Office Hours [Alex/Cain]

[Max Kameren]

April 30th 2038

The Auror’s offices had closed officially hours ago. Only a few dim lights illuminated the hallways along with streams of light beaming from a few interrogation rooms criss-crossing through the aisles. At this late hour, offices reserved for high-profile projects deserving of round-the-clock attention were the only areas of activity in the Department of Law Enforcement, possibly the entire Ministry. The aurors who tended them would pass quietly, like ghosts haunting the horrors in the case files they carried.

Max Kameren had finally found himself the subject of one of those high-profile cases. Rowena’s break-in had also shed light on Simone and Max’s smuggling operation, and he returned to his desk confiscated and Max moved to Cain’s laboratory permanently for more supervision. Here he claimed the lone desk at the front of the room, now piled high with Junior Auror study materials. The only eyes vigilant enough to watch the Shield, it appeared, were the tireless eyes of the Haunt of Cubicle Four.

Though the Stone was finished and now floated radiating his aura in the corner, Max’s work continued on. Alex’s punishment was successful in keeping Max too busy to stir up more trouble. Training with the Juniors was like being a trainee Healer all over again; there were entire books of rules and protocols to follow, many of which as a consultant Max found he had already broken. Along with this paperwork Max was still honing his Shield skills with the more seasoned aurors and trying to get a step ahead of the Shadowloved. There weren’t enough hours in the day for him to be both a consultant and a Junior Auror. It was just what his uncle had calculated, Max soon realized.

But he was fairly sure he knew which priorities were lower on the list, and within the first week and a half of his punishment the Juior Auror paperwork fell by the wayside. But now it was coming due, and rather than have Eden breathing down his neck about his procrastination he was instead working a late night at the office, scanning pages of protocol until his eyelids were heavy and the text started to blur on the page.

“Ugh,” Max groaned, letting his head fall into his study materials with a muted thump. When he’d finished the Stone Max thought his exhaustion would finally be over. But it was only beginning.

[Cain the Scorched]

"Max,"

Cain rose through the table in front of Max's nose, face quirking with mirth at his nephew's startled reaction. The former cursebreaker still couldn't resist a good joke, and seeing Max's wild eyes as he started upright sent his ghostly form shivering with laughter. The Haunt rose the rest of the way through the desk, coming to a rest at Max's side. He seemed to sit on the edge of the desk as he leaned over to see what Max was working on before peering into the boy's face. Though Max was about the same age now as Cain had been, he seemed older. More tired. He reminded Cain of his father.

"Max.." he said more soberly, leaning backwards onto his hands. There was a lot he wished he could say, a lot that Max had probably heard before, that he'd probably dismissed time after time. So he settled for "Are you ok?"

[Max Kameren]

"Max,"

Max’s breathing had slowed to a restless sleep when a chill kissed his forehead through the desk and pushed him up with a start. The source, of course, was his uncle Cain; Max scowled groggily at the haunt’s laugh as Cain pivoted to a sitting position at Max’s side. Slowly the healer rubbed the sleep out of his eyes so he could glance sidelong at his uncle; it wasn’t the first jump-fright Cain had given him even just today, and he was starting to understand why his last partner was so bothered by him. “Starting to see why they call you ‘that bloody haunt’, Cain…”

"Max.." Cain’s tone pivoted from jovial to sober and Max prepared for what he was sure was going to be somewhere between a lecture and a heart-to-heart. He felt traces of it in the office from Cain and Alex for weeks. A new brand of the pity they’d deposited into his aura for years since the war, made new by the predicament he currently found himself in. "Are you ok?"

Max arched a sardonic brow, and for a moment his deadpan reflected a trace of Alex Kameren. “Is that a serious question?”

No, he was decidedly not okay. The career he’d built was over and he was now being shoehorned into a line of work he spent his adolescence trying to avoid. He and his sort-of-girlfriend were trapped in an infinite loop of fighting and unbearable romantic tension that left him pining for her constantly and at the same time wondering if he should move on. A torn-off piece of his soul was sitting floating in the corner. He’d gotten his best friend’s boyfriend (not to mention his father’s childhood best friend) killed in such a traumatizing fashion he appeared to have ruined his friend’s life too. And to top it off, he was apparently prophesized to become an ultra-powerful missile-defense system that would either save or destroy the world as they knew it, whether he liked it or not.

But that was a lot to stuff into a reply to a three-word question, and Cain’s look implied that yes, it was a serious question. Max leaned back in his chair and ran his fingers through his hair in exasperation.

“No, Cain. I’m not okay.” He leaned forward, rubbing his eyes once again to try to wake himself up enough to be able to read the parchment in front of him. “Do you need something? I’m trying to get this bloody paperwork done. Don’t really feel the difference between twenty-one and twenty-eight until you’re a trainee again, I’m finding out…”

[Cain the Scorched]

Cain shivered under the weight of the emotions wafting off of Max. The spirit felt raw, hyper-sensitive, after their months of work on the Stone. He felt every day as though it were another weight added to his shoulders, another foray into past and feared future, into old guilt and new. Some days he wondered at the implications behind his choices, to stay behind as a ghost. To continue life after Scarlett. To agree to aid the rebirth of the Stone. He still wasn't sure. It buzzed under his skin even now, a phantom pain for a phantom being. He wasn't even a real person anymore, and he was stuck like this--he couldn't move on. And what real use was he to his family as an old, painful memory?

“No, Cain. I’m not okay.” He leaned forward, rubbing his eyes once again to try to wake himself up enough to be able to read the parchment in front of him. “Do you need something? I’m trying to get this bloody paperwork done. Don’t really feel the difference between twenty-one and twenty-eight until you’re a trainee again, I’m finding out…”

"...well, you made it farther than I did," Cain said, forcing himself to crack a self-deprecating grin that swiftly dissolved, his brow knitting. "I just wish I could be of more use." He couldn't do magic, he could barely touch things--if it was a good day. Stuck in an eternal limbo, a reminder. A hubris of his own youth, thinking if he stayed, he could serve some purpose, some use. But perhaps just afraid to go into the dark alone, and now it was too late, now he would remain like this forever. He became aware that he'd lost track of himself, lost his train of thought and drifted off. He looked back at his nephew. "Whatever you need, Max." If he could do it. He would do anything.

[Max Kameren]

“Don’t really feel the difference between twenty-one and twenty-eight until you’re a trainee again, I’m finding out…”

"...well, you made it farther than I did."

Max snorted. “Barely.”

"I just wish I could be of more use." Max stopped what he was doing and looked up in concern, focusing his groggy attention more steadily on his uncle. Distracted as he was Max hadn’t paid attention to his Uncle’s aura; the conflict in him was deeper than the disappointment radiating off of Alex. Cain needed him, but not for something work-related. "Whatever you need, Max."

His sacrificed aura pulsed in the brief lull in their conversation in a way that felt poignant to Max. It hadn’t occurred to him before how the conflict with the Shadowloved would affect Cain. His uncle had been a ghost for so long it didn’t occur to him he hadn’t been during the Demon Wars. Where he had once been able to affect change, now he was powerless. They had had to resurrect the very same magic that he had worked so hard to destroy years ago. He’d endured so much pain then, only for it to come back. He wanted to be able to do something, but instead Fate had taken agency out of his hands. Max could relate to the sentiment.

“Well, I mean – “ Max looked around, gesturing to the expanse of study materials on his desk “ – I’m drowning here. Finished Poisons and Antidotes without a second glance of course, but I’m lost on Stealth and Tracking.” Max cocked his head to beckon Cain around the desk, using his Empathy to bolster his uncle’s ability to interact with the mass of parchment scattered across his desk.

Max sighed in frustration. He was too tired to take his punishment civilly. What he needed more than anything to get through it was to vent. “I get the point of the punishment, but how long is this going to last? I’m lit up like a Christmas tree during battle; stealth isn’t really a helpful option for me. Besides, I don’t want to be an auror, y’know…” He shrugged. “After.”

Assuming there was an after. He’d had quite a scare after the battle at Wollaton that made him doubt his chances when he let his thoughts stray too far. But until the worst should happen he clung to the idea of a future, one where he could possibly return to healing, Rowena, and a normal life.