Scott was still fully knocked out when Edgar got up later that morning to go to work. The man had arranged himself to take up as little of the couch as possible, and he slept face-down in the pillow, just as Edgar did on nights when he was particularly drained.

This was the first time since he moved in that Edgar had to navigate his apartment cognizant of another person’s presence. It was an inconvenience to have to move as quietly as possible, and not to blast his before-work playlist the way he usually did. At the same time, taking care not to wake up Scott was strangely exciting.

He made extra coffee and left the remains in the press pot, next to a mug he picked out and carefully arranged. Edgar considered making an actual breakfast before reminding himself that he was woefully incompetent at cooking anything anyone would want to eat before lunchtime.

So he did the next best thing. Made sure his toaster was in full display. Spent, perhaps, too long arranging the bagels from his cabinet and the tray of butter in a way that hopefully said hey, eat this. You can also eat this. 

As he ate his own bagel, he alternated between watching Scott on the couch and feeling weird enough to force his eyes to any other spot in the room. Everything felt uncertain. Not bad at all, but also not exactly good. Just strange – though strange in a way he wanted to see continue.

Part of him worried that he would leave for his shift and come back to find his apartment empty again. Not because Scott ditched him, but because he was never there to begin with. The last day could’ve just been some fantastical dream, or the product of Edgar’s mind finally snapping under the weight of its own suffering. He could easily imagine driving himself insane and spending a quiet night in, having a lovely dinner and being quietly seduced by an empty chair across the table from him. 

The image of that made him want to laugh. It also made him feel a little sick. 

When Edgar opened the front door to leave, still deep in the imagining of his own psychosis, the latch squeaked louder than intended, and Scott shifted in sleep. He raised his head slightly and eyed Edgar through a messy web of black hair.

His face was still. Focused. Surprisingly intense for having just woken up.

Edgar thought about the way he looked at him the other night and swallowed hard. “Morning, Scott,” he quickly said. “I didn’t mean to wake you. I’m just - you know. Work.”

A beat of pure nothing. Then the tension slid off Scott in one smooth motion. He grinned in a way that lit up his whole face and seemed to raise the temperature in the room up a degree or two.

“I – I hope you have a really good day…Edgar,” he murmured before falling back against the pillow and, presumably, immediately back to sleep.

That one interaction, for reasons Edgar didn't have the strength or willingness to explain, was enough to allow him to essentially float to work in a giddy stupor.

Edgar knew his reputation at work was not that of a cheerful individual. It's why when he asked to switch front of house that they stuck him behind the bar. There, he could spend his shift either making drinks for the more personable servers, or hanging out with patrons drunk enough to find him bearable. And whenever he came in for the brunch crowd, meaning every table was guaranteed to be exponentially more demanding and just as drunk, his mood was usually even more sour.

But today he felt fine – good, even. The sleep he got was pretty restful, which meant he didn't drink too much coffee. It helped that Ian was out till dinner, so there was no risk of being hunted for sport. His usual opening tasks were no more exciting than objectively mundane busywork they were, but they went by quickly. And every so often his mind would wander just outside the confines of the Fairy's Den and he would be hit by a shudder of excitement.

He felt like a kid. Specifically, he felt like how he always imagined kids were supposed to feel when he was one.

"Eddie?"

His breath hitched and his head shot up immediately. Katy was standing across the bar from him looking considerably less alert than Edgar felt. She watched him curiously, with a noticeable hint of unease. Because apparently it was nothing short of alarming for Edgar to come to work not feeling like absolute garbage.

"You good, Ed?" Katy said.

"Yeah!" Edgar frowned, suddenly hyper-aware of the pitch and volume of his voice. "I – no, yeah. I'm fine."

She didn't seem relieved. "How was last night?" Katy continued, her voice low.

He thought again about Scott's eyes boring into him. Large eyes, deep but not hooded. Just like Edgar’s, only blue. Very blue. 

"Is that guy okay?" Katy scanned the surrounding area and then came back to him, her dread sharpened to a fine point. "Scott, right?"

"Sure, yeah," Edgar said, once again feigning indifference.

"His name was definitely Scott, wasn’t it? About your height, crazy black hair, ugly suit?”

"Why are you whispering?"

Katy looked reluctant to speak. She took one last look around to see who else was nearby before ducking back behind the bar and leaning closer beside Edgar. From up close he was able to tell just how tired she was, tired and immensely perturbed.

"I saw that guy," she said. "I met him. I witnessed him talk to - to  other people last night. Many of whom are on shift today! And yet –" Katy took a harsh intake of breath. "None of those people remember him. None of them. At all. The same people who gushed at me about how he's the most incredible, enthralling man they've ever met now have zero memory that someone was even supposed to play a set here last night."

Edgar remembered what Scott told him the night before about how long his abilities were able to affect people. It must not have hit Katy because he made a point not to look her in the eye. A small kindness that he probably extended not thinking it would trigger a paranoid episode.

"He's okay, right?" Katy said again. "Do you know what happened to him?"

"Scott? Uh – Scott’s fine, he's -" Edgar was trying to look cool and probably failing. "I made him dinner. He’s staying on my couch. It’s all good.”

Immediately Katy's panic came to a screeching halt. She just stared at him with narrowed eyes and waited for Edgar to inevitably jump to fill the silence.

"I mean...I have the space," he said. "He needs a place to stay. And, you know, I figure we could both use the company. Plus he’s a pretty nice guy. A good hang. So, like, why not take him out on a –?”

He shut himself up immediately and tried to focus so hard on filling champagne buckets with ice that it forced Katy to forget what he just said. Unfortunately, he was not a good enough bartender to work an ice machine that well.

Katy’s voice came out frosty with dread. “On a what, Edgar?” She asked him.

"Lot of...ice today," he muttered. 

“Because I know you aren’t saying that you took home a guy you found hiding in the kitchen and somehow decided to take him on a date."

Edgar awkwardly palmed the ice scooper. “I can date a guy if I want,” he said.

“That’s not – that’s not the fucking problem, Edgar.”

He laughed, mostly out of nerves. It was around opening time by then, and the first few tables were beginning to fill up, so he grabbed Katy by the shoulder and quickly pulled her back of house to try and calm her down in peace.

"You don't pick up random guys at terrible restaurants, Edgar," Katy said. “You don’t pick up anyone. Every girl I’ve ever seen you with has had to ask you out. And he’s crashing on your couch? You barely let me into your place long enough to use the bathroom.”

“You’ve been telling me to get out there,” Edgar reminder her.

“This is different. This – this isn’t you.”

“No?” Edgar hummed, leading her down the quickest path to the dry storage pantry. “Please then, tell me who I am.”

“You’re a feral, grumpy guy who mainly just wants to sit at home and listen to the kind of music most weird uncles like,” Katy said.

“That’s fair.”

“You’re also completely emotionally unavailable to anyone who hasn’t put in the time to prove that they won’t hurt you.”

Well shit.

Edgar stopped in the dry storage and stepped away from Katy, allowing her to back away from his rough touch if she wanted to. But she didn’t. She stayed right next to him, scanning his body with hard eyes and a grimace.

"Did you fuck him?" She asked.

"What? No! Why do you think..?” Edgar clenched his jaw and pressed his hands to his eyes. “Katy, that’s not a thing I’ve ever done before.”

“Okay. Fine. Did you kiss him?”

Almost. Maybe? There were definitely a bunch of moments in which, if Edgar leaned forward and kissed Scott on the lips, it could’ve potentially gone perfectly. But what was he saying when he put it like that?

Katy’s anger fell away then, revealing something underneath that surprised Edgar. It was fear. The emotion looked strange on a face as strong and striking as her own, and it was enough to immediately make Edgar feel very guilty. He watched her, mouth agape and without any useful words.

“Eddie,” she said, soft and slow. “You’re still…you. Right?”

“What are you talking about?”

She continued speaking, but her eyes shot to the open doorway at every small noise. “Scott,” she said. “That guy that calls himself Scott. He – did something to the people here. You said he’s…” she bit her lip and changed her train of thought. “I don’t think you should be keeping him so close to you. I think he might be – dangerous.”

He imagined calling the same guy that smiled at him this morning dangerous and tried not to laugh.

"Katy, he's not...” Edgar saw the shift lead pass by outside and immediately started grabbing cans of tomato juice. "He's a witch. He can manipulate temporarily with direct eye contact, and the effects fade after a while. That's all. No harm, no foul, and when you talk to him he's actually…”

He trailed off, arms full of aluminum cans.

"Finish the sentence, Ed," Katy said behind him, a little more level but still clearly on edge. "I'd love to be enlightened on your type."

Edgar shrugged as much as he could with his current baggage and started walking back towards the bar.

"It's hard to put into words," he said, an immediate lie. "I just find him to be –”

a figure so painfully familiar and yet entirely new and enigmatic that it makes me wish I could somehow undo and re-weave the strands of my past in a way that would make it make sense for me to be near him for as long as possible.

“He’s cool,” Edgar said. “Pleasant to talk to. Plus he’s done a lot of food service work. A lot of serving and bar back - like you, Katy. I think you might get along if you actually got to know him.”

By this point Katy had passed on his left and was now observing him with even more profound disbelief. He snapped out of his thoughts and met her eyes, immediately uncomfortable.

"You two must've made a lot of direct eye contact last night," she said.

The implication was easy to catch onto. "Katy, it's not like that," Edgar assured her. "We tested it, his magic doesn't work on me."

"Why not?"

Because I'm either a total idiot or his predestined, literal soulmate, Edgar thought to himself, feeling strangely calm about the whole thing.

The ticket machine at the bar rang in. Five orders of the special blended mimosa for a table that hadn't even opened their menus yet.

Welcome to New Orleans on a weekday morning.