“This is the last time I’m ever letting Levi manipulate me like this.” Ella’s lips gathered in a pout as she rapped her pencil against the notepad. A doodled cat pounced on a tumbling line of string tracing the bottom of the blank page. “It’s his party! How did it end up us planning it? Of everyone?”

Cain picked beneath his nails, smiling at her put-out expression. “I think it was a lost cause when he started tearing up.”

Ella sighed. “I knew he was faking it too. We never should’ve fallen for it.”

Cain rather didn’t think he had fallen for it. He didn’t have to be here. But when Levi - one of Ella's friends and a obscenely unpleasant narcissist - had smoothly manipulated her into agreeing to throw him a gargantuan Christmas party, Cain had volunteered to help her long before his brain caught up with his tongue. Some blurted idiocy that he couldn’t even remember now but Ella had laughed at anyway, the sound akin to the flute of a snake charmer holding this idiot reptile hypnotised in its sway.

In the open, pale sweep of his flat, Ella perched on a chair across the table from him. Some airy electronic tune filled the barren corners of the place with a smooth haze, and the air lay hot and dry against his skin as he crossed his arms on the table and rested his head on them. Creamy light from the kitchen set her skin lambent and caught the silk wisps of her hair like black gossamer.

Her eyes danced as she looked down at him, a smile twitching at her lips. “Are you thinking what I’m thinking?”

“Time to forget about our lord and saviour Levi for the night?”

Ella snapped her fingers out to finger guns and winked at him. “Bingo.” The likeness to Levi was uncanny until she burst into more giggles. “Want something to drink? I haven’t got anywhere to be.”

Exactly the result he’d hoped for. Not even God could save him from the pitiful wallowing he would have descended into had Ella, in fact, had something pressing to do. Ah, but what use was God when he was the one doing the wallowing?

Megalomania, Cain. You haven’t been God for a year.

A giddy warmth tumbling about his chest, Cain leant back, stretching his arms and tilting his head back. The ceiling rose distant above him. A delicate silver chandelier hung swan-like just above their heads. “Yes, I suppose I’m free as well.”

She laughed as she stood from the table. Such a sweet sound, like the tinkling high notes of a piano, even the mocking imitation of his voice she put on made his heart flutter. “I suppose if I must grace you with my presence, loyal subject.”

Cain followed her to his feet. “And so you should be grateful, my dear, as your god may deign to share with you the gorgeous new wine he’s bought should you show sufficient subservience when you ask.”

Like he wouldn’t give her a glass just to see her fingers curled elegant around the stem, to watch the part of her lips as the wine slid between them, a brief crimson stain before she caught the drops on a flicker of her tongue. Insist on another and another all for the sake of the fleeting peace as they talked, words slurring and her soft, sweet talk smoothing the evening out to bliss.

Ella, of course, made some delightfully amusing play at subservience, her eyes dancing with laughter all the while, and her smile as she tried the wine – which really had been very expensive, and he could think of no better use for it than getting Ella tipsy enough to laugh at his shitty jokes – well, her smile stopped his heart. Always did.

Shame they’d hardly sat down before her phone rang. Ella glanced at the screen and all at once, where her face had been bright and open, it twisted into a grimace.

Was it Levi?

Cain swirled the wine in his glass, frowning. Only Ella and Levi had known each other before the apocalypse brought the five of them together, and friends hardly covered the bizarre net of entanglement and obsession snaring them together. It'd be typical of him to call with some imaginary drama just to get Ella to leave.

“It’s Jack.” Ella flashed him the screen. As if he’d think she were lying if he didn’t see that big photo of Jack pulling a ridiculous face flashing across the phone, but Levi would put those habits in you. Ones he hoped to break. “I’ve got to take this. You know him and Casper...”

Ah, yes. The now ex-boyfriend. Ella trailed off, the grimace deepening, and answered it.

Cain downed half his glass when Jack’s obnoxiously slurred voice blared through the speaker. Worse than Levi. Far worse. It had seemed impossible that someone could be even more of a wreck outside the apocalypse, but Jack had proved him vastly wrong.

“Ella, baby. That you?”

The phone wasn’t on speaker, but the thick self-loathing tainted his voice so deeply that it came through even in the just-audible whisper.

“Yeah, it’s me.” Ella tilted her head into the phone and set the glass down on the coffee table. Untouched. Cain slumped back into the sofa and drank the rest of his glass. “What’s up? Are you okay?”

Stupid question. When was the maggot ever okay? God, she was too soft for her own good.

Predictably, a choked sob sounded in response. “I—I—Nah, baby, I’m—Cas won’t let me in, baby—”

“Jack...” A sigh coloured his name on her lips. “You’re not there, are you?”

“I dunno—Why won’t he let me in? I just wanna go home. Just wanna go...”

And the rest trailed off into incoherent drunken mumbling that Ella nodded along to with consternation and sympathy warring on her face. Much like the feud between the irritation and disappointment Cain struggled to keep from his. The second she picked up the phone, she’d been gone. Jack - the worm - and his miseries came first. Always.

Cain rubbed at the bridge of his nose while Ella edged further and further off the couch, questioning Jack on his location as if he could be anywhere but crying outside Casper’s door, which in all fairness had been his door long before Casper came along. Not that Cain felt at all sympathetic about it.

A little guilty if anything. But he wasn’t where he was today because he indulged in things like guilt.

And where are you, Cain? Mooning over a girl who doesn’t care about you with every great thing you’ve done crammed back into the business-shaped box.

He shook his head, pushed that and the cold pressing against his skull away.

At the edge of the sofa, Ella caught Cain’s eye. Was the regret there for him, or for Jack at the end of the phone? Did it matter? Whichever it was, she moved the phone away from her mouth and whispered, “I’m sorry, I’ve—”

Cain waved his hand. “It’s fine.”

Ella flashed him a tight smile and got up from the sofa.

After a moment, Cain followed her to her feet. “Do you want a lift?” Say yes, give me five more minutes with you even if I just watch you talk to—

Again, she covered the mouthpiece of the phone. “No, I’ll take the tube.” The silver of the safety pins spearing her denim coat flashed in the light as she swung it on. “It takes longer driving anyway.”

“Are you certain? It’s late, the traffic…”

But the denial was vivid enough that Cain’s words trailed off unspoken. Not just in her head already shaking, but in the way she hurried through to the hall without really looking at him, forlorn beside the low, glass coffee table. She held the phone clamped between her shoulder and her ear while she pulled on her shoes, framed by the arch of the door.

“I know, Jack, I—” A sigh. “I’m leaving now. I’ll be fifteen minutes—yeah, fifteen, sorry, I’m out at—” Now her eyes flickered up to him, lips flattening out. “I’m at the shop.”

Sorry, mouthed again to Cain. She finished knotting her laces and started on the other shoe. Sorry, like his heart didn’t just stop working again. What do you want for Christmas, Cain? A bloody defibrillator lest you be the death of me, my dear. The disregard ached. The blooming of tender concern for Jack while she brushed him off like dust on her shoulder.

As soon as she’d done up the other shoe, she pulled the handle, but it just rattled in place. Locked, and the helpless glance she shot back to Cain put a flutter in his chest. He started over to her, a smile touching his lips in return.

Ella wiggled her fingers at him, and like it was nothing more than illusion, she phased through the door.