Brian really couldn’t let Carmen out of his sight, could he? First, she’d taken fucking forever to do the one thing he’d asked of her, as evidenced by the fact she didn’t come back upstairs in a timely fashion; and second, the fact that she was so fucking suspicious of him for the not-even-a-crime of wondering about the first thing. Plus, now she was acting all suspicious, like, she was always jumpy, but now she was suspiciously jumpy. “There’s nothing in the basement,” she said. Right. Not that Brian was about to go check and fall for some trap she had set for him, but if that was the case, why hadn’t she just gone and finished up the rest of the house? Carmen was staring at him. “Did you find anything?” she asked. Instinctively, Brian moved to cover the mirror’s hiding place on his person with his hands before he realized what he was doing and instead subtly shifted his body so that he was more between Carmen and that precious object. She wouldn’t notice. “No,” Brian said. Carmen was already weak-willed enough to do what he asked (eventually), surely there was no way she would question that further if he put as much masculine energy behind that as he could muster. There was no reason for her not to believe him. She wanted to get out of here, right? And now, in a way, Brian did too. He had phone calls to make. Safety deposit boxes to set up. Actually, scratch that. Safety deposit boxes, even those really fancy once he’d heard existed in Switzerland, still involved the liability of involving someone else. The only person Brian could trust with the mirror was Brian. The good news was, Brian thought he was pretty reliable. Besides, padded clothing was just a different set of phone calls. He could make those and keep track of the mirror at the same time. He also had to get polish and adjust the lighting in his apartment and probably figure out a way to change jobs so he’d have more time to take care of the thing. Shiki probably wouldn’t let him work remote or anything, but there were employers that would. Carmen was still staring at him. “What are you looking at?” Brian said. “Leave me alone.”

the ocean floor

If you had to be berried, excuse me, buried somewhere but it can't be an actual graveyard where would you choose?