hit his bed, he fell asleep almost instantly, the bed feeling like a cloud brought down to earth. He was unaware of the dream that would follow.