Jacob lived in an apartment complex. Serenity hadn’t expected that of someone who lived in Texas, though he supposed it shouldn’t have been surprising. Jacob was a middle school teacher, and teachers at that level were notoriously poorly paid. Simply because it was Texas and his idea of Texas was that people lived in single-family homes didn’t mean there weren’t some apartments. Plus, Jacob was single.

When Rissa knocked on the apartment door, it wasn’t Jacob that answered it. Instead, it was a young woman who seemed somewhat familiar to Serenity. By the time he realized she was someone he’d seen in a Tutorial, she’d already spoken.

If he remembered correctly, she’d wanted to learn the staff but had it just didn’t click for her. Serenity was confident she’d have been able to get there in time, but she decided to pick up a dual knife style instead, which she seemed more comfortable with. Serenity couldn’t remember her name.

“Oh! You must be Jacob’s sister. He said you’d be here today. You’re earlier than I expected. Come on in!” The woman moved out of the way and waved them into a small living area nearly filled with a dining room table. There was a couch at one end of the table, opposite the television, but Serenity thought it would probably be easier to watch TV from one of the chairs around the table.

Rissa took charge of the situation as they walked in. “You must be Denise. I’m afraid all I got was your name?”

Denise grinned and kept her eyes glued on Rissa. “Yep. We work together - well, we used to work together. We’re at different schools now, I’m at the high school and he’s still at a middle school. I like the older students more, but Jacob says he loves getting them off on the right foot.”

She seemed nervous, constantly moving her hands while she talked.

“Please have a seat, I’ll see if Jacob is up and moving yet. I was just about to make coffee.” Denise waved at the table and couch, then hurried into the attached kitchen. From the doorway, Serenity could see her as she started making coffee, but a partial wall blocked his vision as he headed towards the couch.

It was a surprisingly comfortable couch, not too hard but also not one where you’d sink in far enough that getting up would be difficult.

Serenity could hear the coffeemaker dripping when Denise stepped back into the room. “I’ll go see if-”

Denise froze, staring at Serenity.

“What’s wrong?” Serenity looked down. He didn’t think there was anything about his current appearance to elicit such a reaction. He was even in human form; he had been all day, to avoid odd looks while they traveled.

Denise turned sharply, stalked into the bedroom, and exploded. “WHAT THE HELL JACOB! You said your sister was bringing her fiancee! You didn’t say her fiancee was fucking SERENITY!”

Serenity was impressed by her volume. He suspected the neighbors were as well.

Serenity leaned over to Rissa and whispered, “Am I that recognizable? I thought I looked more like Liam?”

Rissa turned Serenity’s head towards her and took a long look. “I’ve always known you were you, but looking at you … yeah, you look a lot more like yourself now. A lot more. I could see someone recognizing you as Thomas now.”

Denise’s voice was still raised, but Serenity couldn’t make out the words. She must have closed the door after she started yelling.

“Despite the purple eyes?” Serenity’s mouth quirked. He remembered that Thomas had green eyes, but purple just seemed right now.

“Heh.” Rissa tapped the tip of his nose with a finger. “Yeah, despite the purple eyes. Most people don’t pay that much attention to eye color. You could be wearing colored contacts.”

Serenity laughed as he caught her hand.

She had a good point, if he thought about it the other way. If he ever really needed to pass as human, colored contacts might work. His ears would still look odd, but he could cover ears. He’d checked that morning, but those still seemed to be the only ways he looked odd.

It felt good to hear that he looked like himself.

As he was thinking that, the door to the bedroom flew open and Denise hurried out, then spoke loudly. “His Majesty says he’ll be out here soon and can I get him some coffee. Would you two like some too?”

A yell from the bedroom made it clear Jacob heard her. “Dammit Denise, that’s not what I meant and you know it!”

Denise covered her mouth with her hand as she giggled. The laugh wasn’t well hidden when she called back, “Then phrase it better next time!”

Serenity looked awkwardly at Rissa. Should he say something?

Rissa glanced at Serenity, then looked back at Denise. “We’ll both have some. I like mine white and sweet, while Serenity wants only a little of each.”

Serenity chuckled. “I like cream and sugar. I just like more coffee than cream and the sugar should not be added until it hits the saturation point.” Rissa wasn’t really that bad, but she definitely didn’t like coffee made the way he did.

Denise grinned. “One made the way Jacob likes it and one made the way I’m going to give it to him today, got it.” She turned and made her way back into the kitchen.

When Jacob emerged from the bedroom, he was dressed in jeans and a T-shirt that looked clean but crumpled. Serenity’s first impression was that he looked a lot like Russ. He should have looked younger, since he was the younger brother. He looked terrible; the hollows under his eyes and general exhausted appearance made him look older than Rissa.

Serenity triggered his Vital Sight; Jacob wasn’t supposed to be undead, but he’d seen zombies that looked healthier than Jacob did at that moment.

Jacob glowed with an aura of Life, but there was a secondary Affinity that was nearly as strong. That happened, but it wasn’t common. The secondary Affinity wasn’t Death, but Serenity wasn’t immediately certain what it was. He could find out, but not just by looking at it. Serenity turned his gaze on Rissa and Denise to compare.

Rissa also had two Vital Affinities; unexpectedly, Life was her secondary Affinity. He could guess her primary: it had to be Time. It wasn’t the same as Jacob’s secondary Affinity.

Denise only had a Life Affinity. No surprises there.

“How do you do that? I always thought it was done in post.” Jacob stared at Serenity as he pulled a chair out and sat down facing his visitors.

“How do I what?” Rissa looked at her brother. “What are you talking about?”

“Not you, him, his eyes. I mean, he’s obviously wearing contacts. Do they have some sort of LED in them or something?” Jacob looked at his sister instead. “Is that easier than just changing it later? Seems like a really nifty special effect.”

Rissa turned to look at Serenity, then seemed to sigh. “Yeah.”

His eyes? Oh, of course. Vital Sight made his eyes glow. Serenity turned it off, but watched Jacob. Jacob jumped when it went off, but there wasn’t any other reaction. That could have just been from surprise at Serenity’s eyes changing again.

“So, since you’re here, what do you want to do? I didn’t really plan anything.” Jacob’s eyes fell to the table.

Denise walked out of the kitchen with four … no, five coffee mugs on a tray. She set one down in front of Jacob, then handed one to each Serenity and Rissa. The last two were set on the end of the table, within the reach of the spot she picked to sit down.

It was decent coffee. Serenity remembered times where he’d drunk far worse. It wasn’t oversweetened, so it was fine.

Jacob took one sip of his coffee and spat it back out. “Denise…”

Denise laughed and tapped the coffee cup next to her that she wasn’t drinking from. “You know what you need to do…”

Jacob sighed. “I’m sorry I snapped at you.” He looked down at the mug, made a strange face, and chugged the entire mug of coffee. “Blurg that’s awful.”

Denise handed him the fifth mug. Jacob took a sip and smiled. “Much better.”

Rissa gave her brother a few minutes to drink his coffee before she prodded him. “I’m here for you. You know that, right?”

“I don’t know what good you can do. I’m going crazy. I just need to accept that. I - there’s nothing anyone can do. I don’t even know why I called you.” Jacob gripped the mug and looked into it. “I should just-”

“JACOB!” Denise shouted.

Jacob froze. It wasn’t simply startlement; he literally stopped moving. Serenity wasn’t certain he was even breathing. The mug in his hands started to fall and he didn’t move to catch it, but Denise grabbed it before it splashed too much.

Denise looked past Rissa. “It’s getting worse. He only started doing this recently. He doesn’t remember it at all, which makes it hard to get him to go see someone.”

“It's not new.” Rissa’s voice was harsh with unshed tears as she whispered. “I thought it was a solution. I thought it worked. He made it longer-” Rissa closed her eyes and leaned against Serenity.

Serenity wrapped his arms around Rissa. She should have told him more earlier, but he could forgive that. He didn’t think he’d have quite believed it without seeing it. “Honey? You have to tell us. I can’t work blind.”

Tears streamed down Rissa’s face as she spoke. “It’s magic. It’s the supernatural, paranormal, call it whatever you want. It’s - there’s a reason Dad calls it a curse. All of the men in my mother’s family have it, whatever it is. Or at least that’s the story; no one’s kept a male child for …. I don’t know how long. I remember the arguments; Dad wouldn’t hear of it …” Rissa stopped talking and buried her face in Serenity’s shoulder.

Denise looked back and forth between the frozen Jacob and the crying Rissa. “Should we be talking about this in front of him?”

“He can’t hear us.” Rissa straightened a bit, but kept patting Serenity’s arm. “He won’t remember anything about what happens while he’s frozen. Not only that, if you touch him, he-”

Serenity patted Rissa’s back, only to stop when Denise finished Rissa’s statement. “He isn’t breathing.”